Morris’ Mud Doesn’t Need Help Sticking

Most Republicans would have guessed that Dick Morris was only the second most likely person in the Clinton operation to be caught with a prostitute. So they lost no time chortling when news broke that the president’s chief political advisor was resigning from the campaign over allegations that he had allowed a $200-an-hour professional escort to listen in on his phone conversations with the president.

News of Morris’ indiscretions has created both short- and long-term problems for the Clinton reelection effort. The immediate damage is more serious for the president, whose speech to the Democratic National Convention Thursday night was supposed to be both the centerpiece and the culmination of an otherwise successful convention. Media coverage and public attention that would have focused exclusively on Clinton’s speech has now been distracted by an irresistible story that overlays a melange of sex, power and politics onto a White House already burdened by ethical shortcomings.

In all likelihood, there will be no immediate post-convention boost in the polls for the Clinton-Gore campaign. More damaging for the president, though, is that he had hoped to use his acceptance speech to spell out his intended direction for a second term in office. Now, an address that White House aides had dubbed “State of the Union II” because of its heavy policy content will forever be linked with this new symbol of ethically questionable behavior on the part of Clinton aides and advisors.

The scandal’s long-term impact is more difficult to gauge. There is no question that it is much more serious for Clinton, whose presidency has been plagued by a series of personal and political improprieties, than it would be for most officeholders. The allegation about Morris comes on the heels of charges of drug use among White House staff, and is dangerously close to the territory of alleged sexual misbehavior that almost destroyed Clinton’s first campaign for president.

But this story doesn’t need Republican help; the news media and back-fence gossip will keep it alive, and heavy-handed partisan spin will be counterproductive. Reporters, pundits and voters will all draw their own links from Morris to other Clinton friends of questionable repute and use this episode to revisit the other ethically charged episodes that blot Clinton’s biography. Morris, ironically, will be much more effective resurrecting Whitewater and Filegate, Craig Livingstone and Gennifer Flowers, as potential campaign issues than a platoon of Republican consultants and strategists could ever have hoped to do.

The temptation for Republicans will be immense. Alarmed by Clinton’s recovery in the polls in the days since their convention in San Diego, and after spending a good part of the past four years questioning the Clinton character on any number of fronts, they will need to exercise a huge amount of restraint to keep from capitalizing on a story like this one.

Unfortunately, restraint is more easily discussed than exercised. Before Morris’ resignation had even been officially confirmed, a senior Dole campaign advisor released a statement calling the incident “incredible” and asserting that the “sleaze factor” would be an issue in the campaign.

The effect of continued Republican involvement in this story will be be to push “Morrisgate” into the realm of the same partisan political back-and-forth that caused voters to tire of Whitewater and travel office stories so quickly. An otherwise spinless White House can now go back on the attack, and the news media will cover the charges and countercharges until the voters tune out on both sides.

Make no mistake: This is a story with serious ramifications for the Clinton reelection effort. Bob Dole’s most effective speeches to date have discussed a moral decline in America that must be reversed. A president whose closest political advisor felt free to treat the sanctity of the Oval Office with such callous disregard is poorly positioned to argue the point.

The late Republican strategist Lee Atwater used to have a saying: “Never interfere with your enemy when he’s in the process of destroying himself.”

Although destruction is far too strong a term for the mess in which the Clinton White House is embroiled, the best thing Republicans can do is get out of the way. In his own convention speech two weeks ago, Bob Dole offered himself to the electorate as a man of character and values. Voters are smart enough to draw the distinction for themselves.