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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zoltan! who wrote (37373)	3/9/1999 5:46:00 AM
From: JBL	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

A must read : With Clinton in Check, China Flexes its Muscles GEORGE MELLOAN HONG KONG--China seems rather benign when viewed from this city. Bankers and businessmen talk of deals afoot in Shanghai or Wuhan. Recession has only somewhat subdued the bustle of the China trade handled by the denizens of Hong Kong's gleaming skyscrapers. The beautifully engineered expressways, bridges and tunnels that link the central district with the expansive new Chek Lap Kok airport on Lantau Island enhance Hong Kong's reputation as a "pearl of the Orient." China clearly was sincere in its pre-handover pledge not to tamper with Hong Kong's role as Southeast Asia's premier commercial and financial center. Why would it want to, after all? But don't assume that that pragmatic decision reflected a Beijing wish to preserve the regional status quo. Quite the contrary. The acquisition of Hong Kong 20 months ago, coupled with the economic decline of Japan and other regional powers, has clearly sharpened China's long-standing desire to replace the U.S. as the political kingpin of eastern Asia. On Sunday, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan could hardly have been more confrontational when he warned the U.S. not to try to supply America's friends in the region with a theater missile defense system. He referred specifically to Taiwan, but implied opposition as well to a system that would primarily defend Japan, saying that such a deployment would go far beyond that country's "legitimate defensive needs." Japan would of course beg to differ. It is so uptight about the missile threat from North Korea, which has fired a test missile over Japanese territory, that a defense official reportedly has raised the issue of whether Japan should launch a pre-emptive strike at North Korea. That suggestion rattled teeth in Seoul as well as Pyongyang. Meanwhile, China, using technology widely believed to have been stolen from U.S. laboratories, is producing weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. A Pentagon report last month said China is building up its missile forces targeting Taiwan. China fired "test" missiles over the Strait of Taiwan sea lanes in an attempt to intimidate Taiwan prior to Taiwan's presidential election in 1996. Mr. Tang's warning to the U.S. two days ago says, in effect: "Don't help our neighbors build missile defense systems, because we may want to threaten them with annihilation at some time in the future." That's about as brazen as you can get. Lurking behind that brazenness, perhaps, is the belief in Beijing that it has been very successful in having its way with Bill Clinton since he assumed the American presidency. On Saturday, the New York Times carried a front-page article by James Risen and Jeff Gerth saying that the Clinton administration did nothing about a suspected spy for China working in the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories at Los Alamos after suspicious activities were discovered in 1995. The suspect had allegedly stolen crucial data on how to miniaturize nuclear weapons to enable them to be fitted on submarines that could menace the continental U.S. The story, derived in part from the still-secret results of a congressional investigation chaired by Republican Chris Cox, suggested that Mr. Clinton didn't want the spy story to surface at a time when he was trying to improve relations with China and setting the stage for a state visit to the U.S. by Chinese President Jiang Zemin in the fall of 1997. Two years is a rather prolonged stage-setting, of course. The White House brushed off the Times story with its favorite excuse, that Ronald Reagan was to blame; the miniaturization thefts reportedly occurred in the mid-1980s. But that doesn't explain what happened, or didn't happen, after the 1995 discovery. And since the suspect presumably still is beavering away at Los Alamos, who's to say that secrets are not going out the door even today? A more plausible motive for the cover-up is the fact that in 1996 Mr. Clinton and the Democratic Party were charged with taking illegal campaign funds from the Chinese. The money was reportedly returned after the story broke, but the sensitivity of the administration to those charges can be judged from the willingness of Attorney General Janet Reno to risk the wrath of Congress with her refusal to appoint a special prosecutor to probe into them. We might have learned what John Huang, a man with important China connections, was up to when he occupied high posts in the Commerce Department and Democratic National Committee but this case, like that of the suspected Los Alamos spy, remains open. You can charge a lot off to the mere incompetence of the Clinton administration, but surely not everything. Last June, Mr. Clinton finished off his goodwill tour of China by accepting, in seemingly offhand remarks in Shanghai, China's three "noes" in reference to Taiwan. In short, he buckled to China's demands that the U.S. do nothing to even suggest that Taiwan might someday be recognized as an independent state, whatever the wishes of its people. His capitulation left Taiwan's leaders in a state of shock and forced them to immediately begin taking steps toward an accommodation with the mainland, which they fear will leave them vulnerable to Chinese demands for reunification. It is of course not known what role the campaign contributions might have played in inducing Mr. Clinton to take a soft line toward a China that might have been busily stealing secrets that make the U.S. more vulnerable to a nuclear attack. Clearly that's a favor somewhat more generous than offering a night in the Lincoln bedroom. But even if it is too horrible a thought to imagine a president committing what amounts to treason, it should be clear by now that the soft line has not been a howling foreign policy success. A China that dares to tell the U.S. that it will not be allowed to help Japan defend itself against a clear and present threat, can hardly be regarded as a friendly nation. Indeed, the above sequence of events is a rather scary tale of the mismanagement of an important foreign policy relationship. There is nothing wrong with cutting China some slack and trying to support the positive forces at work there, but not when it threatens the security of the U.S. and its allies. Countering national security threats is an American president's most important job. A failure here dwarfs in importance even the lying about Monica, and perhaps Congress should give it at least equally serious attention.

