Dan Burton's Glass House

By Frank Pellegrini Tuesday, Sept. 01, 1998
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WASHINGTON: Talk about strange bedfellows. Clinton nemesis Dan Burton is furious over a planned Vanity Fair story that details alleged affairs in the Indiana Republican's own tumultuous 38-year marriage. Burton blames the President's men for orchestrating the piece. But TIME White House correspondent Karen Tumulty says that a White House-directed smear campaign is "hard to imagine" -- indeed, the accusation is hardly out of character for a man who is convinced the White House taps his phone and who's called the President a "scumbag."

But what must be really nettling Burton is the very Clintonesque, pain-in-my-marriage remarks he's been forced to make before the piece has been published -- or even turned in. "Now I want to tell you: If something comes out, that you read about, that you think Danny shouldn't have done, I will own up to it," Burton said stand-uppishly, today. "I won't lie about it. I will tell the truth." How inspiring.