The Political Interest Where It Hurts

What rankles about whitewater? the facts most needed to judge the Clintons remain unknown. In their absence, the nation is left with a jumble of disturbing impressions. First is the sense that we’ve been here before. Bill Clinton is a famous corner cutter. Ask him about something he perceives as uncomfortable, and he goes into lawyer mode. “I’ve caused pain in my marriage,” he said, when Gennifer Flowers’ charges surfaced. He didn’t outright admit to philandering. He said “everyone” knew what he meant, and probably everyone did, but Clinton wasn’t going to be any clearer. He didn’t break American laws, he said, when the pot-smoking charges flew — a dodge that held for a nanosecond, until it was revealed that Clinton’s noninhaling had taken place in England. And then there was the draft.

Since those activities and Clinton’s tortured explanations took place before he was elected President, voters had a chance to review the evidence and pass judgment. Ultimately, enough people either believed Clinton or considered his truth shading less important than the need to improve on George Bush’s performance. Today Americans can gauge Clinton by his record in the Oval Office as much as by anything else.

Where, then, does Whitewater fit in? It’s different — or could be — because the wrongdoing (if there was any) may have involved abuses of power while Clinton was serving as Governor of Arkansas. On the other hand, Whitewater too is from the past. So even if the worst were proved — and no one yet knows what that is — the offense might not warrant impeachment. Even proof of an ethical lapse by then Governor Clinton is not likely to harm him as much as an error committed during his presidency, such as the unproved allegation that he recently dangled a job offer in front of an Arkansas state trooper in return for the trooper’s silence about Clinton’s alleged sexual shenanigans before he won the White House.

The President’s call for an independent Whitewater investigation temporarily quells the political outrage, but many people still think Clinton must be guilty of something because they know he isn’t stupid. Here’s a policy wonk well versed in every domestic issue that ever made a Sunday-morning talk show, a politician with near total recall of conversations and events from long ago, a meticulous record keeper capable of itemizing underwear donations to charity. Why, then, are so many vital Whitewater records missing? How is it possible that two respected lawyers like Bill and Hillary Clinton don’t possess a paper trail capable of proving their innocence — unless they’re hiding something? How could products of the Watergate generation ignore the central lesson of Richard Nixon’s downfall: stonewalling, and even its mere appearance, can be at least as corrosive as laying out the whole tale publicly, unless the true story transcends mere embarrassment?

Then there is the matter of the President’s overall credibility. Are these nagging qualms so damaging that Clinton’s legislative agenda will be jeopardized? Republicans, of course, and some Democrats think the President’s ability to accomplish health-care reform has been compromised. But one senior Democratic Senator insists that Clinton has already ended up as “just another player with his own vision of how to resolve the matter.”

More important, but thankfully vague at this point, is whether the scandal has hobbled Clinton’s ability to command public support in a crisis. When a President, like Bush before the Gulf War, seeks public approval for a life- threatening mission with an argument that finally relies on a plea to “Trust me, you elected me,” this is no trifling question.