Dole Weighs In on Whitewater Case

Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole led an aggressive, coordinated GOP attack on President Clinton’s character Saturday, taking advantage of last week’s guilty verdicts in the Whitewater case against Clinton’s former business partners and his successor as Arkansas governor.

In a speech to a meeting of the Republican National Committee here, Dole made a thinly veiled reference to the Whitewater case, saying “I want to be president because I want to return integrity to our government--a mission that’s more important this week than even a week ago.”

And after declaring that he is not in the race to “discuss Bill Clinton’s character,” Dole did just that, arguing that “every time Bill Clinton says one thing and does another, every time he talks like a conservative but governs like a liberal, he puts his character and credibility on the table.”

Dole’s attack came immediately after he held a private meeting with Mother Teresa, and he began his speech by reading a message of Christian love and charity printed on her business card, which she had autographed for him as a souvenir.

Echoing Dole’s attack, Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), the chairman of the House Banking Committee who has been a leader in the Republican probe of the Whitewater affair, raised the character issue as well in delivering the GOP response to Clinton’s Saturday radio address to the nation.

Without specifically mentioning Clinton’s connection to Whitewater, Leach said that “public officials have a special obligation to tell the truth and conduct themselves and their affairs, be they public or private, in a manner above all reproach.”

Dole seemed particularly exasperated by Clinton’s recent success at co-opting the middle ground on key issues just as the outgoing Senate majority leader and other Republicans were hoping to turn them into weapons against the White House. Dole protested Clinton’s rapid response on issues ranging from welfare reform to a balanced budget, arguing that those moves were signs that the president lacks core values and character.

“Telling the truth about Bill Clinton’s record is a full-time job,” Dole said. “He finds out I’m giving a speech on welfare reform, then claims he’s been for it all along. He hears my proposal on juvenile crime, then rushes forward a couple days later and calls for curfews for teenagers. That’s the 1996 Clinton model. Rather than contend for an agenda of his own, he just adopts Republican rhetoric.”

On a day when Washington played host to a national march on behalf of children led by children’s advocate Marian Wright Edelman, Leach sought to connect the character issue to family values.

“Leading a country is like rearing a child,” Leach said. “It requires honesty and self-discipline. It is not enough for politicians to advocate good causes. They must lead by example. Character matters.”

The GOP assault seemed designed to make the most of the guilty verdicts handed down by an Arkansas jury Tuesday in the wide-ranging Whitewater case. James B. and Susan McDougal, Clinton’s former Whitewater partners, and Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, were found guilty on a variety of charges, marking the biggest legal victory to date for Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr.

While Clinton has not been charged with any wrongdoing, he testified by videotape as a witness for the defense in the case. While there was no direct connection between Clinton and the charges brought against the McDougals or Tucker, the verdicts seem certain to re-energize Starr’s investigation. And they will give Republicans new opportunities to raise the question of his possible involvement in the controversial political and business dealings in Arkansas while he was governor there.

Still, a new poll released Saturday showed that, so far at least, the Whitewater verdicts have not had much impact on the presidential campaign.

The Newsweek poll reported that Clinton still leads Dole by a substantial margin, and more than half of those surveyed said they thought Whitewater was little more than a partisan political issue.

The poll, conducted Thursday and Friday, found that Clinton leads Dole, 49% to 32%, with 10% of respondents supporting a third-party candidate. The poll said 64% said Whitewater was about partisan politics; almost 50% said the press is paying too much attention to the controversy.

While 60% said the Clintons were probably guilty of minor offenses, only 22% said they believe that the president or First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton is guilty of serious offenses. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points for all respondents, and 5 points for the registered voters surveyed.