To: Zoltan! who wrote (37373)	3/9/1999 8:24:00 AM
From: Les H	Respond to of 67261

re: Hillary running for Senate "It'd be great. That way, she wouldn't have to stop lying for at least six more years." Andrew Robinson, Systems Analyst

To: Zoltan! who wrote (37373)	3/9/1999 8:28:00 AM
From: Les H	Respond to of 67261

WHY AL GORE IS SUCH A BORE By DICK MORRIS NOW that he has fallen from 10 points ahead of Gov. George Bush of Texas to 20 points behind the likely Republican nominee, Democrats are entitled to ask why Vice President Al Gore remains so stiff, lifeless and formal. The cardboard cutout of Gore that tourists pose beside for photos seems warm and genuine by comparison. In private, Gore is witty, warm, subtle, emotional, and caring. In public, he is the opposite. (The president, by contrast, is cold, morose, withdrawn and remote in private. In public, he is like Gore is in private.) Gore's advisers have endlessly berated him for his standoffish platform style. He's heard their gripes. The VP even satirizes his stiffness in carefully rehearsed and scripted jokes which only reinforce his reputation for rigidity. Even when he pokes fun at himself, he still cannot summon animation. Only in routinized partisan bombast does he find any platform passion, hammering home each cliche with something that passes for fervor. So why can't he change? Because he's afraid to. This disturbing truth became apparent in the summer of 1996 when the White House convention planners suggested to the vice president that he address the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday - the day before Clinton spoke - rather than wait until Thursday, when he and Clinton would traditionally have appeared. With Sarah and Jim Brady and Christopher Reeve speaking on Monday, the convention's opening night and Hillary speaking on the second night, the campaign needed a "star" to hold the audience on Wednesday. The vice president was vociferous in objecting to the idea. "Wednesday doesn't get the ratings. Everybody watches on Thursday" he insisted. (It wasn't true. In 1992 and, as it turned out, in 1996, the Wednesday night ratings were almost as high as Thursday's.) "You don't understand," he lectured patronizingly. "I don't just give a speech on Thursday night. I accept the nomination of my party for the post of vice president of the United States of America. Besides, I can't just switch to Wednesday, my speech on Thursday has a time-honored function - to introduce the president." Told he could do his bit on Thursday, and still be the highlight of Wednesday night, the vice president ran out of arguments. "What if I screw it up?" he asked in low, barely audible voice. Here was his real fear - screwing it up. As history will record, Gore didn't screw anything up. His speech on Wednesday, where he recalled his sister's lonely battle against tobacco-caused cancer, held America in its grip for an hour. Perhaps his finest hour. But in that moment when he confessed his inner fear, the real Al Gore was on display. Reared in a family accustomed to power, overshadowed by a great senator who was his father, educated in Washington D.C. in a school not unlike the British public schools where aristocrats are bred, Al Gore clings to the traditional, the formal, and the stiff because he fears that if he shows his real face, he'll blow it. In 1988, he betrayed this same lack of confidence when his nerve failed as he pursued the Democratic presidential nomination. In that year, he had succeeded in mounting a strong populist campaign in the Super Tuesday Southern states, thereby jump-starting his candidacy after a lackluster start. The next step was for this a son of the South to show he could win in the North: He had to make good in the Illinois primary which immediately followed Super Tuesday. But Gore chose this moment to fire his populist consultants and trimmed his rhetoric. When he told his consultants why he was dismissing them, he is reputed to have said "I wanted to keep you, but my advisers felt I needed to make a change." The switch cost him dearly. His overly cautious ads in Illinois didn't work. Without populism, his message fell flat and Dukakis took the nomination from under his nose. Under Clinton, Gore has really been the chief of staff. It is he who has handled most of the difficult tasks and much of the heavy lifting. But on the platform, he has proven to be a pale imitation of the publicly garrulous, personable, charming president. In even his choice of topics, Gore seems to cling to the traditional. No longer does he tap into the brave passion of his past environmental activism, his truest self. Instead he announces the grant du jour from the White House lectern, safely crouching behind the conventional and the expected. It's time for Al Gore to realize that a close association with President Clinton is not healthy for vice presidents or for other living things. He needs to get out on his own, with his genuine convictions on display. Vice presidents do not get elected president if they remain in the master's shadow. Nixon lost in 1960 when his slogan "experience counts" hewed too close to Eisenhower. Humphrey failed in 1968 when, despite his past liberal activism, he came to be seen as LBJ II. Mondale lost in 1984 when the legacy of Carter fitted his neck like a hangman's noose. Lee Atwater saw the need to distance Bush from Reagan in 1988 and seized on the crime issue - Willie Horton and all - to craft a separate identity for the vice president. The greatest myth in Washington these days is that Clinton's poll numbers remain high. While his job approval is, indeed, solid, his personal favorability has crashed by more than 20 points since Monica. To win, a vice president must leave the White House nest, fly on his own, and make a new home in a new tree. Start flying, Al.