David Corn is Washington editor of The Nation magazine, the oldest political weekly in America. He writes on a host of subjects, including politics, the White House, Congress, and national security.

He has broken stories on Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich, Oliver North, Colin Powell, Richard Gephardt, Hillary Clinton, Rush Limbaugh, Clarence Thomas, Senator Paul Laxalt, Senator Robert Bennett, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, and other Washington players.

Corn has contributed articles, including political satire and book reviews, to The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Boston Globe, Newsday, Harper’s, The New Republic, Mother Jones, The Washington Monthly, The Village Voice, The New York Press -- which features his weekly column "Loyal Opposition" -- and many other publications. He also writes for several on-line magazines, including Slate, HotWired, and Salon.

He is the author of Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades (Simon and Schuster, 1994). The Washington Monthly called Blond Ghost "an amazing compendium of CIA fact and lore." The Washington Post noted that Blond Ghost "deserves a space on that small shelf of worthwhile books about the agency." The New York Times termed it "a scorchingly critical account of an enigmatic figure who for two decades ran some of the agency's most important, and most controversial, covert operations."

Corn was a contributor to Unusual Suspects, an anthology of mystery and crime fiction (Vintage/Black Lizard, 1996). His contribution to the book -- a short story entitled “My Murder” -- was nominated for a 1997 Edgar Allan Poe Award by Mystery Writers of America. The story was republished in The Year's 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories (Carroll & Graf, 1997).

Corn frequently is a guest on television and radio talk shows. He has been a panelist on CNN's Capital Gang, and he is a regular on C-SPAN. He has appeared on ABC News, CBS Morning News, Fox Television News, Fox New Cable, Crossfire (CNN), Washington Week in Review (PBS), Equal Time (CNBC), Tim Russert (CNBC), Tribune Television, MSNBC, and other shows and networks.

He was a co-host (with Pat Buchanan) of the nationally-syndicated radio show Buchanan and Company. He has appeared often on the syndicated Diane Rehm radio show, and provided commentary to National Public Radio. He is a featured guest on RadioNation, a nationally-syndicated show. He has contributed political commentary to BBC Radio, CBC Radio, Pacifica Radio, Australian National Radio, and has been a guest on scores of call-in radio programs.

Corn, thirty-nine years old, is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University. Before joining The Nation, he worked for Ralph Nader's Center for Study of Responsive Law and Harper’s magazine.

Click here to read more of David Corn's Loyal Opposition.

October 7, 1998

Hurry Up and Wait

The scenario is set. The House Republicans are sticking with impeachment. They'll stumble now and then--mostly whenever Newt Gingrich publicly sticks his snout into the story (such as when he recently opined that the inquiry should be widened beyond Monicagate)--but the GOPsters have the House wired so they can control events between now and election day. They won't be rushed by the House Democrats. They'll launch an impeachment inquiry before recessing for the campaign and let this stew until November 3. Perhaps they'll schedule a couple of procedural hearings to counter the claims they are slow-walking for political gain, and they'll let everyone know that the Judiciary Committee staff is busy reviewing material and preparing for hearings. The public will continue to say, Yuck and double-yuck, but likely Republican voters, relishing Clinton's demise, will get pumped for the election. The President will look for presidential opportunities--making peace in the Middle East, proclaiming assorted (and purported) economic triumphs, etc.--and continue to raise money for his party without doing too many side-by-sides with Democratic candidates. Instead, First Victim Hillary (whose poll ratings have soared) and the Vice President will hit the campaign trail. (One White House aide says Gore is slated to hook up with 41 House contenders and 12 senatorial candidates.) The Democrats will holler about unfairness in the impeachment process, while they uneasily ride alongside the Kemosabe they detest, praying that their diehard voters--a group usually smaller than their GOP counterparts--will flock to the polls and help them avert a GOP sweep.

At the moment, there's not a lot of strategizing to be done. The electoral plan for each side is obvious. Get out the base by bashing--take your pick--the Prevaricator-in-Chief or those scandal-obsessed Republicans who don't want to talk about protecting patients, raising the minimum wage and securing Social Security. All impeachment maneuvers will somehow fit into these schemes.

Then we'll argue over the election results and what they mean, if anything, for the future of William Jefferson Clinton.

If the GOP wins seats, will Clinton be cooked? The prevailing sentiment among Washington political experts is that Republicans are poised to snag 10 or so seats in the House and a handful in the Senate (but probably not enough to achieve a filibuster-proof majority of 60). That sort of gain, in historic terms, is modest. The party opposing the president always cleans up in the mid-term contests of a second term. Nevertheless, the Republicans can be expected to claim such an outcome a mandate and pronounce their impeachment- lust confirmed by The People. They will likely overlook the fact that turn-out was minuscule and ignore all those inevitable, after-the-fact reviews that will show that a shift of a small number of votes would have caused a drastic change in the results.

