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

To: cody andre who wrote (19803)	1/27/1999 7:49:00 AM
From: jimpit	Respond to of 20981

LOL... Yeah, Arkancide... <ggg> The Dems are starting to assess Slick's damage to their party and the presidency. jim ----------------------------- THE WASHINGTON TIMES 27 January 1999 TOP POLITICAL STORY Democratic strategists say 'stupid' acts have done lasting damage to Clinton By Donald Lambro Bill Clinton will not be able to spin his way out of the damage done to his presidency by the Senate impeachment trial, even if he is acquitted, Democratic campaign strategists said yesterday. While Mr. Clinton and his defenders have begun to argue that the Senate's expected failure to muster the 67 votes needed to convict and expel him from office will fully vindicate him, many Democrats now say that such a claim would be baseless. "He's been damaged beyond repair and there is no way to turn disgrace into victory," said Ray Stretcher, a Democratic campaign consultant. "Clinton may not be kicked out of office but that doesn't diminish his guilt for his actions," Mr. Strother said. "The president will have to answer to history for his disgrace." Democratic strategist Phil Noble added, "His place in history is pretty well set. You can spin the press today, but you can't spin history. "I don't think Clinton will be vindicated," Mr. Noble said. "He'll go down in history as only the second president in history to be impeached and tried because of his own stupid sexual behavior." Democratic political adviser Joseph Trippi thinks Mr. Clinton's legacy depends on "what the vote is." If the vote is 55-45 on straight party lines, falling short of the two-thirds vote needed to convict Mr. Clinton and remove him from office, "I don't see how anyone can say that's an acquittal," Mr. Trippi said. "You can scream partisan vote all you want, but how do you get an acquittal from a majority vote for your conviction?" he asked. As the impeachment trial grinds on, presidential spinmeisters are even now preparing their strategy to repair the president's image in the history books and, in the words of one White House strategist, "spin history." Mr. Clinton tried to discredit independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr's investigation. Then the White House predicted that Republican efforts to impeach him would fail. The Senate, declaring it had a constitutional obligation to put the president on trial, appears ready to reject a Democratic motion today to dismiss all the charges and may call witnesses, moves that the White House has bitterly opposed. The White House lobbying line now is that anything short of expulsion would be a slam dunk political victory for the president. But many Democrats think that kind of victory would be a hollow one that no amount of media spin can change. "I don't know that vindication is a word that anyone's going to be using when this is over," said Bill Cunningham, a veteran Democratic consultant who was an adviser to former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo. "This isn't like Catholic confession. You can't wash this away. The actual impeachment will not be erased. That will always be in the record books," Mr. Cunningham said. Moreover, Mr. Cunningham thinks that the White House will be making a big political mistake if it mounts a sustained attack on Republicans after the Senate trial is over in an effort to rebuild Mr. Clinton's reputation and turn the impeachment into a partisan, right-wing plot to bring down his presidency. "If they get into fingerpointing and the blame game and the public sees that's all that's going on after this is over," Mr. Cunningham said, the president "won't have any chance to sustain his 65 percent support in the polls. If you try to spin history, you'll fail. If they try to spin the American people, they'll fail." Copyright © 1999 News World Communications, Inc. ------------------------------------ washtimes.com