Whitewater Didn’t Kill Foster

The late Vincent Foster took his own life because, in his words, “I was not meant for the job or the spotlight of public life in Washington. Here, ruining people is considered sport.” The hearings being conducted into his suicide would give him no reason to change his mind.

My God, that poor man. “Responsible” journalists and notoriously irresponsible politicians (since the shoe fits, read “Sen. Alfonse D’Amato”) construct elaborate conspiracy theories linking Foster to Whitewater in their endless attempt to destroy President Clinton. Vince Foster’s despairing protest against the sport of ruining people has itself become a tool in their game. Now that’s cruelty. As Joseph Welch once said in another congressional hearing, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

Shortly before his death, Foster’s wife urged her depressed husband to write down what was troubling him. That pathetic, torn-up list constitutes all that anyone knows about why he took his life. Whitewater is not mentioned in it. Rather, Foster’s worries centered on the “Travelgate” scandalette. He wrote:

“I made mistakes from ignorance, inexperience and overwork.

“I did not knowingly violate any law or standard of conduct.

“No one in the White House, to my knowledge, violated any law or standard of conduct, including any action in the travel office. There was no intent to benefit any individual or specific group….

“The press is covering up the illegal benefits they received from the travel staff.

“The GOP has lied and misrepresented its knowledge and role and covered up a prior investigation….

“The public will never believe the innocence of the Clintons and their loyal staff.

“The Wall Street Journal editors lie without consequence.”

None of that refers to Whitewater. The only other topic mentioned by Foster is what he took to be a “plot” to run up costs of refurbishing the White House to embarrass the Clintons. This tortured mea culpa by a man who, according to everyone who knew him, set incredibly high standards for himself is now being used against the friend he met in kindergarten in Hope, Ark.

If he were still alive, it would probably drive him to suicide.

For those have forgotten Travelgate, the “scandal” that so depressed poor Foster, it consisted of an investigation into the White House travel office that later resulted in the indictment of the office’s former director, Billy Ray Dale, on charges of embezzling $68,000. Although Dale has not yet been tried, he does not deny that he deposited 55 checks for the travel office into his personal account. Dale maintains that he replaced the money from a large sum of cash in his house. The indictment maintains that he converted 41 of the checks to his personal use; the other 14 checks fall under the statute of limitations.

The allegation against the White House at the time was that the travel office was being investigated only so the business could be handed to some Arkansas connection of Clinton’s. Although all seven members of the travel office were fired initially, five have been been reinstated.

There is no record tying Foster’s growing despair over the acid atmosphere of Washington to Whitewater. While working on the Clintons’ tax returns, he did write a note about their losses on Whitewater saying, “A can of worms you shouldn’t open.” So? I’d say that was good advice, not evidence of wrongdoing.

The Republican effort to get Clinton over a 17-year-old real estate deal on which he lost money continues to inflame the minds of conspiracy theorists. The R’s have been pretending for three years now that this real estate deal is the moral equivalent of Watergate, a series of criminal acts committed during the presidency of Richard Nixon.

In one of the most atrocious setups for witch hunting in the annals of “justice,” the “independent prosecutor” now in charge of investigating Whitewater is Kenneth Starr, George Bush’s solicitor general. Starr, who was fired by Clinton (standard policy when a new administration takes over), was personally and legally involved in a lawsuit that Paula Jones filed against Clinton. The key judge in voting to replace Starr’s predecessor as “independent” prosecutor was Judge David Sentelle, a protege of Sen. Jesse Helms, who overturned Oliver North’s convictions. Starr once defined his greatest ambition: “I want to be solicitor general under President Quayle.”

Now there’s political independence for you.

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