January 13, 1999

A Stay of Execution

The Senate Republicans, from their own parochial and hallowed-halls vantage, had one task to achieve last week--to protect their institutional backside. They succeeded, but only temporarily, with a compromise that permitted the impeachment trial to proceed. They flubbed the larger mission. They needed to demonstrate that they were a fair-minded, deliberative group of guys and gals who possess an abundance of respect for due process. Instead, when they found themselves sinking in Monica quicksand, they came up with an escape plan that put off the vital and hard question of whether to call witnesses. ("How senatorial," one Democratic Senate aide sneered.) And they and their Democratic colleagues acted as if they had just crafted a miraculous, modern-day Missouri Compromise. How the standards of statesmanship have fallen.

The public has long reached a judgment: booting Clinton is not the suitable punishment for his sleazy sinning. Americans have been telling pollsters that they disapprove of the GOP and feel affection (or is it sympathy?) for the Democrats. They have decided impeachment is excessive, and they have come to see the Republicans as the party of excessive and vengeful partisanship--a view that may not fade in time for the 2000 elections.

With his preliminary effort to craft a brief, no-witness trial, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott tried to throw his body in front of the impeachment train and rescue his party, which has tied itself to the tracks. But in GOP-land, destroy-Clinton desire trumped save-the-party political reality. Too many of Lott's Republican comrades would not get out of the way. They demanded the train--with witnesses--keep going. Consequently, Lott could not resolve that bedeviling matter. So, with Democratic assistance, he cooked up a process that is neither here nor there. If the House articles of impeachment are serious, they deserve serious and full consideration in the Senate; if not, they should be swiftly dispatched. Lott chose to muddle through. Each side now has to make presentations, not knowing whether they will be able to call witnesses. Then the Senate will decide if the trial should continue and if witnesses--and which witnesses--should take the stand.

Lott is trying to manage a public-alienating process so that, at least, it appears orderly and just. Prior to the feel-good compromise, chaos flowed. The trial began without any rules in place. (A berobed Chief Justice William Rehnquist was ushered into the Senate chamber in a scene reminiscent of the finale of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".) Republican Senators bickered with each other--and with the Republican House prosecutors--over witnesses. The White House justifiably cried foul, as the trial started with the President having no idea what to expect of the proceedings. Lott had imposed no discipline; he had permitted a free-for-all to ensue. This is not how you inspire confidence among a public already skeptical of the GOP impeachment crusade. (Kenneth Starr's piling-on indictment of Julie Hiatt Steele on the day the trial kicked off was another indication Clinton's foes reside in a bizarro alternative universe. This came across as ugly as Clinton's pre- impeachment-vote attack on Iraq.)

It looked as if the GOP could not extricate itself from the morass and could not figure out the basics of Washington politics. If you take on an unpleasant assignment, do it with class. The at-the-buzzer bipartisan solution, though, was a cop-out. In two weeks, Lott and his GOP Senate pals are still going to have to decide whether to throttle up or bail on the impeachment so dear to their party's die-hard supporters. Eventually Lott and the Republicans will have to anger someone: either the impeachment loyalists or the general public. It may not be fair--and in a just world, Clinton would not be in the position to be so pilloried--but the Trial of William Jefferson Clinton likely is going to say more about the Republicans than the man in the dock.

You Lie With Dogs...

This is how Clinton pay backs his friend.

With the Senate trial approaching, the President announced that he was tossing an extra $110 billion at the Pentagon over the next six years. Now, who has been Clinton's most ardent defenders? Liberal Democrats, most notably Representative Barney Frank, Jesse Jackson and his flock, and the Congressional Black Caucus. What is a consistent cry of this band? That military spending is too high, and that various social programs deserve more support. In fact, the Congressional Black Caucus used to regularly produce an alternative butter-over-guns budget that slashed arms spending to free up federal bucks for more pressing domestic needs, such as housing, Head Start, health care, job training, and education.

For all their Clinton rah-rahing, these progressives have gotten little from the President. Instead, he's doing what he has done so often: kicked his friends on the left in the teeth and bowed to the right. It is amazing that his conservative antagonists despise him so thoroughly. It must be pander- envy. To his supposed allies, Clinton has displayed little reciprocal loyalty on the policy issue most on the minds of progressive advocates these days: Social Security. You'd think that in return for their crucial support Clinton might yield on his desire to privatize a slice of Social Security. But there's no sign he is ready to relent and say no to Wall Street.

Last month, during the Nation magazine cruise in the Caribbean (which I chronicled in these pages), my Nation colleague Eric Alterman argued that if progressives boasted a stronger political organization they could have rushed to assist Clinton at the start of the scandal and then, as tit-for-tat, squeezed some good out of that no-good political whore. (Alterman noted, not incorrectly, that most pols will prostitute themselves for campaign bucks or other support.) The past few months have tested that premise. No one has embraced Clinton more than the CBC. Jackson led an anti-impeachment rally where the faithful waved posters proclaiming, "We Are For Clinton." Frank, a steady critic of military spending, has donated his piercing wit--a valuable commodity--to the protect-Clinton cause. And the butt they all are trying to save belongs to a fellow who shows no gratitude.

