New York Times Feb 11, 2001

LIBERTIES

Get Rich Quick

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON — Oh, heck, let's just impeach him again.

With Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton subverted the legal system and sullied the presidency. With Marc Rich, he perverted the legal system and may have traded a constitutional power for personal benefit.

He can't argue that our interest in this transgression is a violation of his privacy.

The Clintons ran a cash-and-carry White House. They were either hawking stuff or carting it off.

Beyond Denise Rich's $3 million fund-raising lunch and personal donations — $450,000 to the Clinton library, more than $1 million to Democrats, $10,000 to the Clinton legal defense fund, $7,375 for Clinton furniture — let's hope Bill Clinton has a Swiss bank account set up by Marc Rich.

Otherwise, it would not be worth sliming the Constitution, his legacy and his party.

Bill and Hill are tornadoes, as James McDougal memorably observed, twisting through people's lives and blithely moving on.

But this time, they may not dance away from the wreckage. The egg may have hit the fan, as Congressman Steven LaTourette put it at the Congressional hearing on the Rich pardon.

This time, maybe the user was used. Bill Clinton was manipulated by a man who made billions manipulating foreign markets. Marc Rich bought a pardon with the money he made betraying America.

Bob Dole once asked where the outrage was. It finally materialized in, of all places, Dan Burton's hearing room as Denise Rich sent a letter taking the Fifth. The committee examined e-mails, telephone records and letters that provided a rare road map into a chic sewer of money and influence, a far cry from the salacious bodice-ripper peddled by Kenneth Starr.

Eric Holder, former No. 2 at Justice and the latest casualty of the Clinton twister, offered lame and contradictory excuses about why he failed to rebut the argument of Jack Quinn, once Mr. Clinton's White House counsel and Monica apologist. Meanwhile, Mr. Holder was being touted as a possible attorney general in a Gore administration, where Mr. Quinn might be chief of staff.

First Mr. Holder said he did not make a fuss because he did not know who Marc Rich was. Then he said he did not make a fuss because he assumed a pardon would not be granted to a known fugitive.

At the hearing, Representative Christopher Shays scorched Mr. Quinn: "Mr. Rich traded with Libya when we had the embargo, he traded with Iran when we had the U.S. hostages being held captive, he traded during the 12 years with Iraq when we had our conflict, he traded grain with the Soviet Union when we had an embargo, he traded with South Africa with the apartheid government when we had that embargo. . . ."

At the hearing, Democrats who had decried the virulent partisanship and wacko behavior of Dan Burton — including his re-enactment of the Vince Foster death by setting up what he called "a head-like" thing in his back yard and shooting into its mouth with a .38 — were echoing the complaints of Mr. Burton and fellow nutbag and Clinton hater Bob Barr.

Even some black Democratic lawmakers, Bill's biggest defenders, were appalled. Representative Elijah Cummings said that when he returned to Baltimore's inner city, people would ask him "about a guy who evaded taxes . . . when they can barely afford to go to H & R Block to get theirs filled out. . . . And they are going to say, `Mr. Cummings, how can that happen when the police are arresting us for simple things?' "

The potent combination of Mr. Rich's money and the access of Mr. Quinn and Denise Rich to the White House was destined to be a winner. As long as they could stay "under the press radar," as Mr. Quinn put it in an e-mail to another Rich lawyer.

Ms. Rich and her pal, another close friend and Clinton benefactor, former D.N.C. finance chairwoman Beth Dozoretz, pushed the pardon, sometimes monitoring events from Ms. Rich's ritzy lair in Aspen.

"POTUS," as one e-mail reports, phoned to buck up the girls from time to time with encouraging updates. If only those pesky White House lawyers would drop their objections, he was ready to green-light the pardon.

Ms. Rich also buttonholed Mr. Clinton at a White House reception on Dec. 20, snatching him away from Barbra Streisand for a pardon tête-à-tête.

In the world of the Clintons, people who need people are the luckiest people in the world.

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-- (Paracelsus@Pb.Au), February 10, 2001

Answers

Why do there still seem to be more articles about Clinton Bashing than about what the new president is up to? Sounds like a successful strategy by Mr. Clinton to stay at the center of attention, him doing these things like pardoning Rich.

