Time: Wed Mar 19 19:56:40 1997
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Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 19:52:11 -0800
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: CONCHR Good News from the NYT? (fwd)
<snip>
>Friends,
>
>Good news from the New York Times?
>I never thought I'd live to see the day!
>
>Mark
>
>snip...
> Under Attack, Clinton Gets No Cover From Party
>
> By ADAM CLYMER March 16, 1997 The New York Times
>
>WASHINGTON --
>
>Democrats in Congress are offering no defense of President Clinton as
>he struggles against one accusation of improper campaign fund-raising
>after another.
>
>Because they think he never stuck up for them when they needed him,
>financially or ideologically, or because they consider his
>fund-raising tactics "smelly," or "embarrassing," or "indefensible,"
>as three senior Democrats put it, or because they do not want to take
>chances, Clinton's party is not providing the sort of verbal cover
>that Republicans gave Richard Nixon during Watergate and Ronald Reagan
>during Iran-contra.
>
>Democratic leaders like Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Rep.
>Richard Gephardt of Missouri basically duck the question of why they
>and their colleagues do not defend Clinton, saying they think it their
>responsibility only to insure a fair investigation.
>
>Only a handful of Democrats have been openly critical, and they have
>different reasons. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, who
>called for an independent counsel, has never had any love for the
>Clinton administration.
>
>Rep. David E. Bonior of Michigan did not know that a reporter was on
>hand when he told high school students that Clinton's fund-raising
>"demeans the White House."
>
>For most Democrats, party loyalty demands no more than not joining
>Republicans in the attack, and perhaps attacking Republicans for
>trying to load the investigative dice.
>
>Their silence about Clinton is not a phenomenon they like to discuss
>for the record. Asked why Democratic senators did not defend Clinton,
>Daschle said on Friday: "We have read all the allegations. We're not
>in a position to say whether those allegations are right or wrong. But
>we are certainly in a position to say, to demand, that he get a fair
>hearing."
>
>Gephardt, the House minority leader, responded similarly on Thursday,
>telling reporters, "If there were problems in what anyone did, it
>ought to be investigated." But he said what was important was to "fix
>the system" of campaign finance. He said Clinton was trying.
>
>But when two dozen Democratic senators and House members of various
>regions, ideologies and seniority were offered the opportunity to
>discuss the question without being quoted by name, they were much more
>forthcoming.
>
>"There is no personal desire of any of the members to help Clinton
>because he has never helped us," said a veteran representative from
>the Middle Atlantic region. "He didn't lift a finger for us, didn't
>want us to win. I think he is a man without a party."
>
>"We were all saying we wanted a democratic president," a veteran
>senator from the Midwest said. "Did he ever say, 'I want a
>democratic Congress' or 'I want a democratic Senate'? No, because the
>polls said it would hurt him."
>
>"There is a feeling that the president can take care of himself," one
>New England senator said, "just the way he did last year" when he
>raised millions for his own campaign but neglected his party's
>congressional candidates.
>
>Some Democrats sound less focused on what may amount to a tactic of
>revenge by inaction. They find the president's fund-raising
>procedures, and some of his fund-raisers themselves, indefensible.
>
>"I am not going to stick up for anyone who does what I would not do,"
>one junior senator said.
>
>"It is obscene. It is embarrassing," a veteran Southern
>representative said.
>
>"The Lincoln Bedroom -- that was lousy," a veteran New England
>senator said.
>
>A handful of Democrats in Congress have seen fit to complain
>publicly. Besides Moynihan and Bonior, Sens. Russell D. Feingold of
>Wisconsin and Robert G. Torricelli of New Jersey have spoken out.
>
>Feingold said he believed the time had come for an independent
>counsel. Torricelli disagreed there, but pointedly observed: "I'm not
>going to be in the position of defending the indefensible. And what is
>more, I do not believe it is appropriate for the president or vice
>president of the United States to directly solicit contributions
>through telephone calls."
>
>But a more typical public silence was reflected by a junior
>Midwesterner who said, "You just don't want to pile on and bash, but
>you don't want to defend what you don't think is appropriate."
>
>Self-protection is another motive for silence.
>
>A Midwestern House freshman said, "There is nobody here who knows
>enough about what happened over there to be comfortable staking out a
>front-line position supporting the president." Or, as a senior senator
>from the Middle Atlantic area said, there is "a reluctance of
>Democrats to be supportive, because we don't know what we're
>supporting."
>
>The veteran New England senator said that Democrats feared that if
>they defended something today, new disclosures might embarrass them
>tomorrow. "If you're waiting for the next shoe to drop, the question
>is how many shoes a centipede has," he said. A veteran Western
>representative said the fear was: "Make a defense today, you get
>burned tomorrow. They never quite get it all out. It's pretty smelly."
>
>That sort of caution can have some personal worries behind it. A
>veteran Midwesterner, scoffing at complaints that Clinton had not
>helped his party financially, said the criticism was coming from "a
>bunch of Democratic ingrates." But he said: "Most senators are always
>dancing on the edge, and once in a while you may step over. If you
>start defending Clinton, the press will start looking at you." The
>best thing to do, he said, was to "get lost" and "hope the feeding
>frenzy will die out."
>
>His comment played into another angry emotion, a sense that the
>Clinton fund-raising, and the way it has been played up in the press,
>were damaging all Democrats in Washington.
>
>Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California complained sharply at a caucus
>luncheon on Tuesday about being played all over the front pages and
>ambushed by television cameras as a result of a story that never
>accused her of having done anything wrong, just that the Federal
>Bureau of Investigation had warned her that China might try to slip
>her campaign some cash.
>
>The freshman senator said the focus by the media on Asian connections
>"may be unfairly characterizing some very good people" and added, "We
>must take care that we don't all look like criminals."
>
>A New England representative said most of the anger he had heard was
>focused on the media, whose attitude was that "Democrats aren't
>allowed to fight back" to overcome Republican fund-raising advantages.
>
>Another senior Middle Atlantic senator said Democrats feared a
>"ripple effect" from the White House. "I wish the President would stop
>falling into traps and get his story straight," he said. As the
>Southern representative said, "It's just drip, drip, drip. There is
>something every day. If it goes on, it might force some of us to say
>something."
>
>Copyright 1997 The New York Times
>snip...
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Paul Andrew, Mitchell, B.A., M.S. : Counselor at Law, federal witness
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