Boston Globe
No escape for Clinton
By John Ellis, 09/12/98
Thirty-six boxes of detail were an unexpectedly
cinematic touch. They allowed Congress and the
country an opportunity to contemplate the full
magnitude of President Clinton's misconduct and
mendacity. More than 400 pages of narrative
spelled out the Office of the Independent
Counsel's case. But it was the video images of the
boxes that stuck. Clinton's character had been
reduced to its essence.
The other image that lingered was of the president
at a fund-raiser in Orlando, Fla. Watching him, it became apparent that he
could no longer look people in the eye. Back in January, he looked us all in
the eye and announced that he ''did not have sexual relations with that
woman, Miss Lewinsky.'' But in Orlando, his eyes wandered about the
room as he spoke, searching for escape instead of absolution.
There is and will be no escape, of course. The charges on the table are
serious and substantial. The Office of the Independent Counsel accuses the
president of perjury, witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and abuse of
power. The case for perjury seems open and shut. The rest of the charges
are, at some level, inarguable. They are the lies compounded. We've
watched them develop over the course of the last eight months.
The White House has adopted a four-part political strategy to deal with its
final crisis. Its components are contrition, proportionality, defamation, and
delay. Part 1, contrition, suffered from its start. The real Bill Clinton would
have none of it on Aug. 17, when he offered not one line of apology and nine
paragraphs of invective aimed directly at Kenneth Starr. The repackaged Bill
Clinton is now the sorriest man in America, moving from one venue to the
next to express his regret. Believing the latter president requires that one
disbelieve the former, even though Clinton was utterly convincing in his rage.
Nevertheless, it has been decided - for the moment anyway - that only full
contrition will do. Various and sundry Democrats are dispatched to reiterate
the depths of Clinton's sorrow. Lesser Cabinet members recount his anguish
and pain. The secretary of state lends her blessing. The evangelicals are
courted. Total hangdog has replaced the modified limited hangout.
The problem with the total hangdog is that Clinton hates it. He didn't get to
be president by playing defense - groveling and sniveling and apologizing
abjectly. He believes first and foremost in the politics of attack. So Part 1
will soon segue into Parts 2 and 3 - proportionality and defamation.
Proportionality argues that Clinton's perjury, obstruction of justice, and
abuse of power are bad, but not as bad as Nixon's subornation of perjury,
obstruction of justice, and abuse of power. The former, it has and will be
said, relates ''only'' to consensual sexual relations. The latter amounted to an
assault on the US Constitution. Clinton's remaining handlers hope that
television talking heads will parrot this argument in the president's defense.
It's not much of an argument, but it's the best they can do.
Part 2 of the proportionality gambit will be Hillary Rodham Clinton's speech,
which the White House hopes she will deliver next week. The argument
therein will be straightforward. She forgives him. Their daughter forgives him.
So if they forgive him, you should, too. White House operatives think that
the proportionality argument gets them about halfway home, shoring up their
base of blacks and patronage new Democrats. The other half they hope to
gain through blackmail and intimidation. Salon magazine reported Thursday
that the White House is working on a ''doomsday scenario'' in which
damaging information about ''Republicans, Democrats, and journalists'' is
distributed for public consumption. This report is taken seriously in
Washington generally and on Capitol Hill specifically. ''These people,'' said
one longtime Democratic operative, ''will do anything to hold onto power.''
The final part of the strategy is simply delay. The White House's greatest fear
is that the release of the Starr report will create a political stampede for
Clinton's resignation. They do not want anyone to trust the authority of their
initial reaction to reading the contents of the independent counsel's report.
They want to add all the qualifiers, a thousand legal arguments and
diversions, in the hope that time's passage will simply exhaust the public's
attention span.
It won't work. Bill Clinton's presidency ended yesterday afternoon on the
World Wide Web. He has disgraced himself and the high office it was his
privilege to hold. His political support will collapse in the coming days, and,
like a puppet cut loose from its strings, he will fall in a heap on the floor.
The consequences for the country of his being allowed to continue in office
are simply unacceptable. We cannot abide another two-and-a-half years of
explaining to our children why gross misconduct goes unpunished. We
cannot abide another two-and-a-half years of explaining to ourselves why
integrity and character don't matter. We cannot abide another
two-and-a-half years of shameless and faithless presidential leadership.
Bill Clinton will leave office soon because he was and is unworthy of our
trust. The sooner it happens, the better everyone will feel.
John Ellis is a consultant at the Rasky/Baerlein Group.
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