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LANTOS TO BURTON AND FRIENDS:
"YOU WILL BE THROWN INTO THE DUSTBIN OF HISTORY"
by Mac MacArthur
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"You will be thrown into the dustbin of history."
I couldn't have said it better, and we hate to boast, but didn't we tell you? Dan Burton and his host of warlocks failed, yet again, in their quest to "get" Janet Reno, Louis Freeh, the White House and the Democrats. Their only victory -- Getting out of there with at least half a reputation.
Attorney General Janet Reno, cool and collected, approached the Burton Committee with honestly, sincerity and frankness beyond reproof. It made me proud to be an American as she took all comers, one by one, and made a mockery of them -- without trying to do that and bending over backwards to compliment her tormentors even as they whipped her unmercifully.
Her intent, to instruct the American people on the law, using the GOP goofballs as examples of what she, and the law, isn't.
But the biggest laugh is reserved for The New York Times, which -- in case you haven't noticed -- little Arthur Ochs Sulzberger has turned from the nation's largest circulation liberal-leaning newspaper to an "I don't know what to do " olio of pap -- particularly on the editorial page.
I could just see the old man spinning when he heard Dan Burton quoting his newspaper as the font from which Republican hustler-logic flows.
The Times, which still has a lot of clout worldwide - even with me -- ran a edi-"horror"-ial Sunday titled "Meltdown at Justice." It was an insipid, ill-researched, slam job on Janet Reno and the Justice Department. It was mostly the figment of somebody's imagination -- somebody who ought to lose their job.
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Joe Lelyveld (the buck stops with him), and Howell Raines, the Editorial Page Editor, look like the kooks that they were when they allowed that "opinion" to be published alongside their names. What was going through their minds, or are they now indirectly on the RNC payroll? I thought if might be fun to take the Times' editorial and compare it to the facts, as testified to by Reno and Freeh yesterday.
Let's see, where shall I start?
How bout the first sentence?
Dear New York Times:
As to your editorial titled "Meltdown at Justice:
You say,
"Janet Reno last week blocked appointment of an independent counsel to investigate the campaign finance scandal, but she couldn't stop the cascade of reports about disarray in her department. "
What do you mean "blocked" the appointment? Was someone else trying to make such an appointment? Who was it, I want to know. Check the law, only Reno can request a three-judge panel to appoint an independent counsel. She didn't. Why, because the facts didn't warrant it. That's the law.
And What "cascade" of reports? You mean, "launch of many press releases" and trumped up articles in yellow newspapers by many GOP spin doctors? Did you bother to speak to the Attorney General, or did you instead simply rely on Republican operatives within t the Department of Justice? They're there -- and you ought to know that and you ought to know who they are.
"A law firm so convulsed by conflict would soon be out of business, but for this Justice Department anarchy and mismanagement are a way of life. "
Really? What do you guys know about managing law firms? I've been in that position. It's not easy. Most law firms -- especially the biggest and most successful ones -- are fraught with "anarchy" and "mismanagement." Any child of a good lawyer could have told you that. But maybe you should have asked the managing partner of any law firm with more than 100 attorneys. They'd tell you. When you put a few thousand professional arguers in one office there's bound to be trouble. That's good, not bad. Internal squabbling over the meaning and effect of the law is what makes good lawyers and a good justice system.
"The portrait that emerges starkly from a variety of recent accounts -- in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal and The Times, to mention only a few -- is that of a department lacking the leadership and organizational structure to deal with the most important criminal investigation in the capital. "
Gee. Where do I begin with that sentence? First of all, I can see you citing your own paper as a source; You've been beating up on the Justice Department for quite awhile now. But The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker? Give me a break. The Journal is a whore to big business Republicrats and The New Yorker -- well, it ain't what it used to be since it began running "O.J." trial accounts and changed it's editors. You know better. Perhaps you should have mentioned all of Dick Scaife's publications too -- or maybe Reverend Moon's -- they would have been more on point. And what would you know about leadership and organizational structure? My God, you live and work in a veritable pleasure palace of "we know everything" journalism. After all it is "All the news that's fit to print," isn't it? But the real gaff in this paragraph is calling the sham witch hunt by the Republican party -- "the most important criminal investigation in the capital" -- and I think you should have used capit"o"l because it's in that building on the Hill where this mind-twisting "plot" was first hatched by Newt Gingrich and a covey of Christian conservatives out to get Clinton and Gore -- at all costs and through any means possible -- including the manipulation of the press, which in your case, worked so well. So the Times thinks that investigating campaign finance malfeasance is the most important criminal investigation? Wonder what happened to the seven tons of heroine sneaking into the country every month, or the child-filled sweat shops sitting around the corner from your citadel, or the Atlanta bombing which is a harbinger of things to come, or how about the billion dollar money laundries springing up in our country to wash the blood from addict's cash? They're pretty more important I'd say.