This investigation is just another waste of time. These stupd republicans are still hunting a man who is not even there. Does Caspar Weinberger ring a bell? Oliver North? Anyone else involved in Iran/Contra who was pardoned by BUsh Sr? ANd please tell me how Rich's crimes are so much more egregious that his pardon needs special congressional attention.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), February 11, 2001.

Why, FS, I thought you'd know the answer to that -- because "Clinton Did It".

-- it's Clinton C*ck Withdrawal..... (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), February 11, 2001.

FS--

There is no fury like that of a Liberal embarassed. As you know, Dowd, and others she mentioned are Liberals. Do you think they like making common-cause with the likes of Dan Burton?

Clinton embarrassed them. It's not Rich they are pissed at, it's Clinton. Sorry, this won't go away. It may get worse. It's so egregiously tacky.

And it's too much fun for Repuplicans to watch the Dems squirm, hoist on their own petard. "The most ethical administration ever", LOL. Clinton said he won't go away and he was right.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.copm), February 11, 2001.

Republican spin. Keep the public's eyes on Clinton so they don't see the sperm heading towards the egg that will give birth to the biggest changes this country has seen in decades.

What individuals fail to realise is that the republican party does not care about the individual, they care about money and power and big business.

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), February 11, 2001.

Maureen Dowd is accused of writing Republican spin? Hoo-whee, that's rich. And speaking of Rich, I suppose he bribed Clinton with millions just to take our eyes off something that not only hasn't even happened, but shows no sign of ever doing so. Clearly, some people simply cannot face the facts. Fortunately, Maureen Dowd, liberal apologist though she is, at least isn't totally dishonest. Clinton may need to do howlingly sleazy and filthy things, but when he does, sane people notice their faces are being rubbed in it, and they resent it.

Cherri doesn't even notice.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), February 11, 2001.

Yep Flint, The spin about why Clinton pardoned him is from the repugs. And of course, you lap it up like a dog lapping up another's regurgitation.

And, if you want to bitch about him, do it in context with what other presidents have done.

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), February 11, 2001.

Cherri:

I hate to disillusion you, but Maureen Dowd is a card-carrying liberal democrat. You will need to find a new excuse, the old one turned out to be a lie. Sorry.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), February 11, 2001.

Dowd is not a liberal. As seen by liberals, she tends to hate everyone equally. She just pumps out hate. She'll get around to Bush eventually and pump out the same sortof stuff.

Dowd was the one who spread the rumor that Hillary had "registered" at some jewelry store or something for these "last-minute" gifts. Of course the news spread like wildfire, and other papers across the country embellished, but the store says it's all a lie. I think it was Salon who exposed this, although I don't remember which of their writers did it.

Rich [much like Dowd] works both sides of the fence. He's got eight years of ties to Cheney to consider, so I don't think any complaints about his pardon will go far.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), February 11, 2001.

Anita:

Of course, we can believe whatever solon says too. They are *at least* as objective as, say, American Spectator or the NRA.

Yes, I agree Dowd tends to be negative. But she finds fault with republicans the overwhelming majority of the time. Liberals quote her often and gleefully, until a liberal does something so gawdawful that even she has to take notice. Then suddenly she's "not a liberal" anymore. Uh, right.

But I agree about Rich. Scoundrels like that buy every politician they can find, because you never know who'll be in power next time you need one.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), February 11, 2001.

Flint:

Who would be the liberals that quote Dowd "gleefully" until...? I'm seriously asking this question, as I've not seen this.

I understand that some conservatives see Salon as a left-wing publication, but it really depends on who's doing the writing. I don't consider Lars a liberal, but he finds writers all the time on Salon and posts their stuff.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), February 11, 2001.

Flint:

The writer was Eric Boehlert. I'm not familiar with him, myself, so take it with however many grains of salt your blood-pressure can stand.

Eric Boehlert on the Hillary registry rumor

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), February 11, 2001.

What is going on here IMO is an attept by mainstream Liberals to disassociate themselves from Clinton. And this is smart, he is a tarbaby.

He was never a real Liberal anyhow. Best thing to do is condemn him and stay a safe distance.

Anita, I don't know how to characterize Salon (except as another dot.com that is going belly-up). I think it's pretty independent politically. I like to read Paglia.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), February 11, 2001.

Anita:

I'm inclined to believe Boehlert's view here, that stories snowball, and implications by one reporter become the next one's facts, which in turn are the next one's grist for their own cases.

