Bill Clinton And Gary Condit Lose At "Checkers" To Richard
Nixon
By Nicholas Stix
"Now, the usual political thing to do when charges are made
against you is to either ignore them or to deny them without
giving details. I believe we have had enough of that in the
United States ..." "Checkers," the most important little cocker
spaniel in American history, unwittingly saved Richard Nixon's
political life. Gary Condit could have used a little cocker
spaniel, when he went on Primetime Edited with Connie Chung on
August 23, to try and resuscitate his political career.
I knew Dick Nixon, he was a hero of mine, and Congressman
Condit, you're no Dick Nixon.
Gary Condit is one of a number of American politicians who have
had a Checkers moment. Since Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton
were the most notorious of this group, presumably an historical
contrast can only make Condit look good.
In 1952, young, California Republican Senator Richard M. Nixon
(1913-1994) was accused of maintaining a "slush fund" of
illegal campaign contributions. General Dwight D. ("Ike")
Eisenhower (1890-1969) had just named Nixon his vice-
presidential running mate in the coming election. As Supreme
Allied Commander, Ike had led all of our ? and the Brits' (and
the Free French forces, which amounted to General Charles de
Gaulle (1890-1970), and de Gaulle's chauffeur and valet) ?
military forces to triumph in The War. Ike felt that Nixon was
the "right type" of young Republican "to capture the
imagination of American youth." But Eisenhower was not wed to
Nixon, and in the wake of the "slush fund" story, GOP leaders
were urging the general to dump Nixon.
In 1950, Nixon, the rising young GOP warrior, then still in the
House of Representatives, had brought down the northeastern
establishment's golden boy ? who just happened to be a Soviet
spy ? Alger Hiss (1904-1996). Hiss was convicted for perjury.
(Hiss should have hanged; however, at the time of his trial,
the statute of limitations for espionage had run out.) The Hiss
case made Nixon a national figure, and at the same time,
provided him with a lifetime supply of political enemies, on
top of the ones he had already made, beating socialist
representatives Jerry Voorhis (1901-1984) and Helen Gahagan
Douglas (1900-1980), respectively, in electoral campaigns.
Then came the Checkers speech. On September 23, 1952, Nixon
took his case directly to the American people, on live TV.
There was no interviewer to lob softballs or fire beanballs at
him. Nixon wrote and delivered his own script.
In 1992 and 1998, charges of marital infidelity dogged Bill
Clinton, threatening first his presidential candidacy, and then
his administration. In both cases, HILLARY! Clinton publicly
defended her husband on TV.
And now, we have Democratic California Congressman Gary Condit,
who was romantically involved for five or six months with
federal Bureau of Prisons intern Chandra Levy, prior to her
disappearance on or about May 1. While Congressman Condit has
not been named a suspect by the District of Columbia police or
the FBI, his suspicious behavior since early May has caused
millions of Americans to suspect he had something to do with
Levy's disappearance.
While growing up during the 1960s and 1970s, I was led to
believe by establishment media and scholars, that Nixon's
"Checkers" speech was a pathetic exercise in evading the
central question of Nixon's honesty that, if anything, proved
that Nixon was a crook.
The official story on Nixon's speech, is that, ignoring the
question of the slush fund, the senator spoke instead of his
wife, Pat's (1912-1993), "respectable, Republican cloth coat,"
and of the little dog, Checkers, that a campaign contributor
had given the Nixons:
"And you know, the kids, like all kids, loved the dog, and I
just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they
say about it, we are going to keep it."
The slush fund story had been reported by the then-socialist
New York Post, and was, no doubt, payback for Nixon's having
nailed Alger Hiss. If the story stuck, Ike would have had to
drop Nixon, who would have been finished politically. And since
only about one month remained before the election, the
Democratic ticket of Illinois governor Adlai E. Stevenson
(1900-1965) and Alabama senator John J. Sparkman (1899-1985)
might have prevailed that November.
Reading the Checkers speech the other day, I was amazed at how
much information Nixon provided. The speech provides an
embarrassingly intimate look at the finances of the young
senator and his wife, from a loan he was paying back to his
father ? with interest ? to the mortgages on his modest
California and Washington homes, to the rent ($80 per month)
the couple had paid on their previous Virginia apartment. Nixon
emphasized that, in order to avoid conflicts of interest, he
had done no outside legal work since being elected to Congress
in 1946.
After the humanizing, family values section on his wife's coat
and the nation's most famous canine, the candidate went on the
offensive. Nixon charged Gov. Stevenson with having just the
sort of slush fund that Stevenson operatives had charged Nixon
with having, and suggested that Sen. Sparkman was guilty of
nepotism, for putting Mrs. Sparkman on the payroll, something
Nixon never did with his own wife.
