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

To: Zoltan! who wrote (4123)	9/8/1998 8:20:00 AM
From: Who, me?	Respond to of 13994

Scandal Surrounds Clinton's Friend By Sonya Ross Associated Press Writer Tuesday, September 8, 1998; 1:30 a.m. EDT WASHINGTON (AP) -- A friend of Bill Clinton since they were teen-agers, Marsha Scott is a fierce defender of the president -- and that loyalty has placed her at the center of the scandals surrounding his presidency. Scott, 50, deputy personnel director at the White House, is rarely seen with the president. She doesn't lurk in the background as he strides onto his helicopter or Air Force One, nor is she known to stand along the wall with other aides, listening dutifully as Clinton briefs the media or delivers speeches. But her role is significant. Scott was at Clinton's side during his 30th high school reunion in Arkansas, while he scribbled away on a legal pad to document his conversation with a classmate, Dolly Kyle Browning, who was said to be claiming she had an affair with him. She huddled with Monica Lewinsky twice last year. In one of those sessions, Scott has said, the former White House intern denied a sexual relationship with Clinton. Last week, it was disclosed that the president asked Scott to find a new job at the White House for Ms. Lewinsky -- if it was appropriate -- after she had been transferred to the Pentagon. And she was a telephonic link between the White House and longtime Clinton pal Webster Hubbell, who was threatened with a lawsuit by the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Ark., seeking to recover money he got from overbilling the firm and its clients. Hubbell, a former Justice Department official who pleaded guilty and was imprisoned for bilking Rose, where he had practiced law with Hillary Rodham Clinton, also agreed to cooperate with investigators looking into the Clintons' Whitewater real estate dealings. Scott's role in these situations has gotten her questioned a couple of times by the FBI as well as prosecutor Kenneth Starr's Whitewater grand jury, which was looking into possible obstruction of justice involving consulting fees that Clinton friends arranged for Hubbell. Scott grew up privileged in Little Rock, the daughter of a beauty queen and a former Philadelphia Eagles halfback. She was a cheerleader and close friend of Hubbell. She has known Clinton since both were in their late teens. They are said to have dated briefly back then, and remained friends. After finishing school Scott migrated to California, working as a Head Start teacher and an advertising saleswoman for a newspaper before coming back into contact with Clinton as a volunteer for his 1992 presidential campaign. Through a White House spokesman, Scott declined to comment for this story. And several of her colleagues at the White House agreed to speak about her only on condition that their names not be used. Privately, one colleague said Scott's current role in the White House personnel office is to ensure that friends of the president who are being considered for appointments are ''qualified, and the best qualified,'' for those jobs. The colleague described Scott as ''one of the few people in this town who still believes politics is about loyalty.'' Scott also has been known to operate outside the White House gates to ensure that loyalties to Clinton remain intact. In fact, it was to Scott that Clinton turned when his support waned among gays and lesbians because of his about-face on their status in the military. Scott became liaison to the gay community in June 1995, assigned to smooth over the sore relationship -- so that Clinton could hang on to a constituency that made up 5 percent of the vote that elected him in 1992. ''This was a very angry and disenfranchised community when she took on this role,'' said Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights advocacy group. ''She was able to reignite a certain amount of commitment to the president.'' Richard Socarides, Scott's successor as gay liaison, said the gay community made up 7 percent of the voters who re-elected Clinton in 1996. It is an increase he attributes to Scott's talent for soothing hurt feelings. ''This was clearly an assignment that nobody wanted. It had all the makings of something that wasn't going to be very successful,'' Socarides said. ''But she took it on and she did a remarkable job. ''She is uniquely perceptive about people and the meaning of events. She has the unique ability to see things in a more meaningful way,'' Socarides said. ''That puts her in a position to give really good advice. She also has a very unusual ability to make the president's friends and supporters feel appreciated and part of the process.'' Birch said the criticisms of Scott are unfair, and probably are motivated by stereotypes. ''Sometimes, blond women don't have it so easy in this world,'' Birch said. ''She gets tagged with all those stereotypes. But I can't tell you how effective she is. She is as effective as she is misunderstood.'' search.washingtonpost.com

To: Zoltan! who wrote (4123)	9/8/1998 8:27:00 AM
From: Who, me?	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

