ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 12, 1997 TAG: 9703120037
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: CAL THOMAS
SOURCE: CAL THOMAS
PRESIDENT CLINTON'S performance at his news conference last Friday reminded me of a home-improvement contractor I once employed. The contractor promised me a first-rate job at cut-rate prices. He delivered a cut-rate job at first-rate prices. I should have known what he promised was impossible, but I wanted to believe him.
Clinton was at his best Friday as he deflected, demurred, deceived, denied, but never admitted doing anything wrong in the growing fund-raising scandals. In typical Clinton fashion, he said if he and his people had not been so aggressive, the two-party system might have been jeopardized, along with the ultimate welfare of the republic.
Asked about statements by his legal advisers that the dividing line between right and wrong was whether campaign solicitations took place on the White House grounds and Vice President Gore's statement claiming that that wasn't the standard at all, Clinton said, ``I think they were both right.'' Huh?
Clinton even contradicted Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, the chairman of his own party. Romer said that Hillary Clinton's chief of staff, Maggie Williams, was wrong to accept a $50,000 campaign check in her White House office. Clinton defended Williams. But, just as Al Gore said about his own solicitations made from the vice president's office, Clinton said Williams' acceptance of the check was ``legal,'' but because it gave an appearance of impropriety, she won't do it again. A pretty easy concession to make after the election has been won.
The vice president has had more explanations for that Buddhist temple fund-raiser than my contractor had for his frequent cost overruns. Yet we now have it on our nation's highest authority that Maggie Williams and Al Gore are ``highly ethical people.'' Who would want Bill Clinton as their character witness at an ethics trial?
The president tried to justify the vacuum-cleaner approach to campaign cash by claiming the Republicans outraised and outspent the Democrats. The truth is that throughout 1995, the Democratic National Committee and the AFL-CIO bought political ads that went unchallenged by the Republicans. Bob Dole couldn't spend a dime after reaching his limit in the primaries in 1996, and was forced to wait on the sidelines until federal matching funds were released in early September. The Clinton campaign, not having had to spend money during the primary season, was flush with cash and, assisted with the soft money being gobbled up from such unsavory characters as Chinese arms merchants and others clearly seeking access and influence, was able to bury Dole under an avalanche of commercials.
Repeatedly, Clinton tried in his news conference to define the problem as ``the system'' not his or his campaign's possible violation of existing campaign laws. The system may, indeed, be a bad one, but making such an argument is akin to debating racism during the O.J. Simpson trials. It's an important subject, but it is irrelevant to the matter at hand.
Although he personally approved a strategy to target donors who had given between $50,000 and $100,000 to the DNC, the president told those assembled at his news conference that ``there was no specific price tag to the coffees,'' and that he was ``stunned'' when he learned of the source of some of the checks. It's like having the piano player in a brothel tell the vice squad that he's shocked to learn what goes on upstairs.
My former contractor never acknowledged bilking me, and Clinton refuses to admit any wrongdoing. They are so much alike. It was always something beyond their control. Their motives were pure. If questioned about their ethics, it is the attitude of the questioner, not their behavior that is the problem.
There came a moment with my contractor when I no longer believed anything he told me. The polls say a majority of Americans haven't reached that point yet with Bill Clinton. But if and when they do, this president is in for a big fall. Nothing brings anger more quickly than when you realize you have been duped.
- LOS ANGELES TIMES SYNDICATE
LENGTH: Medium: 74 linesby CNB