Time: Sun Mar 30 14:18:50 1997 by primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA11264; Sun, 30 Mar 1997 12:14:12 -0700 (MST) by usr06.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA08713; Sun, 30 Mar 1997 12:14:06 -0700 (MST) Date: Sun, 30 Mar 1997 14:05:19 -0800 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar] Subject: SLS: C-NEWS: The Sleeze Continues <snip> > >Our Nomination for the best example of "Now the Frustration >Sets In: How do we get rid of the rats in the White House?" > >This appeared in the March 26, 1997 issue of Investor's Business Daily: > >The Clinton Money Scam In Perspective > >The daily drip of revelations obscures a central fact: To hold the >White House, the Clinton team didn't just work hard at raising >funds, it threw ethics overboard. > >We may never have hard evidence of actual crimes. Given how >many legalistic excuses the Clintonites had in place before >anyone asked a question, it's plain they kept an eye on the laws >all along. > >But no system can work if the only standard is the law. It's not >enough to know you can waste years fighting someone in court >if he or she does you wrong. To work together, you need to be >able to trust others to at least try to perform as promised. > >And it's now undeniable that the Clinton-Gore money hunt >didn't give a darn about the spirit of the laws. > >In the '70s, Democrats set up public financing of presidential >elections in part to limit total spending. President Clinton >blatantly end-ran this system, by using the Democratic National >Committee as his political arm through the early part of the long >'96 campaign, hoarding his ''own'' funds for later. > >This didn't just leave the president in better shape than the >nominee of the GOP, where a horde of candidates used their >limited money to beat each other up. It also kept other >Democrats from challenging him. And while a Jesse Jackson, >Bill Bradley or Dick Gephardt might not have been able to >knock him off, they might well have helped shape America's >political debate. > >Moreover, the two parties had traditionally saved this ''soft'' >money for the final campaigns. Clinton used it through '95 in a >direct war on the GOP Congress. > >The laws' spending limits don't apply to party money because >the parties are meant to be independent of candidates. But >Clinton-Gore '96 and the DNC were just two dogs on the >president's leash. > >Raising the cash required lots of unclean innovations, too. >Records from Harold Ickes, the hands-on manager for most of >Clinton's campaign, show that the White House set hard goals >for how much it would raise from each coffee -and made few >bones about telling attendees how much it cost to get in. > >The White House ditched the Reagan and Bush system for >vetting guests - and put nothing in its place. No one looked to >see if a guest was a drug dealer, arms merchant, influence >peddler or scam artist: So long as they paid, they walked right >in. > >The golden fund-raiser could do no wrong. John Huang, the >connected man from the Lippo Group, won an exemption from >normal security checks months before he took a job at the >Commerce Department. He sat in on briefings that touched his >old bosses' business, then rang them up. > >And after Huang left Commerce to join the Clinton campaign, >he got to keep his top clearance. (Meanwhile, the White House >personnel security office was reviewing FBI files on >Republicans' backgrounds.) > >Now the FBI is trying to figure out whether Huang was a >conscious agent of communist China's drive to buy Washington >influence. > >The hunt for cash even roped in Vice President Al Gore, once >known as a Mr. Clean. Gore never did fund-raising on >government property when he was a senator, but he worked the >phones as a loyal member of the Clinton team. His calls were >technically legal, it seems, because he wasn't raising cash for >Clinton- Gore '96, but for that ''entirely different'' entity, the >DNC. > >And it sure looks as if the president's friends found other uses >for the money spigots. The Clinton circle managed to enrich >Webb Hubbell by half a million at a crucial time in '94, when >the Whitewater prosecutors were trying to get him to talk. > >There's still no evidence that the White House asked anyone to >pay off Hubbell, but there's not much proof he worked for the >money, either. (We know he never finished an article he was >paid $45,000 to write.) And why hire a lobbyist who's already >headed to jail? > >As The Washington Post wrote this week, ''miracles happen.'' >Maybe Hubbell's windfall ''was a spontaneous occurrence. >That's what you are asked to believe, and perhaps you do.'' > >Most Americans still don't see anything special about the >Clinton scandals: Few of us even try to use the words ''ethics'' >and ''politicians'' in the same sentence any more. > >But standards vary by industry; you sometimes talk to >someone's peers to know if they've really crossed the line. That's >why, though we normally sneer at Washington's elites, we put >weight on the fact that the Clinton sleaze shocks the Beltway >media, as well as other Democrats. > >We were upset, back in '92, when President Bush kept insisting >that our votes should turn on the question of ''trust'': It seemed >to us that he was avoiding the many issues that divide the two >parties. > >But, as we said above, it's hard to get any business done when >you know the folks you're supposed to work with will tell any >lie, break any rule, to get their way. > >So long as the Clinton crew leads one side in the debate over >America's future, the ''vital center'' will be nothing more than a >sad joke. >------------------------------------------------------------------ > "If you aren't hearing about what's wrong with the Clinton > Administration, you must be getting your news from > NBC." > -Elefanceros >------------------------------------------------------------------ > Elephants R Us Home Page > http://www.enteract.com/~wdcook/republicans > Home of the Hillary-Ometer >------- >To subscribe to c-news, send the message SUBSCRIBE C-NEWS, or the message >UNSUBSCRIBE C-NEWS to unsubscribe, to majordomo@world.std.com. Contact >owner-c-news@world.std.com if you have questions. > > ======================================================================== Paul Andrew, Mitchell, B.A., M.S. : Counselor at Law, federal witness email: [address in tool bar] : Eudora Pro 3.0.1 on Intel 586 CPU web site: http://www.supremelaw.com : library & law school registration ship to: c/o 2509 N. Campbell, #1776 : this is free speech, at its best Tucson, Arizona state : state zone, not the federal zone Postal Zone 85719/tdc : USPS delays first class w/o this ========================================================================
Return to Table of Contents for
Supreme Law School: E-mail