Gore swings away as team debates hardball
July 20, 2000
BY ROBERT NOVAK
SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Al Gore had better watch out the next time he makes a rare
appearance in the Senate to fulfill constitutional duties as its
president. "He wouldn't have the Secret Service surrounding him,"
Sen. Arlen Specter told me. Specter (R-Pa.) is still sizzling
about a Gore aide accusing him of McCarthyism and the vice
president acquiescing. Gore can expect an earful on the Senate
floor.
He guaranteed that on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday by shrugging
off the senator's protests. Would he apologize for his press
secretary, Chris Lehane, asserting that Specter was
"McCarthy-like" in revealing a new Justice Department
recommendation for a special prosecutor of Gore's 1996 campaign
finance conduct? "No," said Gore, after cryptically commenting
that Lehane "speaks for himself."
More is at stake than the Democratic presidential candidate's
tiff with a Republican senator from Pennsylvania. Just how mean
Gore should be is being debated in his campaign. Doubts also are
rising about Gore's ability to perform on his feet. He struggled
under examination Sunday by Tim Russert while Republican George
W. Bush placidly was responding to easier interrogation on ABC's
"This Week."
Russert's long interview was nearly finished when he brought up
Specter's complaint. Exercising oversight as a Senate Judiciary
subcommittee chairman, Specter on June 22 revealed that the
Justice Department's campaign finance task force chief, Robert
Conrad, wanted a special prosecutor. Lehane quickly accused
Specter of orchestrating "a crude McCarthy-like effort" to cover
up Bush's campaign contributions from the oil industry.
Specter could not believe his ears. While a consummate
politician, he is no partisan (breaking party ranks to vote
against removing President Clinton from office and just last week
opposing repeal of the estate tax) and enjoyed warm collegial
relations with Sen. Al Gore. "To compare me to McCarthy!" Specter
said. "McCarthy told lies. I told the truth."
Lehane, an apprentice spin doctor at the White House during the
Whitewater investigation, as Gore's spokesman has been flailing
away for months. Could a 32-year-old rookie concoct this vitriol?
A Democratic friend who thinks the McCarthy-like accusation "is
way over the top" asked him. Lehane replied he would not be
assaulting a U.S. senator without higher approval.
That's what Specter wanted to know in increasingly bitter letters
to Gore June 27, 28 and 29. "I await your apology!" he concluded
the third letter. All three went unanswered by Gore, copying the
model set by Clinton in handling communications from Capitol
Hill.
When Russert brought this up Sunday, Gore further infuriated
Specter. "Has he no shame?" asked a smiling vice president,
echoing Joseph Welch's famous riposte against Joe McCarthy 46
years ago. "That wasn't an accusation that I made, but an
accusation my press secretary made," Gore added. By then refusing
to apologize, he seemed ambivalent in his campaign's internal
debate over whether he should or should not be mean.
That was not the only part of "Meet the Press" providing
discomfort for Democrats. He dodged abortion questions about when
life begins and requirements for parental consent. He would not
comment on a Supreme Court decision permitting Boy Scout
rejection of homosexual scout leaders, pleading he had not read
the opinion. "I don't think I ever wrote" a profane message
rejecting a 1995 CIA report on corruption in Russia, Gore said,
but claimed "it was a very sloppy piece of work."
Then there was Gore's response when Russert read from the book
(Truth to Tell) by Clinton-Gore defender Lanny Davis admitting
that "those [White House] coffees were held to raise money during
a political campaign." "Well," insisted Gore last Sunday, "they
were not fund-raisers."
Was Davis wrong? "Yeah, as far as I'm concerned, he is," Gore
replied. Davis in his book added no money actually was solicited
or collected at the White House coffees. Gore himself in his
April 18 sworn deposition taken by Justice's Conrad said that
people invited to the coffees "would be likely to be asked to
contribute later on."
Why didn't Gore make this distinction Sunday? Why did he feel
impelled to continue the attack on a once friendly U.S. senator?
Is this candidate ready for the presidential debates that he
seeks so eagerly? Robert Novak appears on CNN's "Capital Gang" at
6 p.m. Saturday and "Evans, Novak, Hunt and Shields" at 4:30 p.m.
Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday.
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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