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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Razorbacks Aren’t Scandal Hogs

Max Brantley Special To The Los Angeles Times

This is Bill Clinton’s city. I work here. I’m a newspaper hack.

It was Monday. I was working a story about car tags out of the Capitol bureau. Called a guy in Virginia. He wanted to talk about Vince Foster. Then he told a Webb Hubbell joke. Finally, I got to ask my question.

Tuesday, 9 a.m. A radio station in Phoenix was on the phone. They wanted to know about Susan McDougal’s sex life.

Noon Tuesday. It’s National Public Radio calling. About Huang and Riady and Taiwan. I said I’d meet them at the station.

OK, so much for the “Dragnet” routine. The old TV show comes to mind only because Arkansas could use a Joe Friday these days - crime, punishment and that sweaty hand, all in 30 terse minutes.

My home state has been on trial for five years now, since the first Clinton primary campaign. Just last week, independent counsel Kenneth Starr - who will leave his post this summer - helped promote a story about a decade-old bit of local sexual innuendo to sweat the defiant Susan McDougal. It was only the latest chapter in the book on the dangerous, amoral, but cunning place called Arkansas.

I try to take the long view when the state and by extension, all of us Arkansas Razorbacks, are under attack.

It’s easy to apply stereotypes. Arkansas has never had much of a reputation and there’s some justification for our raggedy image. An early explorer is reported to have said after being lost days in the humid wilderness, “Arkansas is not part of the world Jesus Christ died for.” Arkansas joined Dixie in enslaving black people and suffering in Reconstruction. When freedom came, it only brought more poverty, oppression and early death. Progress was glacial for people of all colors. Dusty roads, inadequate schools, brutal prisons and hate are staple Arkansas headlines. Remember Orval Faubus and Central High School?

So most of us toasted Hope that cold, wet night in 1992 when Clinton won the presidency. We would banish the ghosts of Central High. We’d march with California (or, hell, at least Nebraska) in the first rank of states.

Well, we’re still slow learners, it turns out. None of us reckoned on the combined firepower of the national spotlight, powerful political opponents and, yes, our shortcomings. Taiwan, not Arkansas, got the attention of the president’s men. We got indictments.

I remain philosophical. Arkansas is a poor state, its deficiencies no measure of its virtue. We cherish roots, family and connectedness. If closeness is unseemly when money and politics intertwine, it is not always determinative. Brother killed brother in the Civil War. And we are easy targets. Fat cats are rare and easy to spot. It wasn’t hard for national reporters, guided by locals and aided by the fruit of subpoenas, to expose the messy links between our business and political leaders. It’s as easy as spotting the Capitol dome from the porch of the Country Club of Little Rock. As easy, allow me to say, as spotting potential partisan and financial conflicts on Starr’s resume.

Inspections of Arkansas have been tough and generally fair, and some wounds were self-inflicted when the governor moved to Washington. Examples: the Clinton administration’s penchant for secrecy, its abandonment of campaign finance reform and the embarrassing scramble for campaign booty.

Still, I ache for context at times. A check from an Indonesian didn’t determine Clinton trade policy in China; U.S. business interests were far more influential. Tax evasion and financial flimflams are not, of course, indigenous Arkansas sports. Little Rock, forever out of fashion, didn’t invent money-grubbing or influence-peddling. We got them as hand-me-downs from Sacramento, Albany and Washington.

Finally, here in Wal-Mart land, Humans R Us. Arkansas is home to saints and sinners, greats and goobers. The betting here is that the relative percentages don’t vary much from state to state. Power and money corrupt, sure. If the Razorbacks who followed a friend and neighbor to the White House proved corruptible, they weren’t unique. Unique is the media’s temptation to blame susceptibility to these universal temptations on geography. Truth is, my patience with generalizations has worn thin.

xxxx