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Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael Sphar who wrote (18512)	8/25/1998 8:31:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20981

August 25, 1998 Starr's Mission Few Americans in our history have suffered as much vilification as Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. No doubt this has been hard to take, but we hope he and his prosecutors understand that the last thing the country needs now is for them to flinch on the eve of fulfilling their public duty. We write this in the wake of stories that Mr. Starr plans to confine his report to Congress to the matter of Monica Lewinsky. As hard as this is to believe after Mr. Starr has worked so hard and so long, the stories appear to be well sourced. They have the look of a trial balloon, perhaps reflecting a debate among the Starr staff. Our view is that it would be a historic mistake, for Mr. Starr and for the country, to send a report that can be spun as merely an investigation of a sex case. For better or worse, Mr. Starr has become the political system's main agent for holding this Presidency accountable. We can wish this weren't so, and indeed these columns opposed the independent counsel statute from the first. But over the Clinton years, Attorney General Janet Reno has burdened Mr. Starr's office with the duty of probing scandal after scandal. Congress has also been only too happy to pass the buck. This means Mr. Starr's mandate has taken on a burden that goes beyond the narrow legal demands of sorting out crimes. He has done much of that, winning 14 convictions. But the national expectation now is that Mr. Starr will report what he knows about the pattern and practice of behavior during the Clinton Presidency. Speaker Newt Gingrich said over the weekend that this is what Congress expects, telling the Washington Post that "I think we would be better served to know the whole story." These include matters of the deepest political concern. In the dismissal and punishment of travel office employees, Mr. Starr needs to assess the contradictory explanations given by former White House aide David Watkins and Hillary Rodham Clinton. In Filegate, he should tell us what he's learned about how 800 FBI files of political opponents got into the hands of former bar bouncer Craig Livingstone. The trial-balloon stories suggest that Mr. Starr's legal excuse for not addressing these matters may be that he is obliged only to report to Congress evidence of "impeachable offenses." He would then save anything else for a report to the appeals court that appointed him when his probe is entirely done. With cases yet to try in Little Rock, that might not be until 2000. But in any practical political sense, Mr. Starr gets just one public hearing. What he presents the first time to Congress will be interpreted by the press--and certainly be spun by the White House--as the only evidence of consequence. Moreover, determining whether evidence is impeachable is inherently a political judgment. We don't see why Mr. Starr should pre-edit what evidence Congress should see regarding Mr. Clinton. And we don't see why Congress shouldn't let the public see all of the evidence that isn't hearsay as soon as possible. Mr. Gingrich hasn't been reassuring on this point. After all, Mr. Starr's probe of the Lewinsky case developed out of his concern about a pattern of Presidential obstruction of justice. The hunt for a job for Monica by the President's pals looked to Mr. Starr, and apparently also to Ms. Reno, suspiciously like the $700,000 worth of job payments provided for Clinton crony Webster Hubbell. Because Mr. Hubbell has refused to cooperate, Mr. Starr may not have enough proof of "intent" to bring indictments calling this hush money. Likewise with Susan McDougal's refusal to talk about possible Presidential perjury regarding his involvement in Whitewater. But Congress has a right to make its own judgments whether these are impeachable. Evidence of obstruction in the Lewinsky case may look very different in the context of a pattern of such evidence across the Clinton years. A fuller report would be valuable too if it were to exonerate the White House on some of these matters. This is exactly what happened with the exhaustive report Mr. Starr filed in October 1997 concerning the Vincent Foster suicide. Filed with the appeals court, that 113-page product satisfied all but the most fanatic conspiracy theorists. Alone among the actors in this saga, Judge Starr has seemed admirably immune to public opinion polls. His duty now is to provide a body of fact and judgment complete enough for the political system to work its will to a fair conclusion. This is the best way to both serve the country and vindicate his probe. interactive.wsj.com