New President Masters Old Tricks
He doesn’t have a 5 o’clock shadow darkening his jaws.
He doesn’t seethe with the same repressed anger. The White House money mess isn’t in criminal big leagues with Watergate.
But the more Bill Clinton talks these days, the more he sounds like Richard Nixon.
That’s the most damning tag I could apply to Clinton. His sunny, talkative persona is un-Nixonian. His wife worked on Nixon’s impeachment. They swept into politics on an anti-Nixon wave. Clinton’s open style is the antithesis of secretive, paranoid Nixon.
Yet, as Clinton tries to weave his way past the Campaign Cash Caper, I hear queasy, eerie overtones of Tricky Dick.
Listen to echoes:
“Mistakes were made” … “90 percent (of Democratic National Committee donations) were legal” … “The Lincoln Bedroom was never sold, another false story we have had to endure” … “I wanted to ask some friends who helped me when I got elected president to come to the White House and spend the night with me” … “The vast majority, I think - seven-eighths - are people I had relationships with” … “There was to be no price tag” … “Did we hope that people who came would support me? Of course we did” … “I don’t think people who support you through tough times should be disqualified from being a president’s guest” … “I don’t think there’s a legal issue there.”
Clinton never scowls, sulks, blows up at reporters, as did Nixon. His demeanor is a smiling, soft sell. But like Nixon, Clinton’s disingenuous, self-serving defense, with its edge of pathos, runs into facts.
Those 938 sleep-over guests in White House bedrooms - call it Motel 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. - were a crass, tawdry abuse of the mansion. Sure, many were Arkansas pals. But high-rollers such as Hollywood biggie David Geffen (raised $1 million) and supermarket tycoon Ron Burkle ($750,000) chipped in estimated $8 million. Posh room rates for Abe’s lumpy bed.
Clinton, if he never waved a tin cup at the door, can’t duck the sordid impression he rented a chunk of our history. The CEOs were “awed” to camp in the room where Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The rest of us need barf bags.
In truth, Clinton was Fund-raiser-in-Chief who turned the White House quarters into a gushing ATM machine. His scrawl on a Jan. 5, 1995, memo nails his money-grubbing role:
“Ready to start overnights right away … Get other names at 100,000 or more, 50,000 or more.”
Those famous coffee klatches that Clinton portrays as meet-and-mix sessions with Mr. and Mrs. America raised another $5 million. The notes of Clinton deputy Evelyn Leiberman tags them accurately: “fund-raisers.”
Never mind Chinese arms merchant, Lippo money men, the Huangs and Riadys and Tries, hustlers for a dozen countries who wrote checks for red-carpet treatment. Whether they bought a presidential handshake or something more sinister, we don’t know.
No, this isn’t Watergate. But Clinton’s misuse of the White House was bred in the same win-at-all-costs hubris as Nixon in 1972. Clinton was in shock from losing Congress, fearful of Republican money swamping him, desperate to fund Dick Morris’s $85 million ad blitz. A handwritten Clinton note catches his mood:
“Please send us a check now, anything you can afford.”
Mysteriously, unlike Nixon amid his troubles, Clinton rides high on 60 percent popularity. Polls show people shrug off Clinton’s buck-chasing: “Politics as usual.”
Partially true. Other campaigns dangled presidential face time for big donors. A brochure offered access to Ronald Reagan and freedom of “the entire White House second floor” for $25,000. Republicans have their Eagles, their Team 100 with perks for fat-wallet nabobs. Yep, they all do it.
But it’s a matter of degree - I doubt any campaigning president peddled access to himself and the People’s House on Clinton’s flat-out, mercenary scale.
Until now, I’ve scoffed at Clinton’s so-called scandals. Whitewater, no matter what oddball Ken Starr produces, is a chintzy, small-town bore. Vince Foster murder fantasies are for Internet weirdos. The Paula Jones case is demeaning trash. But the White House Money Caper smells of serious trouble.
It’s up to Janet Reno to find out how serious. She’s the most untainted, straight-shooter in Washington, which made Clinton nervous about keeping her as attorney general. Reno’s toughest call: Name an independent counsel to gumshoe Clinton’s Cash Caper.
The law’s clear - you don’t solicit campaign dough on federal property, take money from foreign nationals or promise to change policies for cash. Some incriminating notes by Harold Ickes, the tough-guy point man who was Clinton’s H.R. Haldeman, leave Reno no choice.
Sure, comparisons to Nixon may be far-fetched. I hope Clinton has four years to fulfill promises, cut a niche in history.
But if we find out there’s a tape system in the Oval Office, all bets are off.
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