Who Let the Dogs In? (13 page)

“This guy is from outside Washington; he doesn’t understand how things work here; he’s from a small, Southern, podunk state; he has white-trash relatives, etc.” Perhaps the most significant difference between media attacks on Carter and Clinton is that Carter appeared to be more vulnerable to them than Clinton does. Carter always looked as though he were in pain, whereas Clinton appears to be actually enjoying himself, at least some of the time.

There are a number of psychobabble theories to account for the media’s negativity toward Clinton. One is that Clinton is not a father figure; he’s a brother figure and so much safer to attack. One is that the Washington press corps is trying to make up for its lamentable performance in the eighties (missed the savings and loan story, missed the Housing and Urban Development scandal, missed Iran-contra) by getting tough with Clinton. Another is that Clinton early on declared that he would not be a captive of the Washington press corps. He would go over its head directly to the people on talk shows and in town meetings. And so it decided to show him who needed whom in this town. And so on and so forth.

One of the alternative theories is that neither Clinton nor the media are at fault. They are both part of a political climate that has become so polarized and so paralyzed that no one talks about how to fix anything anymore.

As a recent minor example of what happens to Clinton with the media, the big Washington story a few weeks ago was that the administration had decided to concentrate on getting health-care reform passed this year. Except that instead of being about getting health-care reform passed, the story immediately became that Clinton was dropping the ball, breaking his promise and letting slide . . . welfare reform.

Now, Superman couldn’t get two bills that size through Congress in one year, and it is clear to anyone who has looked at these problems that health-care reform is the key to welfare reform. What constantly happens to women on welfare is that they go out, get a job, and start making it on their own, and then one of the kids gets sick. And the only way they can afford a doctor is to go back on welfare. Ergo, you do health-care reform before you do welfare reform. This is not rocket science.

Exactly why the media have recently decided that a nonbreaking story (see
The New York Times,
August 1992) about an Arkansas S&L is now a story—the same media that ignored the S&L disaster during the eighties because Donald Trump was so much more interesting—is beyond me. I am a great believer in thorough research on politicians who make money while holding public office. Those who lose money and then fail to deduct it on their income taxes strike me as a bit less of a menace to the public at large than, say, Lyndon B. Johnson.

One of the many theories about all this is that Clinton is a victim of “changing standards.” JFK could womanize; Clinton can’t. Reagan could get away with having his California kitchen cabinet make him rich; Clinton can’t have any questionable friends in Arkansas. And on the whole, aren’t we a better nation for insisting that our public figures retroactively meet heretofore undreamed-of standards of purity? (While the media themselves, of course, are lowering their standards considerably about what’s fit to print.)

I don’t think so. Bobby Ray Inman might not have made a good secretary of defense because he’s a classic military-industrial-complex graduate, not to mention his spook background, not to mention his less-than-impressive private-industry record. But he’s right that making the housecleaner’s Social Security payment a make-or-break issue is silly.

More than the petty list of specific transgressions (recall the tantrums when the Clinton people fired some folks in the White House travel office) is the cumulative level of cynicism and sourness that this kind of coverage has achieved. Beyond that lies a far more vicious climate of actual hate and contempt fostered by talk radio.

Clinton is a very intelligent man; he is extremely knowledgeable about both state and federal government and how they fit together. He has lots of ideas about how to fix things and is quite flexible about adapting his ideas to take account of other people’s ideas and problems. He genuinely likes people. He’s not mean, he’s not autocratic, and he’s not paranoid yet. The media have yet to give him the benefit of the doubt on anything.

January 1994

Whitewater

I
AM
WORKING WOMANFULLY
on the Whitewater scandal. I’m going to get a grip on it any day now. One of my secret vanities as a journalist is that I’m nonpartisan about ethical lapses, a veritable Ahab, I like to think, in relentless pursuit of do-badders of any persuasion.

I pride myself on the roster of Democrats and/or liberals I have roasted, toasted, and basted on matters both fiscal and moral: Lyndon Johnson, former House Speaker Jim Wright, Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock, former attorney general Jim Mattox, former Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis, etc., etc.

It’s just that every time I see Senator Al D’Amato waxing indignant about Whitewater, I start laughing. You have to cut me some slack on this: I used to work for
The New York Times,
where I covered D’Amato, who is one of the most awful weasels I ever ran across. Believe me, if you know Al D’Amato, watching him wax indignant about an ethical question is comic beyond all hope of redemption.

