Fat chance.
HEREIN LIES THE TRUTH: HE CAN'T
BE HONEST
By RAY KERRISON
THE White House yesterday brusquely rebuffed all
attempts by friends, advisers, politicians and
editorial writers to persuade President Clinton to
stand up before the American people and tell the
full truth of his connection to Monica Lewinsky.
The president signaled that, dress or no dress, he
is standing hard on his story that he had no sexual
relationship with the intern and did not induce her
to lie to obstruct justice.
It is the position reportedly pressed by his
co-presidential wife, Hillary Rodham.
There can be only one reason that the Clintons
refuse to come clean - the truth is far worse, far
more damaging than anyone has yet speculated.
To admit to anything would open the floodgates.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican who heads
the Senate Judiciary Committee, extended an
extraordinary offer of clemency over the weekend
when he said all would be forgiven if Clinton just
told the truth.
No big name Democrat ever made a similar offer
to President Nixon in the depths of Watergate.
But Hatch added a significant rider to his mercy -
provided "there aren't a lot of other factors to
cause the Congress to say "This man is unfit for
the presidency and should be impeached.'"
Ah, there's the rub.
Clinton dare not tell the truth for the following
reasons:
1. He would convict himself of perjury, of
deliberately lying under oath in his testimony in the
Paula Jones case.
Perjury is a serious crime. It would blow him out of
the presidency. There is a precedent - 10 years
ago, a federal judge was snared in a small-time
bribery case, which ultimately was dismissed. But
during its course, the judge committed perjury and
was promptly impeached by the U.S. Senate.
Perjury is a crime no matter who commits it or
whether the underlying matter is sex, money,
foreign policy or criminal proceedings. As Hatch
said flatly and without qualification, "Perjury is
enough to impeach."
2. Confession would humiliate Hillary beyond
anything that has transpired to date. Not out of
embarrassment for her husband's sex habits, but
because his downfall would be hers. She, too,
would be driven from the White House in shame,
an unbearable historical legacy. Thus, she will do
anything to save Clinton's neck, no matter the
cost.
Last January, she told the world that Sexgate was
a "vast right-wing conspiracy." Do you think she
tells that to her husband?
3. The Clinton rise to power has lived, survived
and thrived by the lie, beginning with Hillary's
commodity trading swindles and continuing to the
president's Lewinsky denials, even as new
pictures of them embracing and hugging break into
print.
They can't even own up to who hired Craig
Livingston, the bar bouncer, to be chief of White
House security.
Through the years, Hillary has matched the
president lie for lie, prompting William Safire to call
her a "congenital liar."
The lie, sworn and otherwise, has served this
couple well. The American public has bought it.
Why change a winning strategy now?
The TV pictures of Bill and Hillary swarming
through the Hamptons like a couple of lovebirds
over the weekend were riveting. Absolutely nothing
shames this couple.
There was Bill, throwing his protective arm around
Hillary, hugging her and smiling. They held hands.
Bill worked the crowds, shaking hands like a
campaigner. He raised $2 million. They put on
some show.
What a contrast with Richard Nixon. In Watergate,
Nixon at least had the decency to withdraw from
public view and fight his battles. The Clintons
brass it out.
The sleazier it gets, the more brazen Clinton
becomes. His contempt for the proprieties is
almost scary.
The Democratic Party, to its everlasting discredit,
is trying to ride the scandal out. There isn't a
statesman among them prepared to stand up and
demand an accounting. As Hatch said, "What
bothers me is that not one Democrat has stepped
forward and said, "Let's get to the bottom of this,
let's find out the truth.'"
The Democrats showed no mercy to Nixon. More
recently, they showed no pity for Republican Sen.
Robert Packwood, hounding him out of office on
sex harassment allegations.
But with Clinton, they avert their eyes, plug their
ears and padlock their tongues.
On August 17, Clinton, clearly, is going to tell the
grand jury the same tale he told the Paula Jones
probe.
But if the stained dress tells a different story, if the
testimony of the Secret Service agents and
Monica Lewinsky exposes him to be a willful
perjurer, Clinton's presidency will be over.
As George Will, the most precise of men, said,
"No matter what the public thinks, no matter what
Congress' preferences are, if Clinton has
demonstrated he lied to a grand jury, he will be
impeached. Period."
In the sorry, sordid events of the past week, there
was at least one delicious moment, when David
Gergen, the perennial Clinton shill, was spouting to
a TV audience of Clinton's virtues.
"He will do the right thing," Gergen gushed. "He
cares for the country, he has a good heart, and at
the end of the day he will step forward."
That's total hogwash, of course, so Robert Novak,
the columnist, looked at Gergen and said, "So why
has he carried on as he has for the last seven
months?"
Poor David choked, gagged and panicked. Finally,
he said, "That's a good question. It's a hard one for
a lot of us to answer. I don't have the answer."
Exactly. When all of Clinton's defenders are nailed
to the facts, they buckle.
Anyone as cunning and venal as Clinton should
never be underestimated, but impeachment
seems to loom larger by the day.
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