GO DOWN WITH GLORY! by Tony Blankely
George Magazine
June 13, 1998 Tony Blankely
Bill Clinton will always try to destroy his political opponents. So Republicans on the Hill must act on Kenneth Starr's investigation, whatever the political cost.
By Tony Blankely
So now, prosperity begins to mellow and drop into the rotten mouth of death." Thus begins act 4, scene 4 of Shakespeare's tale about the evil King Richard III. As I write this column, Bill Clinton's lamentable tale is also reaching its penultimate act. Soon, the trickle of public disclosures describing the president's filthy personal habits will turn into a cataract of evidence showing his felonious self.
Clinton, who has made the open trouser his ensign of office, should take no comfort in his transient public-approval numbers. Americans have been dining on Clinton's charming, empathetic manners in the ambience of a good economy, but once they have digested the full menu of his behind-the-scenes crimes and mendacity, they will vomit up the whole rotten meal. And then, like Nixon, Clinton will fade away, while his disgrace will be come immortal.
And that's as it should be, for the public largely learns its morals by the conspicuous examples of the high and mighty. To date, the youth of America have learned from Clinton that, yes, you can cheat on your wife, seduce young women under your authority, intimidate and defame your opponents, and perjure yourself before God, court, and country. It is precisely the public nature of Clinton's disgrace that will remind people of the importance of the virtues of faithfulness in marriage and the fiduciary responsibility that goes with political authority, fair dealing, and truth telling. There is a fearful symmetry to justice, and it should be a warning not only to Clinton but to all of us who fall short of the standards of virtue.
The measure of a man can be most accurately gauged when one is in daily struggle with him for a number of years. From 1993 through 1996, as Newt Gingrich's press secretary, I was in almost daily political battle with Clinton. I observed, close-up, his lack of scruples in matters small and large. I will never forget that day in September 1995 when Clinton told Gingrich and Bob Dole in the White House Cabinet Room that he recognized the demographic problems facing Medicare and he hoped the budget negotiations would be successful. Later, Dole, Gingrich, and I learned through the reporting of Bob Woodward in the Washington Post that while the president was saying this to us, he was also personally designing the ads that would viciously accuse Newt and Dole of trying to destroy Medicare. But Clinton is not only politically dishonest; he is also intellectually dishonest. In August 1997, Clinton signed into law virtually the same Republican Medicare proposal he had so passionately attacked in 1995.
Clinton is a man who uses the powers of his office to intimidate his opponents. When he fired the employees of the White House travel office and tried to replace them with his Arkansas cronies, he coerced the FBI and the Justice Department into prosecuting Billy Dale, the head of the office. After months of investigation and a trial, Dale was acquitted by the jury in less than two hours. But the dam age was done. When the White House was found to be searching hundreds of FBI files, including my own, for disparaging information on Republicans, Clinton, of course, denied any knowledge of that. But again, a message was sent.
Maybe it's a coincidence, but starting in 1993, the IRS audited many conservative organizations, including one of Newt Gingrich's private educational foundations. An auditor admitted that it wasn't justified, but he was "just being a good German" and was taking his orders from IRS headquarters.
And now, as Congress anticipates the receipt of Ken Starr's findings, the word floating around the Hill is that if you speak up against Clinton, you can expect any private embarrassment in your life to be made public.
Even Ken Starr's career-prosecutor staff fell victim to Clinton's private investigators. And it was a little spooky that those investigators hired two former high-ranking FBI officials who had left the bureau under fire during the Clinton administration. In particular, Howard Shapiro, the former counsel to the director of the FBI, admitted in congressional testimony that he had exercised terrible judgment in giving the White House a "heads up" regarding FBI material on Clinton's enemies.
In political circles, it is widely expected that there will be abundant evidence that Webster Hubbell, who was once one of Clinton's closest political allies and number three at the Department of Justice, was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars not to testify truthfully and fully about Bill and Hillary Clinton's involvement in Whitewater. Yet the president currently has a job-approval rating of more than 60 percent. Therein lies the challenge to Washington's politicians: They will soon be called on to review, publicize, and render judgment on the Clinton scandals. More importantly, the House Republicans will face one of the most painful decisions a political party has ever had to make.
Assume, as I do, that Ken Starr will turn over documents and testimony to the House Judiciary Committee that suggest that Clinton and his close associates committed and suborned perjury, tampered with witnesses, obstructed justice, abused the FBI, and indulged in wire and bank fraud (the $300,000 Whitewater loan) and assorted other crimes. But assume also that the public, for mysterious psychological reasons, is just sick of all this ugliness and may politically punish those who are trying to make a case against Clinton. Then, the House Judiciary Committee and Newt Gingrich will have to decide whether they have a constitutional obligation to follow the evidence wherever it leads, even if the performance of that duty could cost them their majority in the House.
It is surpassingly ironic: Most people assumed that the Republicans would raise those issues merely for political advantage. But I believe the GOP is honor bound to raise them in the face of political danger. Their duty is to assure that all the facts are known.
I used to say that Clinton was the best politician since FDR and the worst president since Warren Harding. That's looking like a pretty good assessment. Clinton, like Harding, may leave office as a popular president. But because of his conduct, he will enter history corrupt.
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