May 19, 1999

Meet the New Boss

Picture Al Gore and his advisers holding a late-night strategy session to brainstorm about the problems facing the Second Man. He's doing poorly in the polls. The war in Kosovo could turn into political quicksand. He has stood by a fellow tainted by personal misdeed and campaign finance improbity. His semi-flailing campaign has not yet persuaded the public Gore stands for anything other than politics-as-usual. Imagine someone in the smoke-free room piping up: "I know what we do. Let's bring in as campaign chairman a party hack who was investigated for ethical troubles and is best known as a shake-down artist for campaign funds. That will do the trick." A political lay person might expect that this aide would be banished, perhaps packed off to the campaign office in charge of crafting the contingency plan for a race against Dan Quayle. But in Gore-land, such a suggestion is cheered and approved. Thus, last week, Gore decided to name Tony Coelho, the former congressman, as the head of his campaign.

Coelho, a Democrat from California, was majority whip in the House of Representatives before resigning in 1989, as ethics investigators, not so coincidentally, were probing his personal finances. His abdication came shortly after House Speaker Jim Wright was forced out due to a scorched-earth ethics inquiry launched by a little-known congressman named Newt Gingrich. Coelho is renowned in Washington for his creation of a money-gathering machine for the Democratic Party. In the early 1980s, he and a few colleagues looked at the lock the Republicans had on corporate contributions and asked, why can't we do that? They had a point, for the Democrats controlled Congress. If business interests wanted access to the folks who ran the committees, the lawmakers truly in charge, they could pony up for the Democrats. The Coelho plan worked, and the money flowed into the Democrats' pockets. The Dems still continued to be outraised by the Republicans, but Coelho ushered in a new era of pay-to-have-a-say fundraising. He specialized in hitting up business political action committees and squeezing soft money out of various industries. He blazed the trail that led to the scandalous fundraising practices of the Clinton-Gore gang. Coelho is the prodigal money-man come back to the Democratic (not Buddhist) temple.

One of Gore's liabilities is that after seven years of Clinton--it feels like an eternity--he is the candidate of same old/same old. He is too much a part of an administration of which many Americans have grown tired. He is too much a part of the Washington crowd. Coelho--a symbol of campaign finance excess--only reinforces these Gore negatives. Bill Bradley, the former Knick and former Senator challenging Gore for the Democratic nomination, had to be pleased by this development. At house parties across the country, he's been talking up the need for campaign finance reform. "What could be better for us?" a Bradley aide asks, with a chuckle. Yet a few pundits hailed the selection. Morton Kondracke declared, "Coelho is about as smart a Democrat as there is ... I think the Gore team needs high-level help, and he needs to attract the best people there are in the Democratic party." NPR's Mara Liasson opined, "Tony Coelho is a good choice. He's a grownup. Hopefully he can be the one leader of this campaign." When conventional commentators praise such a conventional move, Gore ought to worry.

Panic among the Gore-ians is premature. Opponents who at this moment appear capable of robbing Gore of his to-the-White-House-borne destiny--Bradley and Bush--are novices as presidential contenders. With the primaries eight months off, there's plenty of beyond-the-campaign events that could occur and affect the race: a stock-market crash, another war, a Y2K disaster, one more Clinton scandal. But, clearly, Gore is not coasting. Recently, a poll in Tennessee--his home state (well, he spent summers there when not growing up in a downtown Washington hotel)--placed Gore in a statistical tie with Texas Governor George W. Bush. In the survey, Gore lost 51 to 43 percent among men and triumphed 49-35 among women; his favorable rating was 52 percent to Bush's 49 percent. This was certainly a sign of trouble for Gore, even if such early polling should not be taken too seriously. But by turning to Coelho, a money-grubbing poobah of the Democratic Party establishment, as his savior, Gore demonstrates he does not recognize one of his basic flaws. For Gore supporters, that should be a reason for real fear.

Combat Pay

It was predictable. Right after NATO war planes mistakenly bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and killed two Chinese journalists, the friends of the CIA cried out that this intelligence screw-up was proof the CIA was underfunded, and they demanded more bucks for the intelligence agency. Senator Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican who chairs the appropriations committee, Representative Porter Goss, a Florida Republican who runs the House intelligence committee, Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican who oversees the Senate intelligence committee, and Senator Bob Kerrey, a Nebraska Democrat who sits on the Senate intelligence committee, each shouted for more funds for the spies. Robert Gates, a former CIA chief, cited budget cuts at the CIA as the culprit in the embassy attack.

Usually when a government agency commits an idiotic error, members of Congress threaten its budget and call for the heads of those responsible for the foul-up. But not when the CIA is concerned. As far as the public knows, no one has been disciplined for the bombing that killed Chinese by-standers and sparked a flare-up in China-US relations--no one at the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, which provided the outdated maps; no one at the CIA, where analysts misidentified the target. (And neither, it seems, has anyone been called to task for an earlier mistake: when NATO bombed a civilian convoy of refugees and then initially claimed it possessed information showing that the Serbs had committed the attack.) As with many other episodes of CIA bumbling--such as the Aldrich Ames spy case--the agency and its defenders are reluctant to punish incompetence. In this instance, the CIA is to be rewarded with more cash.

Prior to the Chinese embassy fiasco, the Clinton Administration had asked for an increase of 9 percent in the intelligence budget. And a few weeks ago, the House intelligence committee added less than 1 percent to that request. As an Associated Press report noted, at that time, Goss said he was satisfied with the level of intelligence spending. Yet after the embassy bombing, Goss groused about the "under-investment in our intelligence capabilities."