It's a familiar page from Clinton's tattered playbook. Dis your supporters in order to neutralize your enemies. For over a year, conservatives have been repeating a mantra: Clinton is hollowing out the military. It's a phrase that must have tested well in some focus group, for Republicans in Congress, GOP presidential wannabes, and various conservative figures have been promoting this spin ad nauseum. You even run across it in the recent direct-mail appeal for Commentary, which griped that "nobody in Washington cares that American defenses are more vulnerable than ever." (Ever?) Since the conventional view is that the economy is humming along just fine--that is, if you don't mind the bulging trade deficit, the recent rise in layoffs, the decline in job security, and a historic level of income inequality--the policy wonks of the right have been searching for anti-Clinton ammunition that does not involve sex. Increasingly, they have portrayed him as a dire threat to the military. Clearly, Clinton, the draft-dodger who attempted and failed to de-hetero-ize the armed services, has been a bit touchy in this theater. So rather than take the flak, he has dumped money on the Defense Department. The military has been his security blanket. When he's in a jam, he deploys it or funds it.

What about the claims that the military has a readiness problem? It is amusing that when it comes to, say, education, Republicans argue that we cannot throw money at the problem. (As though paying teachers more and spending more on school construction would somehow hurt the kids.) But when the Pentagon is the issue, the tune changes. If congressional Republicans and their conservative allies are so concerned about readiness, then perhaps they ought to declare war on Pentagon pork and press for those funds to be diverted to this problem. About $5 billion of the current $271 billion budget was reserved for such fat. Newt Gingrich won funding for cargo planes made near his district that the military did not request. Trent Lott obtained $1.5 billion for a helicopter manufactured in his state that was not on the Pentagon's wish list. And the Pentagon continues to insist it must be funded at a level that would permit it to battle two wars simultaneously without the help of allies. As the National Defense Panel politely put it in 1997, the two-war scenario "may have become a force protection mechanism--a means of justifying the current force structure."

Let's introduce a little perspective. Look at our potential military foes. Iraq spends less than $2 billion a year on its army; North Korea, about $5 billion (which is countered by South Korea's $15-billion military). The United States military outspends Russia's four to one. If you add up the military budgets of Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Sudan, and Cuba, it amounts to about 5 percent of the Pentagon's tab.

If readiness is in decline and needed weapons are aging, the Pentagon can find money to fix that problem if it chucks its two-war theory; or deep-sixes its plans for new attack submarines that have no subs to chase; or reduces its nuclear arsenal to START III levels; or quickens the closing of unnecessary bases (even if members of Congress howl); or rejects a new line of advanced tactical aircraft, since no hostile country can produce weapons that rival existing F-15s, F-16s, and F-18s. Clinton's decision to hand the military another $110 billion--when it is consuming money at 82 percent of its Cold War level--is a poke in the snout of his progressive defenders and a move designed mainly for the protection of a single American: Bill Clinton.

Jackson in Love

Days after Clinton fired on his left flank by announcing his military spending initiative, Jesse Jackson used his precious resources to take out a half-page ad in The Washington Post. Did he use the space to counter Clinton's budgetary insult? No, he praised Clinton, noting he has "led America out of recession; he has balanced the budget while strengthening our economy; he has helped lower the incidence of violent crime; he has improved our schools with more teachers and higher standards; he has raised the minimum wage and given a tax break to those struggling with the cost of raising a child." This was the same Jackson who used to bemoan the Clinton crime bill and decry Clinton for supporting Nafta, for toadying to corporate interests, and for neglecting urban policy. Last time I had an extensive interview with Jackson--in 1995--he was storming about his Washington office, enraged that Attorney Janet Reno was not heeding his call to undo the disparity in sentencing under which people convicted of crack-cocaine offenses (many of whom are African-Americans) were treated more harshly than those found guilty of powder-cocaine crimes. In attacking the Clinton Administration's priorities and criminal justice policies, he has repeatedly rap-preached that we need school time not jail time for inner-city youths. Now, Clinton is his guy.

The Jackson ad called for choking off the impeachment process. ("End it. Don't extend it.") There may well be a case for smothering the fire. But why pump up the Prez to push the point? Jackson in his ad copy argued the curtain should be dropped on trial so his bud Clinton could address "more challenges facing America." Care to guess what urgent matter topped Jackson's list? The racial divide in the nation? Poverty in the cities? No, the first priority he listed was "the threat of terrorism abroad." That sounded as if Jackson was endorsing Clinton's strikes on Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq--actions the pre- Monica Jackson would have assailed. Also on the list was "preserving" Social Security--even though Jackson opposes Clinton's inclination to privatize a piece of that program.

"We have seen the impeachment process deteriorate into a partisan inquisition," Jackson said in the ad. Yes, and we have also seen principled opposition to impeachment deteriorate into unfortunate and short-sighted Clinton-hugging. Jackson harrumphs that impeachment is "diversionary." Given that Clinton has been pissing on Jackson's agenda since the 1992 campaign, Jackson could be expected to think it a good thing if the President were diverted. Rather, he bathes in the waste of Clinton and pronounces it good. What a perverse baptism.

-- David Corn