March 3, 1999

Dumb and Dumber

Is there no end? No, not to the allegations of sleazy Clinton misdeeds. (What is one to make of a 21-year-old rape charge when White House aides, who have learned not to rush to defend the President's honor, shrug their shoulders and say, "who knows?") The other never-depleted well in Washington is the source of Republican ineptitude. In the post-impeachment period, the GOPsters keep proving they are as clueless as Clouseau.

Once their poorly-reviewed impeachment production closed, the Republicans realized they were in desperate need of a new start. Reflexively, they turned to tax cuts. For many in the GOP, this is the policy equivalent of returning to the womb. The grand idea put forward was a 10 percent across-the-board cut. This was to be the foundation of the Republican revival. It lasted about three weeks. This past week, House Republican leaders pronounced their blockbuster win-'em-back proposal DBA--dead before arrival. Moderate and conservative GOPers, for different reasons, didn't cotton to the plan, so it was quickly shelved--before Clinton and the Democrats could attack. This episode showed that even when the Republicans are on the playing field alone these days, they lose.

The 10-percent solution was a dumb idea. According to Citizens for Tax Justice, a nonprofit research outfit, nearly 60 percent of the tax break would have benefited taxpayers hauling in more than $100,000 a year. This slice of the public would have pocketed thousands of dollars. The benefits for most Americans were slight; those making less than $38,000 would have netted $99. Moreover, the Republicans never bothered to say how they would pay for the tax cut. Were they going to use the budget surplus? If so, then they were about to mount a trickle-up transfer of wealth. Nearly the entire surplus is the result of the Social Security taxes. But those taxes are only paid on the first $65,000 of income. Using the surplus from these taxes to disproportionately dish out money to those who make more than $65,000 would have been obscene. The Republicans were indeed contemplating a raid on Social Security to benefit the rich. It's unfortunate they retreated before the public caught on.

But bad and unjust policy was not the only evidence of their cluelessness. The tax cut proposal ran counter to all public opinion polls, which rank such an initiative below other priorities, such as education and preserving Social Security. So it failed on the pander-meter. Moreover, the quick abandonment revealed that there is little strategic thinking under way in the Grand Old Party. Before unleashing a major policy initiative, shouldn't a party canvass its own and determine the plan has support? Thus, Representative Dennis Hastert, the no-name legislator who became Speaker because Larry Flynt has money to burn, failed his first test as a big-league player. Conservatives around town were aghast. One right-wing columnist explained the Republican misstep to me this way: "What's the cause of bad thinking? Stupidity."

What's next for the Republicans? There's no obvious answer for the party. But there are Republicans cooking up ideas. In Colorado, two elected Republicans--U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo and state Senator John Andrews--have signed a pledge calling for the elimination of all public schools. The pledge was devised by a California group called the Separation of School and State Alliance. Its motto: "It's not the business of federal, state and local governments to be involved in Monday school any more than Sunday school." Tancredo, who sits on the House Education Committee, told *The Denver Post* that he signed the pledge "to push the envelope of debate." Imagine if Hastert and the GOP leadership embraced abolition of public schools.

It's unlikely the Republicans will push the envelope of idiocy that far. But after the embarrassing retreat on taxes was announced, the Republican leadership kept acting like directionless whiners. At a meeting with the not-to-be-trusted president, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and House Majority Leader Dick Armey said that they would not work with Clinton on Social Security and Medicare unless he assured them that the Democrats would never use the issues against Republicans in the 2000 elections. Aren't Republicans the ones who are supposed to relish and have faith in markets, including the marketplace of ideas? If the GOP has the best proposals on Social Security and Medicare, then what do Lott and Armey fear? Are they asking that they be permitted to put forward any scheme they like and then be immune from criticism during an election? The Republicans are roaring like mice.

On Planet Weyrich

It's tough to resist dwelling on the delusions and wacky after-the-fact analyses of pro-impeachment conservatives. So why resist? It's no surprise that some of the best nuttiness keeps emerging from the Free Congress Foundation, the shop of Paul Weyrich, the social conservative leader who invented the term "moral majority." Weyrich recently sparked a media spasm when he announced that Clinton's acquittal meant that "Cultural Marxism" has triumphed in the United States and urged conservatives to turn off and drop out of U.S. culture. (It turns out the Moral Majority is actually the Demoralized Minority.) Next, Cliff Kincaid, one of Weyrich's chief lieutenants, began talking up a Miami lawyer's effort to file a lawsuit that would overturn the impeachment verdict. Kincaid is calling on the House Republicans to file suit against the Senate for violating the Constitution in its handling of the impeachment trial. Does Kincaid's proposal signal the rise of a new strain of right-wing ideology? Masochistic conservatism. Once Hastert introduces a bill to outlaw public schools, perhaps he will proceed with such a suit.

