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Jewish World Review /Feb. 10, 1999 /24 Shevat 5759
MUGGER
The Impeachment Trial Splatters: Lindsey Graham Emerges a Hero
IT’S LUCKY FOR ME that Alex Cockburn is so lackadaisical in financial
transactions, otherwise I’d be sending a check out to his homestead in
California for $1000. But as things stand, when we made our wager as to
whether or not President Bill Clinton would leave office prematurely,
Cockburn neglected to insert a time clause in the gentleman’s contract;
therefore, I still have until Jan. 20, 2001, to pay off, a dog’s-age in
Clinton-time.
I’ve wandered off the impeachment plantation: Let the vote proceed, yea
or nay, and we’ll be done with it. No meaningless censure; no
politically calculated "findings of fact" (which is dead anyway); just a
simple roll call of the mostly disgraced 100 senators. A censure, which
GOP Majority Leader Trent Lott—who’d resign right now if he were a
mentsh—would water down with his Democratic counterpart Tom Daschle,
would provoke laughter in the White House.
The Journal made its case last Thursday: "Conservative critics who worry
about setting a bad precedent should face reality. The President
obstructed justice and will stay in office. This is a precedent for
which we can thank Senators Lieberman, Moynihan and Byrd, whom we had
thought adult enough to know better... The White House propaganda mills
are already ginning up for an offensive; they will try to discredit
critics and impugn the Lewinsky investigation. Any first step in
containing that offensive would be to get some Democrats on record as
acknowledging that the President is guilty of the offenses or,
alternatively, making it clear that they are willing to ignore plain
evidence."
I don’t agree. Of course the War Room (if Clinton were really bold he’d
appoint a War Room secretary to his cabinet) is planning strategy right
now, but that’s nothing new. And of course Hillary Clinton is directing
the effort, tabling for now Hollywood fundraisers for a Senate race. But
come the 2000 elections, when the public has blotted out the Monica Mess
(which should take about two weeks), I’d rather have Democratic
candidates defend themselves for allowing a criminal to remain in the
White House.
The odds are strong that Clinton won’t be nearly as popular
as he is today, and when the elections are held, after a string of more
Clinton scandals has been exposed, it will be hard for any Democratic
candidates to back their putative leader. With a censure or "findings of
fact," they could hide behind the scolding, and say solemnly that they
voted to chastise the man. A clear up-or-down vote gives Republicans the
moral high ground against any opponent, especially liberals who’ll be
hard-pressed to enlist Clinton as an ally, considering the grab bag of
legislative proposals he put on the table in his farcical State of the
Union address.
By Feb. 8, the Journal had given up on "findings of fact," expressing
its opposition to censure in an editorial: "The President is charged
with taking care that the laws be faithfully executed. He is the
caretaker of our system of laws. This President, his lawyers and his
apologists have left a whole nation confused, and divided, over which of
our laws means what. The Senate’s Republicans should abstain from being
a party to that."
It must’ve eaten at Graham to be so polite to the despicable Blumenthal
in those remarks—the two had a widely reported exchange of words last
December—but that’s the game you have to play when the cards are stacked
against you. Graham, like most of the Senate, knows that Clinton is
guilty of obstruction of justice; it’s just that he has the courage to
say so in public.
That makes him a hero.
Not in the eyes of Times columnist Maureen Dowd, of course. In an absurd
piece on Feb. 7, Dowd declares, "Our little girl has grown up... The
saucy and wily Monica was up to the crucial task of putting the clueless
House managers in their place. Clearly she had absorbed some lessons
from her old boyfriend, the operator... And, like Mr. Clinton, she
shined in comparison to the other side."
I once thought Maureen Dowd was
an intelligent woman: Watching her denigrate men like Graham and Asa
Hutchinson in favor of an airhead like Lewinsky and the felon who sits
in the White House, who rambles about being an "apostle of hope," just
makes me sick.