The Checkers speech was the most successful speech ever given
by an American politician, in terms of the obstacles it had to
overcome. Remember, Nixon had no bully pulpit, and no enemy to
rally the country against. Having only recently entered the
national spotlight, he was in danger of being exiled to the
oblivion of Whittier, California.
With "Checkers," Nixon said, 'I'm one of you, a hard-working,
devoted husband and family man, and I'm not a crook, though my
opponents may themselves be crooks.' And amazingly, in view of
the official Nixon story, and the endlessly caricatured, older,
paranoid, President Nixon, millions of Americans liked the man
they saw:
"I am sure that you have read the charges, and you have heard
it, that I, Senator Nixon, took $18,000 from a group of my
supporters.
"Now, was that wrong? And let me say that it was wrong. I am
saying it, incidentally, that it was wrong, just not illegal,
because it isn't a question of whether it was legal or illegal,
that isn't enough. The question is, was it morally wrong? I say
that it was morally wrong if any of that $18,000 went to
Senator Nixon, for my personal use. I say that it was morally
wrong if it was secretly given and secretly handled.
"And I say that it was morally wrong if any of the contributors
got special favors for the contributions that they made.
"And to answer those questions let me say this ? not a cent of
the $18,000 or any other money of that type ever went to me for
my personal use. Every penny of it was used to pay for
political expenses that I did not think should be charged to
the taxpayers of the United States.
"It was not a secret fund....
"And third, let me point out, and I want to make this
particularly clear, that no contributor to this fund, no
contributor to any of my campaigns, has ever received any
consideration that he would not have received as an ordinary
constituent.
Nixon even brought in an outside auditor, Price Waterhouse, and
an outside legal team, Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher, "the biggest
law firm ... in Los Angeles."
"I am proud to report to you tonight that this audit and legal
opinion is being forwarded to General Eisenhower and I would
like to read to you the opinion that was prepared by Gibson,
Dunn, & Crutcher, based on all the pertinent laws, and
statutes, together with the audit report prepared by the
certified public accountants.
"'It is our conclusion that Senator Nixon did not obtain any
financial gain from the collection and disbursement of the
funds by Dana Smith; that Senator Nixon did not violate any
federal or state law by reason of the operation of the fund;
and that neither the portion of the fund paid by Dana Smith
directly to third persons, nor the portion paid to Senator
Nixon, to reimburse him for office expenses, constituted income
in a sense which was either reportable or taxable as income
under income tax laws.
"'Signed ? Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher, by Elmo Conley."
"That is not Nixon speaking, but it is an independent audit
which was requested because I want the American people to know
all the facts and I am not afraid of having independent people
go in and check the facts, and that is exactly what they did.
In his brilliant, painstakingly researched, recent biography of
the young Nixon, The Contender, historian Irwin F. Gellman
explains that the political trust fund came about, when Nixon's
inner circle sought to collect $20,000-25,000 per year, in
contributions no smaller than $100 and no greater than $500, in
order to permit the new senator, "'to continue to sell
effectively to the people of California the economic and
political systems which we all believe in,'" outside of
electoral campaigns, and without being a vehicle for influence
peddlers to "buy" the senator.
As Gellman notes, no one was paid to manage the fund, which was
open to review, and which covered such expenses as
"transportation and hotel expenses for trips ... over Nixon's
official mileage allowance," advertisements publicizing his
appearances outside of electoral campaigns, etc.
Unfortunately, some time ago, the Checkers model was superceded
by a much more ominous, modern type.
Bill Clinton has been described in many ways as Nixon's
spiritual son. But that connection relates mostly to the older,
paranoid Nixon, not the hungry, young Californian.
Clinton had two Checkers moments. The first, in 1992, was when,
during Clinton's first presidential campaign, Gennifer Flowers
publicly claimed that the two had had an affair in Arkansas,
where then-Gov. Clinton got her a patronage job. Gov. and Mrs.
Clinton made their now famous, joint appearance on 60 Minutes,
where without confessing to anything, Bill bit his lower lip,
and said that he had "caused [his] family pain," and HILLARY!
said she wasn't "some kind of Tammy Wynette standing by [her]
man."
HILLARY! may not have endeared herself to Tammy Wynette that
evening, but she won over much of the nation, including yours
truly. (She looked a lot better then, especially in the modest
yet sexy blue sweater she wore.) HILLARY! did protest too much,
and would indeed stand by her man.
The next Checkers moment for Bill Clinton was also a HILLARY!
moment. In early 1998, every day seemed to bring a new
revelation about the sensitive, feminist, "I feel your pain"
president who, it turned out, not only ogled, but grabbed
everything in a skirt that passed his way. Bill had been caught
lying under oath about Paula Jones, and would be caught lying ?
