February 24, 1999

What's Next?

At the end of The Truman Show, the whole planet breathlessly watches as Jim Carrey's Truman Burbank, who has unknowingly lived his whole life on a television program, decides whether to leave the set and enter reality. When he steps off the giant sound stage, the most popular show in history is done. And in the movie's last scene, one garage attendant, who's been watching intensely with a coworker, looks at his bud and, without pause, says, "What else is on?" It's over, time to flip.

There's been much flipping since Hyde and the Gang skulked out of the Senate, rejected and empty-handed. The mopping-up will continue for some time. Judge Susan Webber Wright, who presided over the Paula Jones case, raised the possibility that Bad-boy Bill might be held in contempt for dissembling during his Jones deposition. Kenneth Starr reportedly is pondering whether to indict the President. He also has four cases to try, two involving Webb Hubbell, one targeting Kathleen Willey's onetime friend Julie Hiatt Steele, and another against Susan McDougal. But the thrill is gone. Even MSNBC's John Gibson, who unlike Keith Olbermann never seemed to tire of Monicagate, was last week telling Larry Klayman, the conservative legal activist who has filed about 10,000 lawsuits against the Clintons, to hang it up. (True, as Gibson was berating Klayman, he was granting the mad-dog, anti-Clinton, addicted-to-litigation lawyer an hour of obviously not-so-precious air time.)

How to fill the void? I found myself sucking up the latest facts in the JonBenet Ramsey case. Unfortunately for the media, the O.J. Simpson auction was a bust. But thank God for Hillary Clinton. She provided Washington and political junkies plenty of post-impeachment buzz. It was mainline, a pure high. Talk that she might run for Senate in New York spurred more talk that she might run for Senate in New York. And that spurred her to say she was thinking about running for Senate in New York. And that spurred more talk....

What better to keep the national soap opera alive? (Okay, maybe Clinton leaving Rodham Clinton for Monica Lewinsky, but let's be real -- for now.) Immediately, the armchairs were overflowing with unofficial Clinton shrinks endeavoring once more to divine the nature of this bizarre marriage. Pundits, myself included, assessed the odds of her entry and her success. There was much respectful chatter of her chances, which was buttressed by pleas from the Empire State.

Adultery has been good for Hillary Clinton. Her husband's caddish behavior has won her sympathy. Embarrassment has given her a political future. Most of what could and needed to be said about her potential Senate bid was uttered within minutes of the story hitting Zeitgeist Central. She's never run for anything... the New York media will carve her up... she'll have problems being First Lady and a candidate... etc. The New York Post pleaded with her to jump in and, to my surprise, its I-dare-you editorial appropriately zeroed in on the most telling episode in The Hillary Show: the commodities deal.

Those of you who can think back to the days before Monica will recall the 1994 revelation that years earlier Hillary, while First Lady of Arkansas, parlayed an initial investment of $1000 in risky cattle futures into a net gain of $100,000. It was a wizard-like performance; it also was quite suspicious. Before we learned that the account was arranged by a Clinton crony and managed by a firm with a questionable track record, Hillary had, by way of explanation, claimed that she had picked her own investments after perusing The Wall Street Journal. That was akin to a gal saying she flew to the moon after reading Aviation Week magazine. This was about as bold a lie as could be. It was not a misstatement or a slip of memory. Anyone not already rich who had cleared $100,000 after nosing through the WSJ would have a crystal-clear memory of that tremendous feat. A person does not misremember something so memorable. No, Hillary was smothering the truth -- whatever it was. The self-righteous defender of the children and the poor had acted like a grubby yuppie, and she had not dared expose her inner-insider. From that moment on, she proved she was a scoundrel. Forget all the Whitewater shenanigans, or her sell-out of universal health care coverage, the commodities deal provides sufficient information for rendering harsh judgment.

One, though, can hardly fault her for enjoying the Senator Hillary blather. She did not start this media mini-frenzy. The Run-Hillary-Run movement was launched when Senator Robert Torricelli, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, saw no Democrat with statewide muscle who might be able to discomfit Rudy Giuliani. So he went shopping for a brand name. But the two men truly responsible for the feverish speculation about Hillary are ex-Governor Mario Cuomo and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the retiring senator whose seat HRC is eyeing. It is only because the New York State Democratic Party is so enervated that New York Dems have had to look beyond the Fresh Kill dump for a candidate to joust with Giuliani. When Cuomo was governor, he did little to build and bolster the party. He led no effort to win over the state senate. He developed no bench. He wanted to share the limelight with no one. And Moynihan has never been much of a party man -- and by that I do not mean party hack, but a politician who nurtures a strong and vibrant party structure. Moynihan hails erudition over organization. Chuck Schumer did oust Al D'Amato in November. But that was less a sign of Democratic resurgence than testament to the power of $20 million. For New York Democrats, recruiting Hillary is a short-cut; they're substituting celebrity for party organization.

In Washington, much of the early -- and cheap -- talk held that Hillary would win with ease. John McLaughlin tried to convince me that if she flees D.C. for New York, Giuliani will show his tail and duck out of the race. But what choice does Giuliani have? He's term-limited out of City Hall at the end of this term. He's not foolish enough to mount a kamikaze run against Governor Pataki. There's not going to be room on the national ticket for an abrasive, do-it-my-way little dictator. He can hope a Republican wins the White House and invites him to be Attorney General. But the only way he can control his political future is to chase after Moynihan's Senate seat. If he lets this opportunity pass, he could be frozen out of New York politics. Moreover, he can run strong against Hillary. No Democrat can win statewide without whomping the GOPer in the city, and Giuliani remains the hometown kid. Last week -- long after Giuliani pissed off whoever he is going to in New York and long before Hillary has submitted herself to the rigors of a campaign -- her lead was but 11 points in the polls. Remember, Bobby Kennedy had a not-so-easy time beating Senator Kenneth Keating in 1964, and he was the brother of a martyred President. Hillary is merely the wife of a louse and a partner-in-lying.