Already nostalgic for the nonsense spewed forth by Dowd’s soulmate Frank
Rich? Here’s the cure. Last Saturday, in one of his last regular columns
for the Times, Rich claims that conservatives in the 90s have replaced
the radicals of the 60s. He writes: "If you’re looking for pure hatred
of government and the ‘elites’ that run it—the anger aimed at Robert
McNamara and the rest of the Ivy-League-educated Vietnam policy
architects of the 60s—look only as far as the anti-establishment barking
of Tom DeLay, Bob Barr and other warriors of the Contract With America
Congress that shut down the Government during Newt Gingrich’s
short-lived ‘revolution.’"
Funny, when that shutdown occurred—which was
only inconvenient if you needed a passport—I’ll bet $100 Rich had never
even heard of Bob Barr. Gingrich’s "revolution," which promised lower
taxes, fewer federal handouts and less government intrusion, was a smart
and necessary movement. It failed, at least temporarily, because
Gingrich was outfoxed politically by Bill Clinton.
McCarthyism at the Times
THERE’S CLEAR EVIDENCE that some chemical gas has invaded the editorial
offices of The New York Times, for their opinions have devolved from
loopy to downright stupid. Perhaps their efforts last week were impeded
by a weekend-long bender after the joyous demotion of op-ed columnist
Frank Rich, but you’d think responsible men and women at the country’s
alleged paper of record would’ve learned by now not to drink and write
at the same time.
The paper’s Feb. 2 editorial was the strangest I’ve read in many years.
The editorial continues: "The issue of who leaked news of Mr. Starr’s
indictment research to The New York Times is a phony one. What is needed
here is not an investigation of journalistic sources, but attention to
the substance of Mr. Starr’s legal mischief. It seems designed to
disrupt these solemn deliberations into Presidential misconduct of a
serious if undeniably sordid kind."
First, the editorial page editor
makes a fool of himself by saying that the deliberations have been
solemn: When half the senators are asleep during the proceedings while
the other half pay no attention to the facts and just compete for
airtime to blow gas, it’s hardly solemn. In addition, the question of
who leaked is not "phony." It seems to me that’s an admission that it
wasn’t Starr’s office, but someone on Clinton’s side. Aside from that,
why did the Times even publish the story if the editors felt so strongly
that it would disrupt the trial? After all, Times icon James Reston
caved into President Kennedy on at least one occasion by not printing a
story. It’s clear that Starr didn’t want his plans revealed.
The Times says that Starr is "already regarded by his critics as an
obsessive personality. Now he seems determined to write himself into the
history books as a narcissistic legal crank." Whoa, Mr. Raines, don’t
touch the brown acid! Starr has been vilified at every turn for several
years now just because he’s doing his job; an office, by the way, that
was expanded by President Clinton. He has a fine record of convictions
and just recently his indictments of the Hubbells were upheld.
And "narcissistic"? When that word is bandied about there’s only one
culprit who comes to mind: Bill Clinton. Was Ken Starr the man who
dropped trou in front of Paula Jones; did he allegedly rape a woman 20
years ago in Arkansas, and now have his goons threaten NBC as they
prepared to air a story on the victim? Did Starr give hush money to the
Hubbells, concoct the "stalker" story about Monica with Sidney
Blumenthal, browbeat his personal secretary into hiding gifts from his
oral provider or bomb Sudan for political purposes?
As for Christopher Hitchens ratting out Sidney Blumenthal, I say bravo,
but it’s too little too late. Alex Cockburn attacks Hitchens in his
column this week, but I won’t even touch the tempestuous relationship
those two expats have. Blumenthal’s fried: If it’s true he lied before
the grand jury he’ll be nailed for perjury.
On Meet the Press last
Sunday, Hitchens claimed he wouldn’t testify against the
journalist-turned-dirty-trickster, on the grounds that what Clinton’s
done is so egregious that it’s not cricket to make Blumenthal a
scapegoat. He said: "If Mr. Clinton is acquitted and allowed to walk,
and a separate case is brought against Sidney, that would be a scandal
and a disgrace, and no, I would not [testify]. I would rather be held in
contempt...than support such a scandalous outcome... The point is the
President made sure, some way or another, that that story got into
print. It was a threat against a potential witness, a very vulgar and
crude one, very, very typical of his modus operandi."
I, for one, would be tickled to see Sid do 18 months at a white-collar
prison: The only downside is that he’d write a book while incarcerated.
