More from the international front: (no pun intended)
The London Telegraph September 7, 1998
Doors closing on Clinton escape routes
By Hugo Gurdon in Washington
External Links
Stormy weather
[7 Sept '98] -
Time Magazine
White House
braces for Starr
report [6 Sept
'98] -
Washington
Post
Lott says
Clinton censure
unlikely [6 Sept
'98] -
Washington
Post
President
returning to an
altered, and
colder,
Washington [6
Sept '98] -
Washington
Post
Scandal trailed
president
overseas [6
Sept '98] -
Boston Globe
'The report'
casts long
shadow on
Washington [6
Sept '98] - Los
Angeles Times
Clinton's
resignation
openly
discussed by
some
Democrats [5
Sept '98] -
Nando Times
House leaders
will discuss
Starr report [4
Sept '98] - CNN
All Politics
Tide turning to
hot water for
Clinton [4 Sept
'98] - Time Daily
What we really
can't forgive
Clinton for: He
got caught [4
Sept '98] - Salon
The president's
disappearing
friends [29 Aug
'98] - Economist
An entangled
web: Analysing
online
journalism's
coverage of the
White House
scandal - Online
Focus
The Committee
to Impeach the
President
SoWhat? gate -
Conspiracy.com
THE crisis threatening to bundle President Clinton out of office in
disgrace accelerated yesterday amid signs of panic in the White
House and defection by Democrats.
Having hoped that his week in Russia, Northern Ireland and the
Irish Republic would shore up his leadership, Mr Clinton returned
to Washington to discover that he is vastly weakened.
White House aides said Mr Clinton was shattered by an attack last
week by his ally, Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman, which
made him accept that the crisis was not manufactured by his
enemies and not one he can escape through the usual mixture of
denial, defiance and wounded pride. He is "quite disorientated"
and "very stricken", one political adviser said, agreeing with those
who thought his appearance in Dublin with the Prime Minister,
Bertie Ahern, was that of a haunted man.
Jim Moran, a senior Democratic congressman, said yesterday that
Mr Clinton would be "very fortunate" if he escaped with no more
than formal censure by Congress. Mr Moran said: "I don't think
that's an option, I think we are bound to go through impeachment
proceedings. I don't know how he can ever recover."
There were more body-blows to the President from Senator
Patrick Moynihan, the senior Democrat who first broke ranks and
in 1994 called for an independent counsel to investigate the
Whitewater scandal. Yesterday, he said Henry Hyde and Orrin
Hatch, the two Republicans who will lead Congress in deciding
whether to impeach the President, were "first rate" men of
"impeccable standing". This forestalls any effort by the White
House to attack them as partisan.
The doors on Mr Clinton's escape routes are being shut one after
another and confidence and unity are bleeding away. Aides were
reported as saying the mood in the executive mansion was
"unbelievably depressing . . . somewhere close to despair". Like
President Nixon a generation ago during Watergate, Mr Clinton is
ever more isolated. One insider said: "Nobody is managing this
crisis, the loop is down to two people, Bill and Hillary Clinton.
They are doing it all themselves."
The Governor of Maryland, Parris Glendening, cancelled a public
appearance with Mr Clinton, and the President's one-time close
aide, George Stephanopoulos, said: "The Democratic Party is
running away from him."
With the President's own party saying such things, there is now talk
that Mr Clinton's end could come quickly. Mr Moran and others
suggest that if the report due shortly from Kenneth Starr, the
independent counsel, reveals not just sordid details of sex sessions
in the Oval Office but also clear evidence that the President tried to
cover it up, a delegation of Democrats will tell Mr Clinton to
resign.
Officials say the President recently made a catastrophic blunder
that has had the unintended effect of forcing Mr Starr to include in
his report all the grubbiest details of Mr Clinton's affair with
Monica Lewinsky. The error was to insist under oath and in his
televised confession on Aug 17 that he had been "legally accurate"
when he swore that he never had "sexual relations" with Miss
Lewinsky.
To enable Congress to decide the truth, Mr Starr is now obliged to
explain exactly what Miss Lewinsky and Mr Clinton did with and
to each other behind closed doors. There are rumours that the
details are such that even hitherto-ardent supporters would be too
embarrassed to defend. Speaking of the report, which could be
delivered to Congress this week, one presidential adviser said: "It's
going to be blistering. It is going to connect every dot and draw
every negative inference."
The crisis has moved into a phase that pundits say confirms the old
Washington maxim that presidencies are destroyed not by
misdeeds but by cover-ups. It is now being asked whether Mr
Clinton's use of tax-financed government departments and aides to
perpetuate a deliberate lie amounts to abuse of office. Trent Lott,
majority leader in the Senate, said: "The answer could be yes. It
looks very bad."
Senator Lieberman's speech has destroyed the White House's
strategy for the past eight months, which has been a combination of
insisting that his relations with Miss Lewinsky were private and
attacks on Mr Starr for being a biased, political enemy.
telegraph.co.uk:80/ |
