Final Days II

NOTE: As the Whitewater scandal appears to be headed towards some sort of denouement, we will try to keep our e-mail readers up to date more frequently. In May 1992 we published a four page report on what would later become known as Whitewater. Since then, we have been the only non-conservative publication to give its readers thorough and accurate coverage of Whitewater. We try to tell the truth even when it hurts.

Americans are getting a highly skewed view of what is really happening with Whitewater. Papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post have become extensions of the White House spin machine, particularly in its attempt to kill the messenger bringing the bad news about the Clintons -- special prosecutor Kenneth Starr. While these papers conceal damaging facts about the Clintons, they run perception pieces such as the Times' front page hatchet job headlined: Whitewater Case at Crossroads, Prosecutor Faces Wider Attack. Yet even this story had to admit that "both supporters and most critics say that Mr. Starr has not violated any ethics rules." In other words, there's no story in our story but that won't stop us. A few days later the Times' story on the Whitewater hearings included the palpably false pull-out quote referring to "a palpable sense that the problems of Whitewater are dissipating."

It is not easy to understand the Washington establishment's ethical code. The same media that tells us that Starr should resign, also implies that any corruption in which the Clintons might have been involved is too trivial to worry about. Clinton leads the capital elite in deep mourning for Ron Brown but can't interrupt his golf game to go to Ed Muskie's funeral. Clark Clifford and Robert Strauss, who built their lives on blurring the line between public and private functions, are revered here while Starr -- following similar if less than admirable legal practice -- is excoriated. The Post gives the front page lead over to $20,000 in public funds being used on Mayor Barry's house but can't find room for decent coverage of Whitewater. And so forth.

It's hard to cite the most egregious of the Clinton groupies in the media. Mary McGrory, Frank Rich, Richard Cohen, Lars-Erik Nelson, Diane Rehm, Anthony Lewis and Molly Ivins are all in the running. But for sheer post-modern amoral chutzpah it's hard to beat Michael Kinsley's recent piece in Time in which the centrists' favorite cyberpunk asked: "Why is Clinton's 'character' such a liability to him, when by any reasonable reckoning his professional and personal failings average out to a level of moral compromise so typical among presidents and presidential candidate that it almost amounts to a job qualification? "

Meanwhile, behind the media spin and censorship, the story continues. Here are a few things you probably haven't read in your morning paper:

• Starr has hired Roger M. Adelman to be senior counsel. Adelman was with the Justice Department for eighteen years and directed the famous Abscam prosecutions. He also prosecuted John Hinckley, Jr. Unlike much of the media, Adelman apparently believes there is something to the Whitewater matter.
• Largely unquoted by the pro-Clinton press was the defense of Starr by his former chief deputy -- Democrat and Carter administration official, Mark H. Tuohey III. Said Tuohey, there is "absolutely no evidence" that Starr has done anything "but park his politics at the front door." Tuohey continued, "Any decision that was made with respect to any of the investigations that has been completed or those being completed was made after a careful review by people with a lot of experience . . . If that had not been the case and if politics had played a role, I would have changed it. No one in that office would have tolerated it."
• The media keeps giving the false impression that the so-called Pillsbury report on Madison S&L cleared the Clintons of wrong doing. For example, the April 25 Times dutifully quotes without clarification the president's statement that "even the RTC says it [Whitewater] was never anything to start with, which is what I tried to tell people all along." In fact, the report said, among other things that "when all factors are taken into consideration, litigation . . . may only be marginally cost-effective. If vigorously defended, [the cases] could be expensive to litigate, and, given the likelihood of a hometown jury there is no certainty as to the outcome -- despite a factual pattern which would amply support claims for fraud, conversion and abetting."
• According to Chistopher Ruddy, one of the few reporters really digging into the Foster death, Susan Thomases says that her official statement concerning the incident prepared by the staff of former special prosecutor Robert Fiske is wrong. Thomases statement came in the wake of inconsistencies between this statement and quotes from her in Blood Sport.
• According to the Whitewater judge, President Clinton's testimony may take as long as eight hours.
• A major new book on Clinton is due out in early June. The book, Partners in Power, written by Nixon biographer Roger Morris -- a former LBJ administration official -- promises not only major revelations about Whitewater but about the Clinton's seedy rise to power. An article in the New York Observer describes the book as "much bigger in scope than Blood Sport and far more devastating." Morris spent three and a half years working the book, which is being rushed into print long before its original fall launching. According to the Observer, Morris said he was "was not quite ready for the vitriol and ad hominen attacks" in the response to copies of the text sent out with confidentiality agreements to the usual Washington-New York outlets."
• The Wall Street Journal on April 18 gave major space to one of numerous grim stories lurking on the edges of the Whitewater scandal. This tale, featured in a British TV documentary but virtually unknown to Americans, involves the mysterious deaths of two young boys in Arkansas and the dubious investigation that followed. There is a strong suspicion that the boys died because they happened upon a air drop connected to the Mena drug-running operation.
• Serious questions have been raised about the veracity of official statements concerning the crash of the plane carrying Ron Brown and others -- particularly the alleged weather conditions. Aviation Week and others have reported that the weather was far better than the White House claims.

So what's really going on in Washington these days? There are all sorts of rumors. There is no doubt that the current trial is only the tip of the prosecutorial iceberg. Starr has been adding highly skilled assistance even as the White House tries to spin the story away. He has said there will be at least two more trials -- one involving the 1992 presidential campaign. A Tucker-McDougal acquittal would be trumpeted as highly damaging to Starr, yet the investigative teams -- including scores of FBI agents -- have so much invested that it is unlikely that they will cave just because of public or press perceptions.

There does seem an increasing likelihood that Clinton will resign. If he does so, it raises the unpleasant possibility that much of what Starr and company sought to uncover may be permanently buried in the manner of the BCCI and October Surprise investigations. This could be accomplished by the new president, Al Gore, pardoning both the Clintons, thus bringing the formal inquiries to a close. Since parts of the scandal -- particularly the drug running at Mena -- deeply implicate the GOP and intelligence agencies, a lot of people in Washington might be very happy to see the story end this way.