Then, Timothy Tardibono, another Weyrichian, issued his own statement seconding Weyrich's assessment. "We have lost the culture war," he asserts. "The moral poverty in this nation is epidemic." His solution: the "faith community of America" must revive the "original intent of the Founding Fathers." The constitutional midwives--make that midhusbands--of this nation, Tardibono insists, "knew that moral virtue, rooted in Biblical precepts, would be the fertile soil where honorable character traits could flourish and nourish the people. They knew that courage, duty, respect for authority, rationality, self-control, bravery, patriotism, chivalry, generosity, charity, kindness, peace and love would all help make up the difference for whatever shortcomings were present in their governing document.... The thriving church can revive the moral virtue the Founders relied on, thus creating an inevitable transformation" of the culture.

The Founders surely included some wonderful folks, but in response to Tardibono's effusions about their moral vision, a cheap shot is warranted: slavery. Why hail as shining moral examples those who failed on the greatest moral issue of their day?

If only we could turn back time, Tardibono laments. "America has ceased to be good and has consequently ceased to be great," he gripes. "Only a church-driven return to moral virtue can change the moral climate of America making the atmosphere again open to the Constitutional governance as envisioned by the Founders." How good were the good ol' days, when slavery flourished or when genocide was practiced against native Americans? Do we want to emulate the limited moral vision of the Founders? As lousy as the culture may be these days, at least when a black man is brutally dragged to his death by racists in East Texas, a historic stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan, the act is criticized throughout the land, and a popular Washington radio shock-jock who jokes about the murder in racist fashion--a fellow known as the Greaseman--is tossed off the air. Now why doesn't Weyrich and Company cite this as cultural progress?

A Tale of Two Clintons

It's almost as if two parallel universes exist in Washington. Last Wednesday night, as Juanita Broaddrick was on NBC accusing the President of having raped her and much of the capital absorbed her allegations, Bill and Hillary Clinton were hosting a state dinner for Ghana President Jerry Rawlings, where poet/Clintonista Maya Angelou praised the presidents as "two young men who have great hope for their countries."

A sexual fiend? The holder of hope for the only superpower? That's about as far apart as two notions can be. The gap is never going to be bridged, and it's doubtful Broaddrick's tale will ever be fully resolved. Conservatives embraced her account, eagerly pronouncing her credible. In poise, she was as credible as Anita Hill, the object of conservative wrath, had been during the Clarence Thomas storm. The few who dared to side with Clinton picked at the minor-but-not-insignificant holes in her story (she didn't remember the date of the alleged rape; she attended a Clinton fundraiser after the incident). Over at my home base, The Nation, Eric Alterman decried the Broaddrick episode as further proof "the right-wing slime machine" was poisoning the "American political landscape." As if the messenger was more important than the troubling allegation. (I guess NBC News is now part of the Scaife monster.) There was only one reasonable reaction to have in response to the interview: it sure could be true.

Broaddrick was on the surface credible. There's nothing in her account that automatically renders it unbelievable. Yet her allegations were not undeniably confirmed. The corroboration that does exist shows only that she told people close to her that Clinton had sexually assaulted her. That does not establish her charge as the truth. Her story is not easy to dismiss. And that makes it hard to figure out how to process this data. NOW President Patricia Ireland asked "everyone... to take her charges seriously." (Conservatives, who like to taunt feminists for going easy on Clinton and not supporting his female accusers, did not take a similar stand regarding Anita Hill.) But what does it mean to take these charges seriously? There will be no criminal investigation; the statute of limitations has long past. There is no cause for an independent counsel to probe the matter. There is no campaign in which Clinton can be confronted on this topic. Should another impeachment inquiry be initiated, based on the argument that a 21-year-old rape robs Clinton of his ability to lead the country? There is no forum in which to consider Broaddrick's charges--except, sadly, within the yapping-head circus.

The possibility that a President committed a heinous criminal act two decades ago is legitimate news, and the allegations deserve a direct reply from Clinton. (As of this writing, he had only referred to a lawyer's statement that denied the charge.) Not that Clinton's word is to be accepted, but he still owes it to the public to address the matter. But given the absence of a Clinton-stained Gap cocktail dress in this case, there will be no resolution, none of that cherished "closure" for which opinion leaders and politicians always yearn. The uncertainty will continue, and that will allow Clinton foes to brand him an evil, psychotic criminal and Clinton defenders to praise him lavishly as a servant of hope.

The debate over Clinton is only intensifying as impeachment recedes, and Clinton's personal legacy is not shaping up too well: a President who was impeached for lying about a sexual affair and who was accused of having raped a woman fourteen years before he was elected to the White House. (It could get worse, if the following comes to be added: and whose wife ran for the Senate and lost.) Even if Broaddrick's case is not proven beyond doubt, only a rash and overly optimistic person--sorry, Maya Angelou--would disregard these allegations and wholeheartedly champion the man.

-- David Corn