But it is improbable that public opinion will have changed. The new evidence being released has not affected the general view of the scandal. Look for the gap between the get-Clinton House Republicans and the rest of the nation to become larger. Newt and the Gang must be hoping that hearings--which may not occur until next year--will finally lead to a public outcry for Clinton's defenestration. But it is arguable that this scandal, in the public's eye, has become a more-is-less affair. Unlike Watergate, the basic facts of this controversy are not in dispute. In that affair, congressional inquiry and hearings were needed to get at the most crucial issue: Richard Nixon's role in the scandal. The current debate mostly is over the significance of Clinton's wrongdoing, not the details of it. The public does not need more investigation to make an informed judgment of the President. Heck, this is not rocket science. Most people have enough direct or indirect experience to be experts on the subject of sex-and-lies.

Still, many House Republicans are motivated by a sincere if not psychological urge to destroy Clinton. And most of them are able to do as they please, realizing that the final call does not belong to them and that there is not much risk for following their heart. By voting for impeachment, they merely will be bouncing the mess to the adults (more or less) of the Senate, and few of House Republicans will have to worry about public wrath. Most hail from districts that are solidly GOP territory and don't have to care about being out of whack with overall public sentiment. In fact, only 50 of the 435 House races this year are considered competitive. That means most incumbent members of Congress need not agonize over their position on impeachment.

Senators, even Republicans, will have a tougher time pulling the trigger on the President. Their thumbs-downs count will count for more. And they are going to have to consider how the public will react if they decide--after Monica impeachment hearings!--to put the nation through a Monica impeachment trial next spring, summer or fall. Maybe even *Hardball*'s Chris Matthews will be screaming, Enough already, by then. (Okay, maybe not him.)

But this is getting ahead of the game. What happens if the Democrats near- miraculously manage to stem the Republican wave? Good question. Will the House Republicans barrel along, unheeding the cries of there's-no-mandate? Will some GOPers ponder a deal? That definitely would not sit well with the hungry-for- his-hide members, who comprise about half of the Republican caucus, if not more. Certainly, moderate Republican Senators will be even less enthusiastic about bringing this case to their court.

Some conservatives in Washington dream of a no-fuss/no-muss sequence in which the Democrats are creamed in the elections, they turn on the party leader who once again has screwed them, and Clinton has no choice but to resign. Dream on. Sure, Democrats may abandon the President, but he and, perhaps more importantly, his wife are to-the-last-dog types. It's not too hard to envision her telling him, "There's no way I'm walking out of here. I'll let them impeach you before I start to pack." Resignation would save us a heap of trouble and *tsuris*. (Who wants to watch hearings and then a trial--both of which will blot out all other Washington matters?) It's hard to argue that Clinton--for Monicagate and more--doesn't deserve a premature departure, unless you believe a more just punishment for him would be to remain and suffer through the entire rigmarole. But resignation is not going to happen, not even with Arianna Huffington putting up her own web site to encourage it. (On Fox Cable News she said the President should resign because he cannot effectively champion his agenda of a minimum wage hike and HMO reform legislation--as if she cares about either.)

If Clinton were to resign now, the parties to pay would be Democratic congressional candidates. It's too close to the election for the party to go through that drama and then regroup. Resignation won't bring additional Democratic voters to the polls, and it is unlikely to prompt independents to support local Democrats. It may well be that Clinton is leading his party into a thresher. No one knows. But were he to resign before the elections, Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott would definitely grab more power.

So the key political calculations are in place until the elections. If you don't relish the thought of Representative Bob Barr, the Republican wildman from Georgia, grilling Monica Lewinsky in public hearings next year over which end of the cigar entered the magic zone, the only hope you have is the election results give Republican poohbahs pause. But it probably would still be too late to get the yahoos back into the barn. They're running fast and free, in pursuit of Clinton, and loving every damn minute of it.

The Thin Gray Line

What do The New York Times and Matt Drudge have in common? Both publish Starr dreck without checking it. As Congress prepared the latest release of grand jury evidence last week--and the inevitable flash flood of leaks ensued--David Rosenbaum in the paper of record noted that the new evidence includes an "assertion by Dick Morris, one of Mr. Clinton's political consultants, that the White House maintains an operation known as 'the secret police' to intimidate women who have had affairs with the President." The Times report was not dissimilar from Drudge's dispatch, which noted that "President Clinton's former political consultant Dick Morris told the grand jury that the White House maintains an operation to intimidate women who have had affairs with the president." Clearly, these stories came from leaks dished out by Republicans on the Judiciary Committee. That was predictable. More interesting was how Laurie Kellman of the Associated Press handled this delicious anti-Clinton tid-bit. She took the leak but then she went to Morris. As she subsequently reported, "Morris said his testimony was based on no firsthand information and was a supposition based on his reading of affidavits and published accounts. 'I had no personal knowledge of the operation,' Morris said." That is, Morris' testimony was meaningless. Now, we know why Drudge didn't tell us this. He doesn't believe in confirming his reports. But why couldn't the Times vet the material, discern that Morris was blowing smoke out of his non-speaking cavity, and offer its readers this relevant fact? Score another victory for hand-out journalism.