Nevertheless—operating on the theory that with all this horsepuckey around, there’s bound to be a pony here somewhere—I have been studying Whitewater. Here’s the deal:

Sixteen years ago—possibly on a cold, dark night—Bill and Hillary Clinton invested in a real estate deal that didn’t pan out, lost about $60,000, and failed to take a deduction for the loss on their income taxes. So far, I fail to ignite. Like Queen Victoria, I am not amused by politicians who make money while holding public office, but I’ve never had to take a stand on a politician who lost money and failed to take a deduction before. Hillary Clinton later got shrewder about tax deductions, even taking off for donating Bill’s old underwear to the Salvation Army, but that is apparently not part of the current complaint.

There follows the usual tangled tale of how the Clintons’ partner in the real estate deal, James McDougal, owns this savings and loan called Madison Guaranty that gets into the usual S&L trouble. At which point there’s the usual conflict of interest because Hillary Clinton has been hired to represent Madison Guaranty for the usual $2K-a-month retainer, and among other legal work, she represents McDougal before a state bank regulator appointed by her husband. Further conflict-of-interest charges loom on account of Hillary Clinton’s being a partner in the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, which represented several banks and S&Ls and then later, as per usual, also represented the government in the liquidation of banks and S&Ls.

At the Washington end, we get a big flap-de-do because some Treasury officials briefed some White House officials on how the Resolution Trust Corporation’s examination of Madison Guaranty was coming along, and this is a big no-no because it might look like political pressure is being put on the RTC. Gawdawmighty, if there’s a virgin left at RTC, I’d like to know who it is—gee, no one there ever would have guessed that the White House had any interest in Madison Guaranty; it’s only been on the front pages for two years now.

The only truly distinguishing feature of the Madison Guaranty saga is how absolutely average it is. Notice that I am defending no one and nothing about it; I’m just telling you this story is as common as dirt. Talk about missing the forest for the tree. The Washington press corps has found itself a tree. Well, good on them. There just happens to be an entire darkling plain out there covered with the damn things.

Had the media bothered to cover the S&L scandal back when it was happening, this story would be considered a hopeless yawner. You think the Rose Law Firm looks funny on this? Try Akin, Gump in Dallas or any of dozens of other law firms in Texas alone. You think Texas looks strange on this? You should see some of the theft that was pulled off in California. You think the RTC might be questioned on its conduct of this case? The RTC should have been questioned, grilled, and bastinadoed years ago.

The Reagan administration set up the S&Ls to be looted in 1981. It was done, and then the very lawmakers who voted for the Garn–St. Germain bill, who took money from the S&L lobby, who pressured the regulators on behalf of their home-state contributors, had the nerve to set up an ethics investigation of five senators and call it quits. Except now, they want to make an example out of Madison Guaranty to get at the Clintons. Led by Al D’Amato.

Maybe it’s pathetic of me, but I’m still not a cynic. I actually hope that Representative Jim Leach, who has a damn decent record on S&Ls, will use his hearing to get at what was wrong with the system, not just Madison Guaranty. I think that if he and Representative Henry B. Gonzalez cooperated, the two of them could actually, finally, get after the whole forest and do a world of good in banking reform and regulation along the way.

I gave up on the tooth fairy and Al D’Amato a long time ago, but I still have faith in Leach and Henry B.

March 1994

No Decency

E
XCUSE
ME, I
must have a banana in my ear: I thought you said the Senate chaplain prayed for comfort for O. J. Simpson, including the line, “Whether he is innocent or guilty rests with our system of justice, but our hearts go out to him in his profound loss.”

While your faithful media mavens were busy re-re-re-hashing the Simpson case last week, the dollar fell to a post–World War II low in the world currency markets, which means that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates again, which means you’re going to get shafted again. Whenever the economic recovery threatens to become serious, they call in Dr. Greenspan, who promptly puts a halt to it in the name of fighting inflation. Inflation, you understand, benefits debtors and harms lenders—i.e., the banks. Banks before people, that’s Alan Greenspan’s motto.

Oh, and nuclear war in Korea was averted.

Also, the president was accused of murder. Nah, not the old Vince Foster rumors; this is some guy in Arkansas who supposedly had the goods on Bill Clinton’s sex life, and even though there is no evidence whatsoever, you can hear the president being accused of murder on a videotape being sold by the Reverend Jerry Falwell for forty bucks, plus $3 for shipping.

Even when he’s not being accused of murder, the prez just cannot get a break. All the charmers who gritched about his speaking at the D-day ceremonies on account of he had enough principle to stay out of the Vietnam War would, of course, have been the very same people gritching if Clinton
hadn’t
gone to Europe. I can hear Rush Limbaugh now: “How dare the president of the United States ignore this anniversary of our heroic landing in Normandy?”

Now Washington is all agog over Bob Woodward’s book
The Agenda,
which (a) reveals that Clinton has a temper and (b) supposedly reveals that he’s indecisive.