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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (3415)	8/30/1998 9:47:00 AM
From: jimpit	Respond to of 13994

The Wall Street Journal August 28, 1998 interactive.wsj.com (subscription required) The Vineyard Looks Better All the Time By PAUL A. GIGOT In the levitation act that is the Clinton Presidency, this is the month the magic ceased to work. You now get the feeling the crash could come at any time. For most of the last three years, support for this president has rested on three pillars: Blind loyalty among fellow Democrats, a Justice Department willing to stonewall, and a placid world of prosperity that has put Americans in a buoyant mood. Now all of those props are teetering at the same time. On present trends, the president may want to consider buying that estate he's now renting on Martha's Vineyard. His most immediate peril is the looming revolt among Democrats. There's no more cautious politician in America than House minority leader Dick Gephardt. So when even he declares Mr. Clinton's behavior "reprehensible," and takes an agnostic view of impeachment, it's a sure sign the troops are traumatized. His remarks position Congressional Democrats to flee if Kenneth Starr's report is as awful as they fear. Democrats are furious that Mr. Clinton has broken his side of their political bargain. They agreed to defend his ethics if he'd behave and help them take back Congress. But he didn't behave and, for the first time in memory, his political conjuring failed in his speech last week. This is a nightmare for Democrats who only weeks ago imagined they could retake the House from a fractured GOP. Mr. Gephardt personally lobbied several veterans to run for one more term. Conjurer Clinton was supposed to give them the issues--tobacco, health care--to nationalize the election. But none of those subjects can get a hearing because Mr. Clinton has made his own behavior the largest national issue. Though it's too early to detect a tsunami against Democrats, they have reason to be scared. Texas Rep. Martin Frost is the Democrat in charge of the campaign to take back the House. But a new GOP poll shows he could lose his own seat. He's ahead of his little known challenger by 8% at just 43% support, anemic in this incumbent year. In Michigan, venerable Sander Levin is suddenly vulnerable. And in Indiana, Democrat Baron Hill now finds himself down 10 points to his opponent in a battle to hold Democrat Lee Hamilton's seat, according to another GOP poll. Mr. Hill isn't inviting Mr. Clinton for a visit any time soon. The Senate could turn into a genuine debacle. Republicans have a strong chance to pick up at least six current Democratic seats, while just three of theirs are now in play. If the autumn debate is mainly about Bill Clinton's behavior, the first filibuster-proof GOP Senate this century becomes possible. No wonder Mr. Clinton can't seem to find many allies to the right of Barney Frank. Things could only get worse if voters begin to connect Mr. Clinton's character to new troubles around the world. That was the implicit message of Scott Ritter, the Marine-turned-U.N. inspector who resigned his post in disgust this week. Mr. Ritter, a Gulf War veteran, all but said our president lacks the starch to stand up to Saddam Hussein. So his administration chose to surreptitiously delay or block intrusive U.N. inspections in Iraq that Mr. Clinton threatened to go to war over just months ago. Many Americans have been like Democrats in assuming Mr. Clinton's character could be separated from his performance. But what if his flawed character has produced such a total lack of moral authority that it undermines performance? That seems to be happening in Iraq, as well as in the global financial crisis that Team Clinton has been helpless to stop. Japan keeps rejecting America's policy advice, even after the U.S. Treasury tried to prop up the yen. Russia pocketed $22 billion from the IMF but hasn't moved a policy inch. Maybe the U.S. can't exert the moral leadership needed to cajole nations into making hard decisions if those nations don't think the U.S. has moral leaders. These failures are finally rippling through American prosperity. The stock market's long party seems to be ending, while the Farm Belt suffers from low global prices. Even if the U.S. escapes the worst, the air of American impregnability that has so buoyed Mr. Clinton's public approval is gone. The last teetering Clinton prop is a Justice Department that has bottled up the campaign scandals of 1996. But even Janet Reno seems to be buckling under the political weight of editorial and Republican pressure. Her 90-day probe of Al Gore's honesty about his fund-raising calls is best understood as a way to buy time. But she faces the certain contempt of the entire U.S. House if she doesn't name an independent counsel for the overall scandal. And with Mr. Clinton so weakened, even Senate Republicans may decide to behave like an opposition and force Ms. Reno's hand. This is the probe Democrats really fear, because it threatens Mr. Gore and might bedevil their party through 2000. All of this proves the folly of those who thought the Lewinsky case could be dismissed as mere "private" behavior. Reckless sex is proving to have the most public imaginable consequences, for the presidency and the country. We are all going to pay for our national delusion that Bill Clinton's character didn't matter. Copyright c 1998 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.