First Couple: Who Will Pay the Price?

Incumbent presidential elections are referendums on the incumbent. Judging from his State of the Union address, President Bill Clinton feels in charge again. He sounded like a moderate Republican, declaring the era of big government dead and identifying with GOP goals on a wide range of issues.

So, according to the tacit hypothesis, since Clinton now agrees with many GOP objectives, we can safely return him to the White House, where he will guard against the excesses of the heartless right.

But there is one loose end that the President hasn’t handled--and probably cannot. Friday, his wife was summoned before a grand jury in Washington to answer questions under oath about how records subpoenaed two years ago--and claimed not to exist-- showed up on a table in the White House living quarters. Having testified before grand juries myself, it is difficult to believe the First Lady’s assertion that she welcomes the opportunity. But, then, I guess I haven’t believed a lot of what she has said concerning her career at the Rose Law Firm or various White Water-related matters.

Many insist Hillary Rodham Clinton’s lack of forthrightness is just a product of the lawyer’s natural inclination to yield nothing to the opposition--but I have never known a lawyer who withheld the truth when it would do him any good. Hillary Clinton has said she did not order the firing of White House travel personnel and, being a lawyer myself, I know this does not mean she didn’t instruct others to do so. She has said her knack for commodities trading was due to reading the Wall Street Journal, and later admitted she followed the advice of a well-connected friend.

Recently, it has been suggested one should be sympathetic to Hillary Clinton’s conduct since she might be trying to protect the virtuous image her daughter has of her. I am prepared to feel sorry for Chelsea Clinton--just as I was for Richard M. Nixon’s daughters--but this is no excuse for going easy on the first lady.

Mrs. Clinton is ashamed of some things she’s done. Her conduct proves this. These things may not amount to criminal behavior but obviously they would tarnish her image and that of her husband.

Ironically, given her employment with the Senate Watergate Committee in the early 1970s, she’s “stonewalling,” she’s evading, she’s blaming others for any mistakes. I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t declare she is not a crook.

Now, this is not Watergate. There is no burglary; there has been no evidence of payoffs for silence, and, if the Clintons are sensible at all, they haven’t been tape-recording every conversation in the Oval Office. But there is evidence of misuse of power in the attempt to use the FBI to indict harmless workers at the White House travel office; there is a lot of deception for unknown reasons, and there is a lot of smoke--so there must be a fire.

The only way to beat a scandal is to tell the truth and ask for forgiveness. Politicians rarely heed this advice because they are unwilling to damage their images. But by lying, by withholding, they destroy their images, anyway. Then, caught in the lies, there can be no mercy.

To pretend one’s actions are motivated by principle, when they are really motivated by a desire for personal gain or power, is hypocrisy. It is not a crime--which is good, because there is a lot of it in Washington. Both Clintons are guilty of it and if that were all that was involved here, the matter wouldn’t be worth pursuing. Voters notice these things, weigh them when deciding who to vote for and so they don’t need to be overly reminded of hypocrisy.

But recently, Hillary Clinton’s problems have become deeper than mere hypocrisy. It now seems she disregarded a subpoena and must testify under oath where untruths are called the crime of perjury.

To criticize the first lady at all raises the charge of sexism in some quarters. Would a man indulging in the same hypocrisies not be given grudging praise for being a worthy adversary? In the past, this may have been a proper comment.

But I know of no lawyer, man or woman, who would not feel threatened with disbarment when documents he claimed no longer existed appeared on a table in his living quarters. And I know of none who would not fear a criminal charge of obstruction of justice if the withholding of such documents proved meaningful in the future.

Behind every successful politician, there is always some poor slob who had to handle the dirty work. Bobby Baker went to jail for Lyndon B. Johnson; H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman paid the same price for Nixon. Can it be that Bill Clinton has been so callous as to place his own wife in this vulnerable position? If so, it will be he who pays the ultimate price.*