Ms. Reno, however flinty she may be, has not staffed key positions nor communicated any sense of urgency about enforcing campaign laws. Instead she has run true to the well-documented pattern she established as a Florida prosecutor, micromanaging minor issues while letting big ones drift, except for the rare times when she has a strong deputy.
However "flinty" she may be. I guess you mean "steely" and Ms. Reno has staffed most key positions, and wouldn't have the time to talk with replacements anyway, because she's too mired in one foolish demand after another from wackos like Rep. Dan Burton, under Justice and FBI investigation himself for shaking down a foreign country for campaign cash, and the congressman famous for shooting watermelons in his Hoosier back yard, shaped like Vince Foster's head to "prove" that Hillary and Bill Clinton "had Foster murdered." Or, she may be up at midnight, answering other demands by Hickster Huckster Senator Fred Thompson, best known for his cameo roles, playing a senator, not being one. Parroting the American Spectator -- a right wing fundamentalist rag -- almost word for word, you say she's a "micro manager." Well, I think that's great. The law isn't about the "Big Picture," it's about nuance and character and a whole lot of things you obviously don't understand."
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As Reno told House "Hit" Rep. Chris Shays yesterday, "Let me suggest to you what is important. If you and Congressman Lantos and the Chairman (Burton) were... under what I thought was specific credible evidence against you, I don't think the people sitting below you should be pushed into that investigation...It is very important that you don't see a big amorphous blob and pull everyone into it and put them under investigation. It is important to look at the big picture, and if you get specific and credible evidence on the big picture you can go after it, but if you don't then you look at the pieces." Pretty well said.
But the Times would have Reno become the Black Hole of Justice and simply and neatly suck everyone, from the President to Mrs. Clinton's hairdresser into some Grand Jury in the sky, where the foreman would be none other than Orrin Hatch himself, sitting at the right hand of God, of course.
Besides reading some back issues of the Miami Herald to find out what kind of prosecutor Reno is, why didn't you ask her, or ask some respected defense lawyers in town. You would have come away smarter and less smart-assed.
The consequences are painfully visible, not least in her revision of the role of the nation's chief law enforcement officer. When Ms. Reno emerges into public view, it is always to say she cannot find evidence that any important Federal law has been broken, never mind all the unchallenged accounts of millions sluicing through the Asian pipeline. Every decision she has made and comment she has offered has minimized the offenses and excused the conduct of the White House and Democratic Party. The person who is supposed to be the nation's chief prosecutor, ever alert for signs of infraction, sounds instead like a technicality-hunting defense lawyer.
Like ultra-conservative Republican arguments, yours smack of adolescent logic and high-dramatic innuendo. She can't find any evidence because there is none. I've never seem or read anything that smacked of her apologizing for the White House. At least not yet. The President and the Vice President didn't sit around with Huang, Trie, Kanchanalak and a few Buddhist nuns cooking up ways to launder Beijing cash. People throw money at the White House. They leave it on the doorstep, they bang on back door. They throw it over the fence. Some people need to be next to power, they'll pay almost anything to say "I played golf with Bill yesterday," or "Wasn't Hillary charming at lunch?" And you know it. And sure, big money wants big favors. And if that's happening then let's prove it and indict some people.
You have that tuxedo all ready for a night out with the Mayor, or the Governor or maybe even the President - don't you? What if we cast a wide net and said that the "Times" was in the back pocket of the government. Or, worse, that the Times was buying favors from the fed? How would you prove you weren't. It would be tough.
Here's my case against the Times:
Arthur O., Arthur Ochs, Carol F., Karen A. and Karen Sulzberger gave pols nearly $7,000 in campaign cash during the last congressional election cycle. And I don't even know who Carol and Karen are. And what's worse, 7 other employees of the Times, Paul Goldenberger, Marian Heiskell, Marcia Vickers, Peder Zane, Judith Dobrzynski, Olin Morris and Wayne Leslie, forked over nearly $10,000 to politicians as well. Arthur O. even tried to "hide" who he worked for -- he reported his employer to the FEC as The New York Times once and the other times as just "New York Times." -- I smell a rat. And, guess what , some of the Times' family money was "Soft" too. But , the real big spender was Bill Keller, whose FEC report fills pages. Bill alone, spent nearly $20,000 on campaigns -- all on his own. (Oops! I guess I got the wrong Bill Keller. That one lives in Philadelphia, and he's not the Managing Editor of the New York Times. See what I mean?