From my perspective, this kind of media game of telephone happens with thumping regularity, but far less frequently against the Democrats, because reporters aren't particularly looking for democratic transgressions, and don't often consider them newsworthy (unless the reporter is Rush Limbaugh, of course). Conversely, many reporters strike me as viewing the world through eyes similar to Cherri's -- they just can't see their heroes doing anything wrong (even the facts are "republican spin"), while the most unfounded rumors against those they detest are given instant credibility (or in Cherri's case, embellished beyond recognition).

In this case, though, I think the Clintons were just a bit too sleazy for comfort. The pardons really narked some of the more sycophantic reporters, as did the vandalism, the vanishing silverware, the renting of the Lincoln bedroom, and so on. It just got to be too much, and as Lars (or someone here) said, suddenly just any sort of rumored tackiness sounded credible.

So while Boehlert may well be justified in correcting a runaway misapprehension (and I believe he is), salon reporters (IMO) are quite selective about which stories get straightened out. They strike me as a bit left of slate, whose reporters near-unanimously voted for Gore, yet claimed this didn't imply the slightest bias on their part, oh no, they only report the facts. Of their choosing, of course (which they did NOT mention while patting themselves on the back for their objectivity despite their voting record).

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), February 11, 2001.

Anita--

Wondering if you would have any insights for my thread "soliciting advice". Thanks.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), February 11, 2001.

Flint:

I'm even harder to convince than you sometimes. I found Boehlert's story credible, but always in the back of my mind there's an "If..then.." statement. IF his story is true, THEN. I feel the same way about the vandalism story, as well as the missing silverware story. I just never saw either of them supported enough for me to believe them.

I'm not a Slate fan. I read it, but I always feel like I'm getting the "Reader's Digest" version. I'm not particularly fond of political pundits in general, and I find the T.V. "talking heads" particularly annoying when they dare to explain to me their interpretation of what I've just heard with my own ears.

Setting a new record here in agreeing with you, I would much prefer to go to the source documents [as Boehlert SAYS he did] and discern the facts on my own. Armed with the facts, it's my preference to present them to Congresspeople who may or may not have aids who looked into these matters and may or may not even care. Even if THEY don't care, there's a sense of satisfaction in clearing up these matters for my own edification.

Lars:

I remember Stephen Poole once saying that he reviewed the "far left" sources like Salon, as well as the "far right" sources like Drudge, Newsmax and Worldnutdaily. In that respect, I was familiar with at least one conservative who thought Salon had a bias to the left. I don't tend to review Salon in general anymore. I subscribe to several news lists who send articles from various newspapers to my E- mail box daily and if Salon prints something of interest, I may catch it. I throw most of the articles away as insupportable, but if I do find something of credence, I tend to look into it further and offer it up for discussion with other liberals. Although I enjoy getting input from conservatives on occasion, when one is as liberal as I am, and lacks the passion of folks like Cherri and the evangelism of folks like the tax protestors, it really makes no sense to spend a great deal of time as a chicken in a wolf lair.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), February 11, 2001.

Anita--

I guess there's many ways to look at that; ie, should we talk to those who worship only at our church or should we be ecumenical? Ecumenicism is a waste of time for the true believer. Nonetheless, it's what I prefer. Besides, who wants to only talk politics? I have not seen a forum that causes me to laugh as much as this one.

As a teacher person, I'd really appreciate any input you might make to my thread "soliciting advice". Thanks.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), February 11, 2001.

Lars:

I responded to your thread soliciting advice, but I'm afraid I don't have anything of substance to offer.

Regarding the other, EVERYONE has a certain tolerance level, I think, and I'm sure you remember well a day when my tolerance level had been reached and I said a few things that I don't usually say and many even thought it couldn't have been me. I save both conservatives and myself from the words of that little miniature devil that dances on my right shoulder on occasion if I discuss politics with other liberals. [grin]

It wasn't easy to find other liberals that I didn't think were nuts. Many just want to rabble-rouse and sensationalize. I think I got kicked off that list when I pointed that out. The Democratic lists weren't much better. I learned a lot about Texas politics, but why would I want to support someone just because he/she has a {D} behind her name?

This forum can be fun. I agree with you there. However, there's only so much time in a day, and I'm really on a roll here with politics, and I want to do my thing on that....where my name isn't in a thread title.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), February 12, 2001.