"I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" ? about
Monica Lewinsky, and so many other women.
As was always the case with Bill's troubles, 1998 was time for
a HILLARY! intervention. Appearing on The Today Show, opposite
batting practice pitcher Matt Lauer, HILLARY! hit a "home run,"
when she claimed that her husband's troubles were the work of
"a vast, rightwing conspiracy." Upon returning to the White
House that day, Mrs. Clinton reportedly exulted, "That'll teach
'em to f--k with us!"
Apparently, Gary Condit made the mistake of thinking that he
could do what Bill Clinton had done. After all, the same media
and feminist establishment that savaged liberal Republican Sen.
Bob Packwood, bent over for Bill Clinton. What in Packwood's
case was "sexual harassment," was in Clinton's case, "just
sex." And Harlem fixer, Cong. Charles Rangel was making the
same defenses of Condit that Clinton's defenders had once made.
But Condit ignored the differences separating the two cases:
Bill Clinton was not merely feminists' political ally, he was
the President. To power-mad feminists, Clinton was politically
immune from attack. And Bill was HILLARY'S husband. An attack
on him endangered her political aspirations. In contrast, Gary
Condit is just a congressman, whose wife is too traditional for
contemporary feminist/media tastes. And while Monica Lewinsky
was alive and well, Chandra Levy is missing and presumed dead.
Gary Condit is expendable.
Perhaps Condit, recalling Matt Lauer's 1998 love-in with
HILLARY!, and thinking of Connie Chung's less than major league
reputation, thought that he too would get "batting practice"
pitches. Instead, in what would become the finest moment in
Connie Chung's career, Chung played "Roger Clemens" to Condit's
helmetless "Mike Piazza."
CHUNG: "Can you describe your relationship? What exactly was
your relationship with Chandra Levy?
CONDIT: "Well, I met Chandra ? last, um, October. And we became
very close. I met her in Washington, DC.
CHUNG: "Very close, meaning ??
CONDIT: "We had a close relationship. I liked her very much.
CHUNG: "May I ask you, was it a sexual relationship?
CONDIT: "Well, Connie, I've been married for 34 years, and I've
not been a ? a perfect man, and I've made my share of mistakes.
But um, out of respect for my family, and out of a specific
request from the Levy family, I think it's best that I not get
into those details uh, about Chandra Levy.
CHUNG: "Congressman Condit, do you recall when ? it was during
President Clinton's impeachment hearings, you called for, and I
quote, "The public airing of every detail of his affair,"
saying, quote, "only when we strip away the cloak of secrecy
and lay the facts on the table, can we begin to resolve this
matter." Shouldn't those rules apply to yourself?
CONDIT: "Well, I've watched that clip, and I've heard that
quote. My view of that is it's taken out of context....
CHUNG: (Overlap) "But we want to talk about you and not
President Clinton.
CONDIT: (Overlap) "Well, let me finish. Yeah, let me finish ?
because it relates to President Clinton....
CHUNG: (Overlap) "We're not talking about that right now. What
we're talking about is whether or not you will come forward to
uh, lift this veil of suspicion that seems to have clouded you.
Can you tell us ? did you have a romantic relationship with
Chandra Levy?
CONDIT: "Well, once again, I've been married 34 years. I have
not been a perfect man. I have made mistakes in my life. But
out of respect for my family, out of a specific request by the
Levy family, it is best that I not get into the details of the
relationship.
CHUNG: "Can you tell me this: Was Chandra Levy in love with
you? Were you in love with her?
CONDIT: "Well, I don't know that she was in love with me. She
never said so. And I was not in love with her.
CHUNG: "Did she want to marry you and have your child?
CONDIT: "I only knew Chandra Levy for five months. And in that
five months' period, we never had a discussion about a future,
about children, about marriage. Any of those items never came
up in that five-month period....
CONDIT: "Never."
CHUNG: "Did she want you to leave your wife?"
CONDIT: "No. I mean, I've been married for 34 years, and I
intend to stay married to that woman as long as she'll have me.
CHUNG: "Um, I understand what you're saying regarding being
specific about the relationship. However, don't you realize
that part of the reason why you're in the situation that you're
in is because that there have been ambiguous or uh, evasive
answers to specific questions?
CONDIT: "Well, there has been no evasive, uh, answers to
specific questions by me. I have, I have ?
CHUNG: (Overlap) "Right now there is, sir...."
CHUNG: "But the police department has said that you impeded the
investigation."
CONDIT: "That's pretty confusing. I mean, it's real confusing,
because a couple days after it was reported that Chandra Levy
had been missing, after her father had called me here in
California, two days later I had two detectives in my house in
Washington, D.C., and we have a 45-minute interview. So I
answered every question, gave them every bit of the details in
that interview.... the next interview, there was a new set of
personnel in that interview. In the third interview, there was
the Department of Justice, the ? the federal prosecutor. I had
to go through that interview. And then in the fourth interview?