Clinton urged to attack his accusers By Hugo Gurdon in Washington Meanwhile, has anyone seen the elusive Al Gore? A DEEP split opened up at the White House yesterday between presidential advisers arguing that President Clinton can save his job only by sincere contrition and others insisting that he must go to war against his accusers in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The President is being urged to sack Sidney Blumenthal, the official who urged Hillary Clinton to speak out against the "vast Right-wing conspiracy" that she blames for the crisis threatening to bring her husband's political career to a humiliating end. Mr Blumenthal, a former journalist, is known to White House reporters as "Sid Vicious" for his tendency to vilify the President's political opponents. Other advisers in line for the chop are Rahm Emanuel and Paul Begala, who have orchestrated a smear campaign against prosecutors and any witnesses with evidence of presidential wrongdoing. But these "spin warriors" are reported to be fighting back, urging the President to get his White House "war room" on highest alert to discredit his enemies. The concept of the war room as a command centre from which to devise defensive strategy was pioneered during Mr Clinton's successful 1992 campaign when scandals threatened to destroy his candidacy. Commentators describe Mr Clinton as having just one chance to "thread the needle" - he must get it right first time or he is doomed. Bill Kristol, a former adviser to Vice-President Dan Quayle, said Americans wanted to avoid resignation or impeachment and even now would accept a genuinely penitent President. But, to be believable, Mr Clinton "would have to sack people; he would have to tell the truth; he would have to apologise; and he would have to do all that before the Starr report comes out". Mr Kristol said: "He would have to fire people like Sid Blumenthal. The President's spokesmen have denied that anyone in the White House is participating in smear campaigns against members of Congress [but] it is a fact that Sidney Blumenthal has called the press to get them to look into congressmen's private lives." Even George Stephanopoulos, the former aide and "war room" veteran who, in the 1992 election campaign, threatened to tarnish those who published details of Mr Clinton's philandering, said the old tactics had to be scrapped. He said: "I think the old formulas won't work. He's got to give a full explanation and full apology." But other influential voices continued to call for Mr Clinton to resign, arguing that he has no chance of recovering either the respect of voters or the dignity of his office. Paige Patterson, head of Mr Clinton's own church, the Southern Baptists, used his pulpit on Sunday to say the President should leave office "before he is instrumental in corrupting all our young people". Mr Patterson said that Americans should not judge Mr Clinton highly merely because the economy was booming. He said: "This bespeaks a certain enthralment with materialism, which is exactly what caused the demise of Rome . . . and it will kill us, too." There are some 15.6 million Southern Baptists in America, and Mr Patterson's voice is certain to carry weight with them. Caught between contrition and attack, Mr Clinton is flailing around for an effective way out. All the time, speculation continues to circulate that there is at least one other woman, and perhaps two others, who used to be junior staff members and who could deliver the coup de grace by coming forward and claiming to have had sexual liaisons with the President. This week's Time magazine says: "White House aides themselves cannot answer the question that most bothers the President's party now: Is there anything - or anyone - else?" Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House of Representatives, will meet the top congressional Democrat, Richard Gephardt, tomorrow to thrash out how to handle the Starr report, which could be delivered to Congress as early as this week. Until Mr Clinton's botched televised confession last month, Republicans were so wary of politicising the investigation and Democrats so defensive of the President that neither party worked out what to do when Mr Starr was ready to report. They are now debating what powers the House judiciary committee should have, whether the whole report should be published, or whether only a summary should go to members of Congress not on the committee. Last February, Mr Clinton said he would "never" resign, and most Democrats on Capitol Hill believe that the President may indeed refuse to go quietly no matter what is in the report. This could result in only the second impeachment trial in American history. The only previous impeachment was of President Andrew Johnson in 1868, and he survived the ordeal when the Senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority required to remove him. There are, however, many Democrats who still hope to limit Mr Clinton's punishment to a reprimand or official vote of censure. But Democrats worry that they could lose control of the procedure - Republicans might add unacceptably strong language to the resolution - and then a debate on censure would increase rather than lessen the momentum of a Congress already hurtling toward impeachment hearings. telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000212128859152&rtmo=ke1qLJkp&atmo=99999999&P4_FOLLOW_ON=/98/9/8/wcli08.html&pg=/et/98/9/8/wcli08.html