WHEN THE MONICA LEWINSKY storm broke, many reporters wrote that Bill Clinton would lack for allies among congressional Democrats: He has always held them at arm’s length. But by the time he delivered his State of the Union address, he had them in his hip pocket. Almost in lock step, Democrats had shifted from ambivalence about the allegations to acceptance of the president’s denials. Even Richard Gephardt and David Bonior — top Democrats who have never been particularly close to Clinton — decided the charges.
The Democrats went to strange and amazing lengths to justify their loyalty to the president. What follows is a summary of the logic they employed after the president’s address.
WHAT WILL THE CHINESE THINK? Sen. Dianne Feinstein worried that media attention to Clinton’s alleged affair had become “the O. J. Simpson saga of 1998, and I think with enormous damage being done to the institution of the presidency.” Like what? Answered Feinstein, “I could look at President Jiang Zemin of China saying, “And they tell me I need a democracy?'”
How DO YOU KNOW THE EARTH’S NOT FLAT? Rep. Charles Rangel of New York had no trouble disarming reporters who inquired about the Lewinsky allegations: He demanded proof that such allegations exist. “I haven’t heard the woman make any allegations, have you?” he asked. Well, what about quotes from the infamous tapes in Newsweek? Rangel burst into laughter: “Oh, goddamn, you got me that time! Newsweek.t Now that’s different!”
I’M NOT IMPLYING ANYTHING, BUT . . . men. Joe Biden showed that he’d learned something from the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas, which he chaired. Back then, Republicans raised questions intended to undermine Anita Hill’s character. And last week, Biden was saying, “Whether there’s a causal connection between this woman and the right wing making it up, getting her to say it, if that’s the implication, I’ve never heard anybody say that” (though he just had). Biden added, “I have no evidence or no knowledge of any causal relationship between the initiation of the charge [of right-wing dirty tricks] and whether it’s true or not true.” But thanks for bringing it up, Senator.
IT’S ALL KEN STARR’S FAULT:. Rep. Nita Lowey of New York — not renowned as a critic of federal power — was full of concerns about the independent counsel. “I think Kenneth Starr is out of control,” she said. “He’s unelected, he’s unaccountable, he’s the Grand Inquisitor, and in fact I think we have to revisit the independent-counsel law as soon as we can.” Rep. John Conyers of Detroit agreed: “Let’s put it like this: I haven’t noticed Kenneth Starr ever acting friendly toward anybody in the White House.”
NO, IT’S RICHARD MELLON SCAIFE’S FAULT: Rep. John Lewis of Atlanta discerned what Hillary Rodham Clinton has described as a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” The girl [that is, Lewinsky] is a pawn,” Lewis charged, “an extension of the right-wing, radical extremist element.” Asked for some proof of his assertion, Lewis mumbled something about Linda Tripp’s being “the Forrest Gump of the Clinton administration — she always shows up where there’s trouble.” He also had total faith in the president’s veracity and observed that “the world is laughing at us.” Had Lewis felt the same way at the time of the Thomas hearings? He didn’t answer that one, declaring instead that Thomas’s views made him unfit to serve on the Supreme Court.
THERE’S SEX AND THEN THERE’S HARASSMENT: Nita Lowey gained a measure of fame in October 1991 when she and six other Democratic women in the House marched over to a meeting of Senate Democrats to urge a delay in the Thomas hearings. At the time, Lowey made no secret of her sympathy for Anita Hill. But now that a Democratic president is under scrutiny, her rules have changed. “I’m going to continue the fight for women to have a fair opportunity to get a fair hearing,” she said. “If a woman feels victimized in the workplace, she should be able to seek redress. But that isn’t the case here.”
One of Lowey’s fellow marchers in 1991 was Pat Schroeder, who is also convinced that Clinton is getting a bum rap. “There are valid cases of sexual harassment and the use of power over subordinates — this is not it,” the former congresswoman told the Baltimore Sun. Schroeder can’t find anything wrong with the president’s fooling around with a 21-year-old intern. “Wasn’t she an adult?” she asked. “Wasn’t she of age?”
Schroeder did, however, assure the Los Angeles Times that “if Clinton was calling women into the Oval Office and then attacking them, I think you would see a very different response, but that’s not the allegation.” Yet Schroeder conveniently overlooks another woman, Kathleen Willey, who has reportedly testified in a deposition that the president groped her in a room just off the Oval Office. Nita Lowey, questioned about Willey, shrieked in protest: “This is a rumor!” Besides which, “I don’t like to deal with speculation.”
DON’T YOU HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO? Rep. Barney Frank tried to scare reporters off the story and shame them into silence. Asked if the president could promote his agenda with the allegations hanging over him, Frank said, ” Fortunately, very few people are as focused as you and some of your colleagues on the president’s genitals. Most people think Social Security and Medicare are more important.” When a Washington Post reporter persisted, Frank erupted: “I would much rather be talking to people about the substance of the public policy rather than answering your fifth question in a row about the scandal!” Later, Frank charged the reporter with having “an unhealthy obsession with other people’s sexuality.”
And Congress’s Democrats, for their part, have developed an unhealthy obsession of their own: apologizing for Bill Clinton.
Matthew Rees is a staff writer for THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
