The Hot Seat Our Weekly Look At Who’s In Trouble

Look out, Bill, the Senate’s on your tail

The 1996 campaigns have begun, dear readers, and that means it’s time for a nice, warm mud bath. We begin this all-scandal edition of the Hot Seat breathless with anticipation. The U.S. Senate, which took 28 months to decide that yes, indeedy, maybe Bob Packwood SHOULD be looked into for groping women’s thighs and sticking his tongue into their mouths, has assigned some of its extremely moral shock troops, like Sen. Al D’Amato, to investigate Bill and Hillary Clinton’s role in a two-bit Arkansas savings and loan deal that occurred as congressional negligence was sticking taxpayers with a nationwide, multibillion-dollar S&L collapse.

Let’s be forgiving. Let Phil be Phil. He’s such fun.

Alas, banking usually makes for a boring scandal. That’s why we thank God for presidential candidate Phil “Family Values” Gramm. Back when he was just a normal Texas politician-to-be, Gramm invested $7,500 in the production of a smutty movie. He thought the film would be about beauty queens. Turns out it was a spoof on the last days of Richard Nixon, who, like Gramm, was big on politics and family values. The flick featured a bare-bottomed man running through the White House. Was that you, Phil?

She’s death on scandals, as long as they aren’t hers

Even the administration has caught a case of scandal fever. Attorney General Janet Reno is hot on the trail of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown for inaccurate reports of certain financial shenanigans. Well, OK, this might be exciting, for accountants. But if it’s respect Reno wants, she should back a tough investigation in her own bailiwick - into the feds’ lethal heavy handedness at Ruby Ridge and Waco.

MEMO: The Hot Seat is a feature of the Sunday Opinion page.