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

To: JBL who wrote (38676)	3/16/1999 8:34:00 AM
From: Les H	Respond to of 67261

CAN RUDY BEAT THE WHITE HOUSE? By DICK MORRIS IT sounded like an ordinary presidential radio address. Every Saturday for six years, President Clinton, like Reagan and Bush before him, has taken to the radio to deliver a 10-minute homily to the nation. Since 1995, Clinton has used these opportunities to make news about a host of topics from education to crime to Social Security. But this past Saturday was special. Clinton's topic of choice happened to be police misconduct. Funny choice of subjects. Could he be referring to the shooting of Amadou Diallo last month, the unarmed West African who died in a hail of police bullets? The White House piously noted that this was ''an obvious'' example of what Clinton meant. Now why would the president, who has no responsibility for any local police force, choose to speak out on such a topic? Is it just a coincidence that his remarks hit home to New Yorkers worried about the police under Rudy Giuliani? Could the president be trying to sully the image of his wife's putative opponent for the United States Senate? If you believe Clinton's remarks were coincidental, you don't know Bill and you sure don't know Hillary. They were the beginning of a carefully orchestrated effort to use the White House to dirty the mayor so the First Lady can defeat him for the Senate. Saying he was ''deeply disturbed'' about allegations of police brutality, the president's speech comes after his appointees to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights announced that they will hold hearings on police brutality against minorities in May. Where? Oh yes. In New York. Another coincidence. Clinton dressed up his speech with a ''plan'' to curb police brutality. He allocated $40 million to improve police training ($60 per cop nationwide - you can do a whole bunch of training for 60 bucks!). He's spending $20 million for education in integrity and ethics. Add another $20 million for college scholarships, $2 million for recruiting minority cops, and $5 million for citizen police academies to inform neighborhoods about police procedures. It all adds up to an $87-million contribution to Hillary's campaign. One suspects the president's announcement had three audiences. One was Rudy. Message: If you run against my wife, you'll have to contend with me! Another target was the voters of New York. For them, the message was simple: Rudy stinks. But the third audience was the most interesting: Hillary herself. The message for her? I can help you a whole lot more if we stay married than if you walk out. The New York press faithfully covered the president's speech. The Post headline read: ''Prez: I'll restore your faith in cops.'' Nobody even cracked a smile when Clinton said that the key issue was restoring public trust in the police. Bill Clinton's a great one to restore public trust. One word from him and it's bound to be restored! The president's posturing ignored some important facts about the NYPD. Complaints to the Civilian Complaint Review Board are down by 11 percent over the past two years, even though the size of the police force has increased. Complaints which relate to the use of physical force have dropped by almost a quarter. But since Hillary's interest in running for the Senate is up 100 percent, the criticism has started to rain down on the police of New York. The president's choice of the radio address to initiate the charges against the police is interesting. The advantage of the radio address is that it is not covered by any live reporters on location. There is no chance that Clinton would be asked any embarrassing questions like ''is this statement related to Hillary's candidacy?'' The radio address is a free shot on goal and Clinton used it Saturday in just that way. This announcement is, of course, just the start. Look for a sudden federal interest in the affairs of New York City. One suspects that clean-air lawsuits, actions against city prisons and hospitals, anti-corruption initiatives and a whole slew of other targeted enforcement actions against Gracie Mansion are not far off. We have never had a president - or his wife - run for Senate while they still control the White House. Especially not against a mayor who depends on Washington for a goodly portion of his annual operating and capital budgets. Federal revenue-sharing dollars underwrite every portion of the city budget - and so justify federal scrutiny of New York's day-care centers, foster-care agencies, welfare administration, homeless shelters, jails, sanitation collection, fire protection, purchasing procedures, contracting processes and everything else. By using a combination of speeches, conditions attached to federal funding, regulatory action and lawsuits, the federal government can basically be used to run a negative campaign against the mayor. We have often seen political rivalry between the mayor and the governor - whoever they may be - turned to the city's disadvantage at budget time, but the sight of the full power of Washington being turned on New York City's government will not be pretty to behold. This new interest of the president's is really quite a role reversal. In the past, Clinton has taken the high road while Hillary ran the negatives. She orchestrated the dumping on administration critics and the attacks on Republican adversaries while Bill remained above the fray. Now, the president is running the negatives while Hillary stays above the battle. Bill Clinton may not be faithful, but he sure is loyal.