Why Whitewater Isn't Watergate

There is no evidence of criminality in Whitewater -- but that doesn't mean it's trivial

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As for "Watergate" proper, remember Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States, musing on tape about how much money would be required to buy the silence of the burglars, and rumbling that he knew where to get it? Remember White House counsel John Dean semi-joking that Nixon's helpers were unschooled in such criminal activity as leaving the money for payoffs where it could not be traced, and one of his listeners remarking plaintively that Mitchell ought to know how to find somebody skilled in money laundering? The onetime chief law-enforcement officer of the country being mentioned as a conduit to recruit a successful crook! What comparison can be drawn between that and meetings concerning the Madison investigation between Treasury officers and White House aides that some commentators doubt can be considered improper at all?

Yet if Watergate -- so far -- surpasses Whitewater by light-years in seriousness, there are disturbing parallels. Both concern whether what a President (and in the case of Whitewater, a First Lady) says can be believed. Whitewater, as Congressman Leach asserts, may be important "precisely because it is small ((and)) truth of character is more generally revealed in small acts than large gestures." It mattered that Lyndon Johnson lied about small things because he eventually lied (to the nation and, probably, to himself) about a very big thing, the Vietnam War. It matters if Bill and Hillary Clinton are telling the truth about Whitewater. How much they invested; how much, if anything, they really lost; whether they were actually entitled to . all the tax deductions for interest they took. Because these things are very important in themselves? No. Because if their veracity cannot be trusted on those matters, who can believe them when they say their health-care plan will really cut costs, or improve the quality of medical care, or not lead to rationing, or increase rather than narrow our choice of which doctors to consult?

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