WITH FRIENDS LIKE George Stephanopoulos, Leon Panetta, and Dee Dee Myers, Presient Clinton scarcely needs enemies. During Clinton’s first term, they were among his closest aides, always in daily contact with him. So their conspicuous absence now from the core group of strong Clinton supporters is striking. Rather than defend the president, they appear to feel betrayed by him. Indeed, both Stephanopoulos, who was a senior Clinton adviser, and Myers, the president’s first press secretary, have used the word “betrayal” in commenting on the president’s involvement with former intern Monica Lewinsky. Also, all three have balked at the Clinton strategy of pillorying independent counsel Kenneth Starr. Most telling of all, however, is their refusal to say they believe the president is telling the truth about his relationship with Lewinsky. And if these three, who know Clinton so well, aren’t four-square behind him, who could be?
First reactions are revealing, all the more in the cases of Stephanopoulos, Myers, and Panetta. When the sex-scandal story broke on January 21, Stephanopoulos instantly declared it serious. He said he “hopes” the president is telling the truth, a line he’s stuck with even after being pressured by Clinton advisers. And if the charges Clinton had sex with Lewinsky and then told her to lie under oath about it are true, “they’re not only politically damaging, but it could lead to impeachment proceedings,” Stephanopoulos said on ABC’s Good Morning America.
On Day Two of the scandal, Myers appeared on an ABC special. Her initial reaction? It wasn’t that Clinton had been hit with outrageously false accusations. “Your first instinct when you see something you weren’t expecting . . . is to feel betrayed,” she said. “And I think that’s an understandable reaction.” Panetta, Clinton’s budget chief, then White House chief of staff, released a written statement on January 22. Sometimes interns worked in his office, he said. But “I am not aware of any improper relationship, sexual or otherwise, between the president and any of these interns.” Not exactly a ringing defense of the president. Nor were his comments to the San Jose Mercury News: “If there is something there and it leads to [Clinton’s] having to step out of office, it may be time to do some repair work. . . . “It would be better, Panetta said, “if [Vice President AI] Gore became president, and you had a new message and a new individual up there. The worst scenario is if there’s substance to it and it drags out.” Later, the best excuse Panetta could offer to CNN’s Larry King was that the president is usually too busy on official business to fool around (“there is very little time, you know”).
What shocked Myers and Stephanopoulos was the disclosure that Lewinsky had visited the White House 37 times after leaving her job there in 1996. ” There’s no way to convince the American public that 37 visits to the White House by a former intern is routine,” Myers told Geraldo Rivera on CNBC. ” That’s extraordinary. . . . I haven’t visited the White House 37 times since I left. George Stephanopoulos hasn’t visited the White House 37 times since he left a year ago.” In fact, Stephanopoulos told an associate he’d returned to the White House only twice. On ABC, Stephanopoulos allowed there “might be innocent explanations” for the visits. “Sometimes people sign themselves in and don’t actually go,” he said. “So on its face, it’s not necessarily a damning sign, but it does raise an awful lot of questions.” The White House has yet to answer them.
The three former aides have offered plenty of public advice to Clinton on handling the scandal. But they have not urged him to step forward immediately and tell the unvarnished truth. My guess is they’re leery of what the truth may be. Still, “at some point, he’s got to present the American people the truth of that relationship [with Lewinsky],” Panetta said on CBS’s Face the Nation on February 8. Stephanopoulos touched on the matter of truth a different way. “There’s one question” basic to the scandal, he said on ABC’s This Week on January 25. “Is he telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? If he is, he can survive. If he isn’t, he can’t.” Sam Donaldson then asked, “What’s your guess?” Stephanopoulos responded: “I don’t know. I pray he’s telling the truth. You know this is hard for me. I’ve got to tell you the truth. I’m heartbroken with all the evidence coming out.” In the end, Stephanopoulos said on February 1, the president “is going to have to either apologize or concede mistakes.”
As for demonizing Ken Starr, none of the three is on board. Myers called it “a step too far.” (She also said Hillary Rodham Clinton shouldn’t have used the word “conspiracy” in attacking her right-wing critics.) Stephanopoulos has been willing to call Starr “incompetent” and “unethical,” but not corrupt, which is the White House’s favorite term for the special prosecutor. Panetta has actually spoken kindly of Starr, so much so the Republican National Committee included his comments to Larry King in a press release on February 10. Starr, Panetta said, “is somebody that does have a good reputation in Washington, and I think that he’s got to be given an opportunity to investigate the situation, find the facts. After all, he has said to the American people he’s interested in the facts and the truth. Give him the room to do it.”
More than Myers or Panetta, it’s Stephanopoulos who has given the White House heartburn. Rush Limbaugh has taken to calling him “Brutus.” Stephanopoulos has even defended the media frenzy surrounding the Lewinsky story. And he is aghast, friends say, the president would put himself in a situation where damaging accusations — even if untrue — could throw the administration and the Democratic party into chaos.
Press secretary Mike McCurry has expressed sympathy for Stephanopoulos, but others are furious. White House aide Rahm Emanuel and political adviser James Carville took Stephanopoulos to task at a lunch shortly after the scandal broke. “I heard they beat him up pretty well and then stuck him with the bill, ” says McCurry. Carville laughed when asked if he’d taken Stephanopoulos to the woodshed. “He’s my brother,” Carville said. “I love my brother. He’s said some things I wouldn’t have, and I’ve said some things he wouldn’t have.” A White House official said the conversation was “pretty candid,” with Stephanopoulos being informed he was “certainly not making anyone inside [the White House] comfortable.”
Stephanopoulos isn’t talking about the lunch, or anything else. “I have to let my work on ABC speak for itself,” he told me. It speaks loudly.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