So, Janet Reno, despite the insults from Brit Hume this weekend, is no dummy. She knows that the Times folks don't want to be part of any right wing "Big Picture" as Congressman Chris Shays is likely to frame the issue, or "frame" the Clintons, or the Sulzbergers, or the Smiths.
Under Ms. Reno, the criminal division, which would in a normal Justice Department be all over this investigation, has been without a leader for two years. This alone would be an inexcusable lapse. But as our colleague William Safire noted, the place is shot through with conflicts of interest.
What a ludicrous statement. How could anyone, especially at the Times, know what a "normal" Justice Department might do in cases like this. And who of you can tell me what a "normal" Justice Department is anyway? As far as Bill Safire goes, quoting the harem girl about the Sheik -- especially when most things she says are ring false, doesn't make sense.
The acting head, John Keeney, had to recuse himself from the campaign case because his son is a lawyer for John Huang, one of the central figures under investigation. The official responsible for supervising the inquiry, Lee Radek, the head of the public integrity section, is a timid bureaucrat regarded in some quarters, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as being more interested in controlling the case than in pushing it.
Here's a fact to ponder. The Attorney General, under law, is the only one who can move for the appointment of an independent counsel, so how could she recuse herself from this matter? Duh! As far as Lee Radek goes, does the Times think we'd be better of with some jock-sniffing cretin who casts a wide net and reels in the innocent along with the guilty merely for headlines? I didn't think I'd see the day when the greatest newspaper in the world stooped to criticize a civil servant with unclarified name-calling coupled with "in some quarters" citations.
Little wonder that months were wasted as an inexperienced prosecutor working for Mr. Radek failed to chase the most obvious leads, many of which appeared on newspaper front pages. When Ms. Reno could no longer ignore the breathtaking incompetence of this bunch, she brought in Charles La Bella, a seasoned Federal prosecutor. He quickly clashed with Mr. Radek, who is still fighting to control the inquiry and still has Ms. Reno's ear.
Why is the Times so much in a hurry? The Justice Department, like any organization, does miss things. It happens. And when it did, and when The Washington Post, not the Times, printed a lead, Ms, Reno followed up on it. She also, doesn't lightly, fire people helter-skelter like you seem to suggest she should. She made the assessments and the requisite changes. So what's your beef? Not fast enough for you, oh please!
By last week as Ms. Reno pondered whether to seek an outside counsel to investigate fund-raising calls by President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, she faced open rebellion by Louis Freeh, the F.B.I. Director. He disassociated himself from Ms. Reno's handling of the scandal and made sure his views were known. The White House then all but invited Mr. Freeh to resign with a tepid statement of support -- "Louis Freeh is leading that agency as best he can," in the weasely words of Mike McCurry.
Well, I guess it's unfair to say, "Gotcha." but say it I will. There was no "open rebellion" by Louis Freeh or anyone else. There were some fellas at the FBI who like snakes, slid a private memo to the press, but there was nothing "open" about it. It was clandestine, and smacked of the very tactics that even a local newspaper editor would see through immediately. And twisting one sentence spoken as a trial balloon by Mike McCurry, and a few goons at the White House who don't like Freeh, doesn't a presidential "pink slip" make.
You do not have to believe, as we do, that Federal law requires appointment of an independent counsel to see that this is a department in managerial meltdown. Congress will be pressing Ms. Reno to unchain Mr. La Bella and Mr. Freeh and order Mr. Radek and his bureaucratic associates to stand aside.
Well, we won't believe as you do then. How could we rely on unjustified illogic? Meltdown? Not a chance. Janet Reno is the finest Attorney General this nation has seen in decades. And it won't be "Congress" that will be pushing Ms. Reno to "unchain" Herculean La Bella. That's the "Republican" Congress you mean, don't you. And besides, La Bella has already been unchained, by Ms. Reno and Mr. Freeh -- together, in unison, as one.
If Ms. Reno would only allow a vigorous investigation, she would soon find that her narrow reading of the independent counsel law cannot be sustained.
Wanna bet?
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