Lloyd Grove wrote a fine story in Monday’s Washington Post about the
Blumenthal-Hitchens relationship, focusing on the agonizing side-taking
that will now transpire in DC journalistic salons. He quotes the airhead
Joan Bingham, executive editor and vice president of Grove/Atlantic
Press: "I can’t imagine why Hitch would do this, unless he’s trying to
promote his book... Because of what Hitch has done, Sidney is facing
hundreds of thousands of dollars more in legal expenses... There are
people around town who think that Hitch has gone loony."
Tut-tut. I
wonder if Bingham is as concerned about the number of White House aides
forced to pay legal fees because Clinton lied to them. Doubtful. After
all, they probably don’t brunch and gossip together.
One of my e-mail correspondents was of two minds, writing that Hitchens
could be seen as a rat or "the St. Jude of the impeachment trial."
Ultimately, however, he came down on Hitchens’ side, even though he
feels the journalist could be described as a "government snitch, a stool
pigeon" who betrayed a source. "Yet at the same time," he wrote, "this
was not an ordinary source where ordinary ethical constraints apply.
Blumenthal was a propagandist using his contacts to destroy the
reputation of an adverse witness to his boss. Hitchens is committing
journalistic hara-kiri by this action, which makes his intentions seem
noble."
I think Hitchens will do fine; it’s doubtful that Graydon Carter
will tear up his Vanity Fair contract over revealing the motives of a
creep like
Texas Sen. Phil Gramm,
appearing on Sunday’s Meet the Press, correctly dismissed censure as a
"covering-your-fanny approach." "Findings of fact," a harsher stain
attached to the President’s resume, and a measure that The Wall Street
Journal puzzlingly endorsed, could not possibly blight the public
Democratic celebration that’s sure to come later this week. In private,
according to the Daily News’ Thomas M. DeFrank, Clinton has told
friends, "This was much ado about nothing. I beat the odds."
Lott
It’s been said, time and again by biased, Boomer pundits, that no heroes
have emerged from this scandal. Where are the Peter Rodinos, the Sam
Ervins, the Barbara Jordans of Watergate, shriek the likes of Lars-Erik
Nelson and Thomas Oliphant. Right under your noses, jerks. Consider
Rep. Lindsey Graham’s plea to the Senate last Thursday for just one live
witness. Graham, because he’s a Southerner—and these days Beltway
journalists put the face of Bob Barr on any legislator from the
South—hasn’t earned the respect he deserves, but his intelligence and
courage are found in the following words: "Mr. Blumenthal, to his
credit, said the President of the United States lied to him. The
President of the United States did lie to him. The President of the
United States, in his grand jury testimony, denied ever lying to an
aide. That will be historically significant. It should be legally
significant. Mr. Blumenthal, to his credit, said that the President of
the United States tried to paint himself as a victim of Ms. Lewinsky.
That will be legally and historically relevant, and it will mean a lot
in our arguments, and it will be something you should consider..."
Blumenthal
Headlined "Ken Starr’s Meddling," the writer excoriates the independent
counsel for pondering the possible indictment of Bill Clinton on the
charges of perjury and obstruction of justice while he’s still in
office. Never mind that the Times itself broke the story on Jan. 31;
forget that Starr claimed that he had no idea where the leaks came from.
(If you guess the White House, go to the head of the class.) No, the
Times says, "Now we have an apparent effort from the office of Kenneth
Starr...to spark a debate over criminal prosecution of the President at
a time when the Senate deserves a calm decision-making atmosphere and an
open field for negotiation." The Times claims that Starr is interfering
with the Senate’s business: What does it call its own constant drumbeat
for a censure motion against Clinton?
Danny Hellman
Did Starr play golf
with Vernon Jordan, talk about sex and discuss a way to get Monica out
of Washington and into Ron Perelman’s offices? Has Ken Starr had relations with
every woman who caused him to get lost in those big blue eyes of hers?
Finally, was it Starr who held a press conference and lied to the entire
country about his affair?
Jordan
JWR contributor "Mugger" is the editor-in-chief and publisher of New York Press. Send your comments to him by clicking here.
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