Allegations Against Packwood Die
Remember what the accusations against Oregon Sen. Bob Packwood were supposed to be about?
Thirty-one months ago, headlines charged that 29 women, over a course of 26 years, had accused him of unwanted advances. One network described the Packwood affair as “the biggest sex scandal since the Clarence Thomas/ Anita Hill hearings.” Last month, in a lip-smacking report graphically recording decades-old accusations, the Senate Ethics Committee claimed to have found “substantial credible evidence” that Packwood had engaged in a “pattern of sexual misconduct.”
Even longtime friends like me presumed him guilty of recent boorishness.
And the Senate Savanarola, Democrat Richard Bryan of Nevada, furious at Packwood’s resistance to handing over his 8,000-page private diary, publicly accused him of “possible criminal conduct” in seeking lobbyists’ help in getting his then-wife a job - a scurrilous charge.
To make up for the public revulsion at its forgiveness of the Keating Five, the committee was determined to curry feminist favor by ruining the moderate Republican Packwood. Three hundred women who had worked for him in the past quarter century were tracked down and asked to contribute recollections of long-ago trespasses.
This week, however, as Packwood at last was permitted to come before the committee to defend himself, something strange happened. “Senate sources” - anonymous committee staffers eager to justify wasted time and expenses - leaked to The Associated Press that senators are less concerned about sexual misconduct and “possible criminal” acts than they are about possible tampering with the diary.
And why do you suppose the focus suddenly had shifted? Because, it develops, there has been, in the past 10 years, exactly one accusation of misconduct that has withstood even the gentlest scrutiny. That’s it: one.
One woman claims that in 1990, Packwood “kissed her on the lips” in his office. But other women staffers say he was not the initiator of this career-threatening act, if it happened.
Even assuming that some of the generation-old memories by political opponents are not warped by time and partisanship, does one unsubstantiated accusation during the past 10 years constitute a “pattern” of sexual misconduct?
Of course not. The original “pattern” indictment quietly has collapsed.
But nobody dares incur the wrath of the get-Packwood coalition (feminists fearful of seeming insufficiently militant and anti-abortion lobbyists eager to get even with the most staunchly pro-choice senator) by admitting no “sex scandal” exists.
And what about Bryan’s “criminality” smear?
The supposed crime was that Packwood had sought a job for his divorcing spouse only to save on alimony. But Georgie Packwood is a competent working woman, not a bimbo. Was the FBI going to look into every recommendation made by every senator for a relative’s employment over the past 10 years - presumably driven by the same venal motive of saving on family support?
This week, the Justice Department dropped its investigations; Packwood is exonerated. Bryan’s insinuation was as ludicrous as it was libelous.
With no “pattern of sexual misconduct” and no “possible criminal conduct,” the committee desperately is groping for something on which to nail Packwood. Its outside cat’s-paw, attorney Robert Bennett, now claims “the obstruction allegation is the most serious because that goes to the institutional integrity of the Senate and the Ethics Committee.”
Such a bait-and-switch tactic of accusations is pure McCarthyism. By setting the precedent of allowing government investigators to rummage through personal diaries looking for any wrongdoing - whether or not related to the original charge - this committee has eroded the Bill of Rights principle prohibiting self-incrimination and has raped the privacy of every American.
Bob Packwood deserves an apology from this committee for a more than two-year ordeal of undeserved ridicule.
And Richard Bryan deserves a reprimand from the Senate for the reckless slander of an ambushed colleague.