Still, to save us from the pit of the JonBenet Ramsey story, I hope Hillary tosses her halo into the ring. What else is on? The national media has many reasons to be keen on the race. Every news outfit has a bureau or headquarters in New York. The camera crews are already there. It will be cheap to cover. And who wants to watch John Gibson dissecting proposals for Medicare reform?

Post-mortem Ad Nauseam

Paul Weyrich, the Christian right leader, blew hot air on Monicagate's dying embers when last Tuesday he threw up a white flag in the culture war. In an open letter, Weyrich, who has received millions of dollars in subsidies from loony right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, declared Clinton's acquittal an unqualified defeat of the social right: "I think we are caught up in a cultural collapse of historic proportions, a collapse so great it simply overwhelms politics.... If there really were a moral majority out there, Bill Clinton would have been driven out of office months ago.... I no longer believe that there is a moral majority. I do not believe that a majority of Americans actually shares out values." He called on social conservatives to "quarantine" themselves from "this hostile culture" and advocated they withdraw from mainstream society, yank their kids out of the school systems, and create their own radio networks and "private courts" -- anything to escape what he calls "Cultural Marxism."

In other words, America -- hate it and leave it.

Back in the 1960s, conservatives told lefties to take a hike if they opposed America's value systems. Now Weyrich is advising his own conservatives to bug out in survivalist fashion. Maybe Scaife will give him millions more so he can create his own quarantine camps.

Over at The Weekly Standard -- or back on Planet Earth -- the reactions were slightly less hysterical. The Rupert Murdoch-supported magazine published a forum of after-acquittal analysis. First up -- oddly or, perhaps, appropriately -- was Elliott Abrams. This fellow, who now heads an outfit dubbed the Ethics and Public Policy Center, was once a Reagan State Department official, and, during Iran-contra days, he pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress. Yet now, as an advocate of ethics, he moaned that thanks to Clinton, "The value of an oath has been undermined. The notion that public service requires men and women of good character now seems quaint." One almost has to admire the Standard's cheekiness in allowing Abrams to preach about integrity in government.

Other responses were heartening to anyone who wishes to see Republicans and conservatives further alienate the public. James Cesar, a University of Virginia professor, called on the GOP to make "defending the legitimacy" of the Clinton impeachment "a cardinal objective for Republicans." He noted that Republicans "have discovered that they are far less a party of populism, and far more a party of constitutionalism." Yes, that does sound like the solid basis for a successful electoral strategy. You go, Cesar. A Princeton professor named John DiIulio decried Clinton's non-removal as a sign of the "creeping paganization of American politics and culture." (Another one, he suggested, is religious acceptance of "any form of consensual sex between adults." Did he mean homosexuality?) I can't wait to hear House Speaker Dennis Hastert wail against the "neo-pagans." Such a platform, no doubt, will stir millions to sign up with the Republicans. David Gelernter, a contributing editor of the magazine, blamed the press. How creative. Well, somebody had to. "House Republicans have never explained themselves directly to the people," he maintained. Guess he doesn't have cable and missed the hundreds of interviews the House managers eagerly provided, in which they too accurately displayed themselves and their arguments in public. By the way, the House Republicans also controlled a set of impeachment hearings that managed to attract attention and provided them a platform to make their case. Still, Gelernter wrote, "I wish they would do it just one more time." One more presentation and that would do the trick and win over America? He is obviously in the final degenerative stage of Wishful Republican Syndrome. Send flowers.

It was stunning to see so many conservatives intellectually shipwrecked on the shoals of Monica. Cranky Charles Krauthammer noted a greater threat than Bill Clinton looms: Hillary. As part of the continuing culture war, he prophesized, she will "undoubtedly achieve elective office" and "the other side will now have a more ideologically committed, more disciplined, and... more sympathetic champion than Bill Clinton ever was." Perhaps it is time to head to the hills with Weyrich. Dennis Prager, a radio gabber in Los Angeles, observed that this national trauma showed that there "is a culture war, but it is not symmetrical. Most conservatives despise two people: the Clintons. Most liberal despise millions of people: conservatives, especially religious ones. In general, conservatives deem liberals wrong; liberals deem conservatives evil." Do they bother to fact check at the Standard? If so, let's see the data underlying this assertion. Before repeating this drivel, Prager should consult with Weyrich, who seems both to despise and to deem evil most Americans, particularly the liberals. Jeremy Rabkin, a Cornell University professor, noted that the Republicans failed because they pressed ahead with Monica-related impeachment articles and left behind charges that Clinton had wheedled campaign contributions from Chinese communists and had run "blackmail and spying operations on opponents." One slight problem: these supposedly neglected charges were never proven. (Thank Representative Dan Burton and Senator Fred Thompson, in part, for that.) And Cornell allows Rabkin to teach constitutional law?

One wonders if Weyrich and his cult-like followers, once they construct in Truman Show-fashion their own pure, alternate-reality world, will be reading the Standard in their underground, culture shelters. They ought to, so they can keep in touch with the unrealities of the conservatives who stay behind.

-- David Corn