Ch-ch-changes

There's barely enough space on the Internet to store all the acts of hypocrisy and political opportunism committed these days by self-proclaimed moralizers seeking to exploit Monicagate. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott declares that merely bad conduct is sufficient grounds for impeachment. When he was on the House Judiciary Committee in 1974, he maintained that only crimes that subvert the Constitution and damage the country are worthy of impeachment and that Richard Nixon's acts--secret bombings, misusing the CIA, approving the establishment of a secret dirty tricks unit--did not meet the threshold. What would Nixon had to have done to deserve impeachment on the Lott scale? Strangle to death the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?

More relevant to today's scandal is how Representative Henry Hyde, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, reacted when Representative Dan Crane, a fellow Republican, was caught in 1983 having sex with a female House page (the moral equivalent of an intern).

As the House considered how to punish Crane for this shameful sexual indiscretion, Hyde went to the floor to plead for mercy and understanding. His remarks are worth quoting in full:

"Arthur Koestler, in his classic book, "Darkness at Noon," said that honor is defined as being useful without vanity, and I think that this committee, which has the dirtiest, nastiest job on the planet, has been most useful without vanity. I commend the committee for that.

"We sit here today not as finders of fact. The facts are stipulated. We sit here not to characterize the crime, the breach, the transgression, because we all know the transgression, which is admitted and it is stipulated as reprehensible.

"We sit here to find a punishment that fits the breach, and so in searching our souls for the appropriate punishment, I ask the Members to consider this situation in its totality, in its entire context.

"I suggest to the Members that Dan Crane would rather have lost an arm at the shoulder than have to tell his wife, than have to greet his wife as he did with the media. I suggest that Dan Crane would rather have died from a heart attack than to have to face his six children, to face his father, to face his wife's family, to face his family, to face his friends, to face his constituency, to face his colleagues, to face his peers, and to face all of the country.

"I suggest that all life is about is to earn the esteem of our fellow men. That is what we are here for. That is why we run for election; that is why we get our press releases; that is why we get up in the morning. We do those things just to earn the esteem of our fellow men.

"That is lost to Dan Crane. He is embarrassed, he is humiliated, he is displaced. And it endures; it is not over. It will never be over. It will not be over as long as he lives, and it will remain after he lives. It will be with him, and it will be with his family as long as they live.

"We cannot know what disgrace is, we cannot imagine it unless we live though it, unless it has happened to us. Imagine, if you will, Dan Crane facing his children as they grow up and say, 'Daddy, what happened? I heard about it at school.' Every shred of dignity will be stripped away from Dan Crane, and it will endure.

"Mr. Speaker, I suggest to the Members that compassion and justice are not antithetical; they are complementary. The Judeo-Christian tradition says, 'Hate the sin and love the sinner.' We are on record as hating the sin, some more ostentatiously than others. I think it is time to love the sinner."

Could Hyde not say the same of Clinton? By the way, the full House--then under Democratic control--voted to censure, not expel, Crane.

Poor News

Recently the Clinton Administration celebrated a drop in the nation's poverty rate--which was 13.3 percent in 1997, down from 13.7 percent the previous year. Hooray, it's back to the level it was in 1989, the last year before the recession of the early 1990s. Yes, that's better than an increase, but it's not all that impressive. The 1997 rate is even less impressive when judged against the unemployment rate. Actually, the 1997 figure that received cheers is high for a year in which the unemployment rate was 4.9 percent--the lowest level in 24 years. When the poverty rate was last at 13.3 percent, unemployment averaged between 5.3 and 6.2 percent. And the 1997 figure is higher than every year of the 1970s, when unemployment was in the vicinity of 6 percent for half of that decade. This is not a good sign. More people are working, yet the poverty rate is at a level that in the past has been associated with higher unemployment. Additionally, low-income families in 1997 were poorer than low-income families in 1996. (For comparison's sake, the average income of households in the top fifth rose 3.9 percent.) This all shows that the gap between rich and poor continues to widen and that the economy, even when it is rip-roaring, is sharing but a small portion of the gains with those who need them the most.

For Chrisake

At a rally in New York City against the play *Corpus Christi*--which depicts Jesus as a homosexual--Paul Weyrich, the religious right leader, noted that when the U.S. Navy several years ago planned to name a nuclear submarine "Corpus Christi" (after the city in Texas), clergy across the nation protested. Now, he griped, the nation's clergy, by and large, has not joined the protest against the play that desecrates that name. "What a scandal in the church!" he bellowed.

Weyrich is a fellow who cannot understand the difference between men and women of cloth objecting to the government attaching the Prince of Peace's name to a weapon system capable of destroying the entire world and a situation in which most clergy are not bothering to get worked up over a play written to provoke by a private citizen. The scandal is that Weyrich, a man possessing narrow powers of logic, is routinely granted a hearing on Capitol Hill by Republicans eager to court religious conservatives.

David Corn's Loyal Opposition is published weekly in New York Press.