Special Counsel--Here It Comes : Whitewater heat rages as White House moves toward outside investigator

Politics does not always make for great public policy. The so-called Whitewater affair is a case in point.

The ideal would be: When Congress returns to work later this month, the House of Representatives quickly passes legislation renewing the now expired special prosecutor law, as the Senate already has done. Passage then allows Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to ask a panel of judges to select a special, outside prosecutor to carry forth the probe, which she does. That takes the case away from the Clinton Justice Department--and out of Reno’s hands. Then the special prosecutor conducts an investigation of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s involvement in the Whitewater real estate project. Many months--and surely millions of dollars--later, the country, presumably, knows the answer to such questions as: Did the Clintons, when Bill Clinton was governor, improperly help an Arkansas co-investor and supporter who was in trouble with regulators over his failing savings and loan institution?

The White House denies that Clintons did anything wrong; no formal charges have been filed. A special prosecutor might find something, or nothing.

Inside the infamous Beltway this case has become a full-scale brouhaha, and so enter hardball politics and exit optimal public policy.

Many Republican members of Congress--joined of late by some Democrats--have been insisting that Reno not wait for Congress to reauthorize the special prosecutor law but instead designate an outside superlawyer to launch an independent investigation now. Late Wednesday, that is what Reno, with the approval of the White House, said she will do.

Precisely how having Reno pick the lawyer gets around the objection that her fingerprints would be on the operation is beyond us. But that is now a moot point. Just call it politics.