The CIA's assets on Capitol Hill quickly came to the agency's rescue following the embassy attack. But will they accept the agency's conclusions on Chinese nuclear espionage? On April 21, the agency released the key findings of a damage assessment conducted jointly by the CIA, the Pentagon, the Energy Department, the FBI, the National Security Agency and other intelligence outfits and reviewed by an outside panel of weapons and national security experts. The study was produced in response to a recommendation of the Cox Committee, which had probed Chinese attempts to steal US nuclear secrets. In recent weeks, Hill Republicans, including Shelby, have been yelping about Chinese efforts to penetrate US nuclear research labs. Columnist William Safire and others have declared their alarm and accused the Clinton Administration of doing little to thwart such thievery while pocketing campaign money that originated in China.

The independently-reviewed CIA assessment takes a more measured view. Sure, it says, Beijing has tried to swipe classified nuclear weapons information and that information _probably_ helped China accelerate its weapon development program. But, it adds, "China's technical advances have been made on the basis of classified and unclassified information derived from espionage, contact with US and other countries' scientists, conferences and publications, unauthorized media disclosures, declassified US weapons information, and Chinese indigenous development. The relative contribution of each cannot be determined." That is, no one knows if Chinese espionage has made any difference. The assessment notes that the aim of the Chinese nuclear program is to "maintain a second strike capability." That means Beijing wants to be able to withstand a nuclear attack and then strike back--not to launch first. To those Republicans who fret about a Chinese nuclear attack and call for a ballistic missile defense, the report contains reassuring information: "Significant deficiencies remain in the Chinese weapon program....To date, the aggressive Chinese collection effort has not resulted in any apparent modernization of their deployed strategic force or any new nuclear weapons deployment." The damage assessment reports that even though China has the technical capability to develop multiple warhead nuclear missiles for its largest ballistic missile, it has not done so.

Perhaps the CIA _and_ the outside experts are blowing smoke to coverup the conspiracy in which Clinton pockets Chinese campaign cash and allows Beijing's agents to rifle top secret filing cabinets. But, taken at face value, this report counters the Chinese espionage hysteria. If the CIA hawks are going to throw taxpayer dollars at the spies, then they at least ought to pay attention to agency's conclusions.

Alone Again

In the past few weeks, I've seen a ghost. More than once. I've sighted this wraith walking about Capitol Hill by himself, carrying his own briefcase. I've spotted this apparition on the platform at the Metro stop beneath Union Station, standing alone, waiting for a train, talking to no one. There was life in his eyes, but the once-familiar twinkle was gone. This specter was Newt Gingrich.

I assume that on these occasions he was on his way to his new post as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute across town. My office is in the building where Gingrich and his wife Marianne maintain their Washington apartment. During his time as House Speaker, I often saw him striding in and out, in a hurry, accompanied by aides and Capitol Hill police. There frequently was a limo or police vehicle waiting, even when his destination was merely the Capitol two blocks away. (Once I picked up a piece of litter from the lobby floor and discovered a postcard reminder sent to Gingrich. It was from the Nielsen television rating services. Egads! Gingrich and his wife were a Nielsen family. Their viewing habits were helping to determine the popularity of television shows.) Now the accouterments of power are gone, and Gingrich has the time--oh, the cruelest of insults!--to stroll to the subway and ride the train.

During one shared and brief elevator ride recently, I asked not about his new pedestrian habits but how he has been enjoying life in the political here-after. He shrugged and said, "It's not so bad. I'm traveling, making speeches, learning some things." He seemed a smaller version of his old self. Feeling a twinge of sympathy, I muttered, "Well, there's not much to miss these days, is there?" He formed half a smile and left the elevator.

Not too long after this encounter, Gingrich made a speech to a GOP women's group in Washington and blamed the Littleton shootings on 35 years of liberalism. Yes, the civil rights movement, the environmentalists, union organizers, the opponents of a constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration, and campaign finance reformers apparently are to be held accountable. The old Newt was back, and the speech was billed as Gingrich's return to politics. (First Coelho, and then Gingrich--it was a week of liability resurrection for each party.) His remarks were a touch nostalgic. Remember when Gingrich said the Democrats were culpable for Woody Allen's bizarre domestic behavior and the horrific crime of Susan Smith, the South Carolina mother who killed her own children? It was wonderfully appropriate that on the same day he was accusing "the elite news media, the liberal academic elite, the liberal political elite" of bearing responsibility for the murders at Columbine High School, his Republican pals in the Senate were killing the most modest of gun control measures--a mandatory background check for people who purchase handguns at gun shows. The NRA squawked at this slightest of regulations, and the gun lobby's Senate GOP parrots voted it down. The next day, after an outburst of outrage from the Clintonites and gun control advocates, the weasely Repubicans reversed course. But while the GOP was slavishly following the NRA, Gingrich was whining about liberals. Some things never change.

The word in Washington is that Gingrich pockets up to $50,000 for each speech for which he is paid (I'm guessing he spoke to the Republican women out of love and not greed) and that he has delivered about 40 addresses so far this year. That's over a million dollars--and counting--for rhetoric he couldn't sell to the American electorate last year. I sure hope Gingrich is generous when he passes by that scruffy-looking street trumpeter who blares out tunes at the entrance to the Union Station subway.