Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
By Anthony Lewis\
BOSTON If there has been a slimier political act in Washington in recent
decades, I do not remember it. Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind.,
reached depths of
degradation in publishing transcripts of telephone
conversations that Webster
Hubbell had, from prison, with his wife, friends and
lawyers.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons tapes prisoners' calls to
guard against threats
to security. Its regulations forbid disclosure of their
contents, as does the
Privacy Act.
Burton, chairman of a House committee that is
investigating campaign
finance, subpoenaed the Hubbell tapes. He said he
needed them to pursue an
inquiry into whether Hubbell had been paid hush money
for silence. But he
edited out exculpatory remarks by Hubbell, including a
denial of the
hush-money notion.
In turning the tapes over, the Justice Department said,
"We understand the
committee appreciates (their) sensitivity and will
safeguard them accordingly."
Burton ignored that, an aide explained, because "the
American people had a
right to know what happened." The real purpose was of
course to smear
Hubbell's friend, President Bill Clinton.
Burton once fired a bullet into a melon to prove that
Vincent Foster did not
commit suicide. He is a fanatic ready to believe, and
propagate, anything that
will hurt Clinton.
When Hillary Rodham Clinton said her husband was the
target of "a vast
right-wing conspiracy," she was much mocked. The word
conspiracy evokes
the unlikely picture of men plotting in secret
meetings. But no one can doubt
that many people and institutions on the political
right are dedicated to
destroying Clinton. Like Burton, they need no
instructions from a conspiracy.
Richard Mellon Scaife reportedly funneled $2.4 million
through a right-wing
magazine, The American Spectator, for what was called
the Arkansas
Project. It was a secret operation to find evil about
the president - or invent
it, like the tale that he helped to fly drugs in
through an airport at Mena, Ark.
Kenneth Starr's principal deputy in Little Rock, W.
Hickman Ewing Jr., was
the subject of a recent profile by Jeffrey Toobin in
The New Yorker. His
record, and his own words, portray a prosecutor who
sees himself as the
sword of God and who has decided, as Toobin put it,
"that the president and
his wife are crooks."
Starr, the Whitewater independent counsel, is not in
the fanatical category of
a Burton, Scaife or Ewing. But he has gone very far in
his effort to find
something that he can report to the House as a possible
impeachable offense
by the president.
Last week Starr had a grand jury indict Webster Hubbell
on numerous
charges, principally obstructing tax administration.
Hubbell's wife, accountant
and lawyer were also indicted.
"That's very hardball," a U.S. attorney in New York
under President George
Bush, Otto Obermaier, said. It is unusual to bring a
criminal rather than a civil
case on such tax matters, and this was brought without
the customary review
by the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue
Service. Starr hopes to
pressure Hubbell into saying damaging things about
President and Mrs.
Clinton.
Starr is trying, for the first time in our history, to
make Secret Service agents
who guard the president testify about his personal
life. He is taking that
dangerous step in hopes of getting evidence that
Clinton lied about a sexual
relationship - lied in a deposition found to be
immaterial, in a civil case that
has been dismissed.
Clinton has made what I regard as grave mistakes of
policy, and he may have
done private wrongs that are the subject of so much
innuendo. But the
behavior of his enemies seems to me - and I think to
much of the public - far
more dangerous.
At his press conference last week one reporter after
another asked the
president about his "moral authority." They might start
asking about the moral
authority of Burton, Scaife and the other haters. And
they might start thinking
about what will be left of our constitutional balance
on Jan. 20, 2001, when
Starr will presumably stop haunting the presidency.
--
Two rules in life:
1. Don't tell people everything you know.
2.
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