CHUNG: "Now when Mrs. Levy called you and said that her
daughter was missing, and she asked you pointblank, she says,
at a critical time in the investigation, as to whether or not
you had an affair with her daughter, you answered, according to
her, matter-of-factly, 'No.' Were you telling the truth?
CONDIT: "I never lied to Mrs. Levy. Fact of the matter is that
whole week I had several conversations with the Levys....
CHUNG: "So when you said, 'No,' you were telling the truth?
CONDIT: "What, what Miss, what Mrs. Levy asked me was a series
of questions about a lot of things. And I'm sorry if she
misunderstood uh, those conversations. But in those
conversations, she made a lot of statements. My job was to
console and do what I could do to be helpful. But I never lied
to Mrs. Levy at all. I'm sorry if she misunderstood the
conversations....
CHUNG: "Congressman Condit , uh ? I do not know exactly whether
you did have an affair with Chandra Levy or not, because you
will not answer that question. Now, when Mrs. Levy asked you if
you had had an affair, she says you said no. And you are now
saying that you didn't lie to her.
CONDIT: "I'm saying that, yes."
CHUNG: "So are you saying that she misunderstood you ?
CONDIT: (Overlap) "Yes."
CHUNG: ? when you said no?
CONDIT: "She ? well, I'm not sure what com- ?
CHUNG (Overlap) "You should have said yes?"
CONDIT: "I'm not sure what conversation she was talking
about.... I never lied to Mrs. Levy.
CHUNG: "Well, I mean, here is a mother who is asking you a
critical question about her daughter who is missing. You needed
to provide her with the truth and the correct answer.
CONDIT: "Correct, and I,
CHUNG: (Overlap) "You didn't do that."
CONDIT: (Overlap) "I told her the truth."
CHUNG: "You told her that you were indeed ?
CONDIT: "She did not ask me that question. She made several
references about people. And I'm not going to get into the
names of the people, but I told Mrs. Levy the truth. I'm sorry
and I regret if she misunderstood what I had to say."
And so, it went. In The Gospel According to St. Gary, the Levys
lied, in saying that Condit had denied to them having had an
affair with their daughter. And the police lied, in saying that
Condit had taken until his third police interview, to admit
having had a sexual relationship with Chandra Levy. And Chief
Charles Ramsey of the D.C. Police lied, in denying that
Condit's privately-administered lie detector test was valid.
And Condit's own staffers lied, in denying that the congressman
had an affair with Chandra Levy. (So, he had the affair?) And
flight attendant Ann Marie Smith lied, in claiming to have had
an affair with Condit. But the Congressman had nothing to do
with the deposition his first lawyer sent to Smith, calling on
her to swear that she never had an affair with Condit. (If he
never had an affair with her, why deny having authorized his
lawyer to draw up the affidavit that Smith refused to sign?)
The biggest liar of all, was of course Chandra Levy, for
telling her family that she was having an affair with Gary
Condit.
As it is well-known that the District police were closely
watching Condit's interview responses, it seems to me that the
contradictions, evasions, and outright lies were tailored for
avoiding prosecution for perjury and/or obstruction of justice.
Lest I forget, Congressman Condit did deny that he had anything
to do with Chandra Levy's disappearance, and insisted that he
did not kill her, or have anyone else kill her.
Gary Condit could have taken the Checkers route. He could have
notified the networks at the last minute that he wanted to read
a prepared statement on the Chandra Levy case; they would have
pre-empted prime-time programming for him, a la Al Gore, after
which Condit could have walked off, refusing to answer
questions. But Congressman Condit, under the advice of that
brilliant legal mind, Abbe Lowell, chose a different model.
And yet, perhaps the Congressman was right, in not giving a
Checkers-type speech. For that would have required that he make
of his life an open book, as had Richard Nixon.
In just under fifty years, we have progressed from a senator
putting up a heroic, open defense addressing frivolous charges,
to a presidential candidate and then president, engaging in
cowardly, dishonest defenses when suspected of ? and indeed
guilty of ? sexual misconduct while in office, obstruction of
justice, and perjury, to a congressman whose idea of a defense
against suspicions that he may have played a role in the
disappearance of his young lover, is to refuse to answer the
most basic questions, to fabricate stories, and to call
everyone else, from the missing woman's parents to the media to
his own staffers, liars. We have gone from a politician
admitting that merely acting in a "legal" yet immoral fashion
is no excuse for misconduct, to politicians who spit on
legality. Such "progress" does not bode well for the Republic.
By the way, the quote I opened with may have sounded
contemporary, but was in fact
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