Hillary: more sinner than sinned against?
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Washington
Public will see Clinton video
IF Shakespeare had written a drama about the Clintons, it would
surely have been Hillary Rodham Clinton who captured his
imagination. The President, ultimately, is a cipher. The descriptions
of his onanistic encounters with a White House intern and a
wastepaper basket do not rise to tragedy.
But Hillary is a genuinely tragic figure. She was raised in a stern
Methodist family in Chicago, of Welsh antecedents; her air of
righteousness is daunting to behold. She did not quite deserve to be
fˆted by the press early on as the Florence Nightingale of the Ozark
Mountains, or painted as the martyred "St Hillary" on the cover of
the New York Times magazine, but her reputation as a moral
crusader was well earned. She was the embodiment of the reformist
impulses of the 1960s generation, the champion of all the worthy
causes of American Left-liberalism. Unlike her feckless husband, she
sought the power and prestige of the White House for a purpose.
So it will set off a cultural earthquake if she is indicted for perjury
and obstruction of justice by a federal grand jury. It could happen
today, or next week, or next month, or Kenneth Starr may decide,
after all, that he cannot risk a trial that might lead to her acquittal.
Fear that a jury could ignore the evidence, as happened in the "jury
nullification" of the O J Simpson trial, has restrained the Office of the
Independent Counsel until now. But the rumblings in Washington,
Little Rock and, above all, at the grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia -
with its catchment pool of white, conservative, southern housewives
- suggest that Mr Starr has finally made up his mind.
Reading the American press, one would never know that the First
Lady is in serious jeopardy. She is invariably portrayed as a victim of
the Monica Lewinsky affair, a sympathetic figure who has decided to
endure humiliation and stand by her man. The news coverage has
been ritualised by the courtier press corps of the White House,
which keeps up the pretence that the Clintons have a relationship
that any normal citizen would recognise as a marriage. Much
attention is given to her body language; whether she stiffens at her
husband's touch, whether she avoids his look. The usual tripe.
They fail to credit her skills as an actress, and neglect to mention her
all-consuming will to power. It was she who screwed Bill Clinton's
courage to the sticking-place before the 1992 presidential campaign.
Secretly, she had employed a private investigator in Arkansas, Jerry
Parks, to conduct surveillance on her own husband for future use in
divorce proceedings in case he decided not to make his bid for the
White House. Mrs Clinton is a very tough nut.
This is not to say that their relationship is purely for show. I have no
doubt that it is intimate, if twisted. They are partners in a political
venture, with an investment to protect. He is the showman, she is the
organising force. In the first two years of the Clinton presidency this
became too evident. Operating as, in effect, prime minister, she took
charge of the domestic political agenda and tried to push through a
quasi-nationalisation of the health-care system. It crashed on the
reefs of Capitol Hill. The Left-wing tilt caused the Democrats to lose
control of both the House and the Senate for the first time in half a
century. Thereafter she refashioned her image, as she has done so
many times before. She retreated into the ceremonial role of First
Lady, at least in public, and clawed back the esteem of the
American people, one good work at a time.
If it were not for her legal jeopardy, history would judge her perhaps
as a great First Lady, on a par with her model - and seance
interlocutor - Eleanor Roosevelt. But "if" is everything. A relentless
judicial process is pursuing her. Last week Mr Starr reported to
Congress that "evidence is being gathered on the Rose Law Firm's
representation of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association",
followed by the kicker: "All phases of the investigation are now
nearing completion."
Hillary Clinton is now in the cross-hairs. She was the attorney of
record for the Rose Law Firm in its dealings with Madison Guaranty,
a building society that was systematically looted and defrauded by
the Little Rock elite. It was kept open by Governor Clinton's
administration against the advice of outside auditors, leaving the US
taxpayer with a $60 million bill for deposit guarantees. The owner of
Madison Guaranty, Jim McDougal, was also the partner of the
Clintons in the Whitewater property venture, a sweetheart deal in
which they shared half of any future profits while being shielded from
the losses.
It has not gone without comment that this cosy arrangement was
offered to the Clintons by Jim McDougal at exactly the time when
they first moved into the Governor's Mansion in Little Rock, that is
to say when they took control of the state regulatory apparatus.
Perhaps this was merely fortuitous, just like the $100,000 in cattle
futures profits made during that same period by Mrs Clinton, under
the tutelage of the state's biggest agro-industrial conglomerate.
The statute of limitations for possible corruption charges passed long
ago. But Mrs Clinton is still vulnerable if she lied under oath or
engaged in obstruction of justice. Mr Starr is homing in on her
testimony in three episodes: a $2,000-a-month retainer that she
received from Madison Guaranty; her alleged role in thwarting
auditors in a venture called Flowerwood Farms; and, most
important, her role as a lawyer in a land deal known as Castle
Grande.
Regulators have described Castle Grande as a "series of flips and
fictitious sales" designed with fraudulent intent. Mrs Clinton denied
that she was the obliging lawyer who drafted the legal documents for
this sham. "I don't believe I knew anything about any of these real
estate parcels and projects," she said under penalty of perjury. The
Rose Law Firm billing records for the transactions had disappeared,
so she could not be contradicted. But in a vile stroke of luck for Mrs
Clinton, the records turned up two years later. They showed that she
had billed Madison Guaranty for 14 meetings and conversations
related to Castle Grande. This is the shoe that could drop at any
moment.
It is sad for those who invested so much hope in Hillary Clinton. The
1960s generation often used to say that the world would be a better
place when they reached positions of power, and their ideals
prevailed. That is the proposition now being put to the test. Mrs
Clinton is quintessentially one of theirs. |
