So questionable is the Clinton administration’s record on fighting drugs that FBI director Louis Freeh pressed a scathing memo into the hands of the president last year denouncing the president’s lack of leadership. The letter was brutal enough that the White House is keeping the text under wraps. Even so, Clinton’s failure in the fight against drug-related crime didn’t keep the president from being hailed last month as a “tough crime fighter” by the president of the nation’s largest police union. Gil Gallegos and the leadership of the Fraternal Order of Police delivered a remarkable endorsement of Clinton on Sept. 16 — the first time the union has given the nod to a Democrat. The police endorsement effectively inoculates the president against the charge that he is soft on crime.

Gallegos made no bones about the FOP’s real reason for endorsing Clinton: ” Labor is our principal issue,” he said. In other words, it’s Clinton’s stand on labor issues, not crime, that makes him the choice of the police union. The White House supports collective bargaining; the administration pushed through a hike in the minimum wage; and Clinton’s plan to add 100,000 new cops to the streets is seen by the union as a promise of 100,000 new union members.