The Nation’s District of Distraction

Washington has always been a company town. Now that the CEO is in big trouble, it’s hurting business.

With the Capitol consumed by the possible impeachment of President Clinton, the furor has thrown a huge load of sand into the gears of the hometown industry: politics and policy. Lobbyists and lawmakers watch as an assortment of projects lose traction in the slime of scandal.

Hopes that Congress will pass legislation to regulate managed health care, for instance, have gone from flickering to none. Clinton’s ability to lead an effort to overhaul Social Security is much in doubt. And some analysts wonder about the vigor of the U.S. response to disturbing events on the international scene, including Russia’s economic collapse and the humanitarian disaster brewing in the Serbian province of Kosovo.

Certainly, Congress is still proposing bills, holding hearings and issuing news releases. Bureaucrats are still writing regulations. Indeed, the crisis sparked by Clinton’s affair with Monica S. Lewinsky may have elevated some legislation--most prominently a GOP tax cut--from the inconceivable to the possible.

But on many days--like when independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s report on the Lewinsky case was released or Clinton’s grand jury testimony was aired--earnest policymakers have seemed a little like the family of an alcoholic trying to ignore the drunk passed out on the couch: It’s a constructive response if you want to get dinner on the table, but it requires a heavy dose of denial.

Much government business gets done only with a push from the White House, a spate of press attention or a loud clamor from Congress. For weeks now, the Lewinsky affair has gotten in the way of all three.

“The president’s behavior is tragic not only because of the wrong he did but because of the good that will go undone,” said Brent Coffin, executive director of the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life at Harvard Divinity School. “It’s a loss of opportunity to exercise moral leadership, as well as political leadership, and the loss of the nation’s capacity to exercise leadership in a very unstable world.”

The scandal has become woven into the warp and woof of the city’s political fabric, distracting policymakers on many fronts.

Some analysts fear it has diverted Clinton from becoming more deeply involved in what he has called “the biggest financial crisis facing the world in a half-century”--the rapidly spreading global financial turmoil.

Although Clinton addressed the issue in a speech Sept. 14, senior officials conceded that were it not for the Lewinsky affair, he almost certainly would have weighed in on the subject in August, when the crisis took a turn for the worse.

In his speech, Clinton made a big pitch for additional funding for the International Monetary Fund, which in turn would funnel money to struggling countries. But the president was not engaged enough to have called members of Congress directly to build support for his request. Just three days later, the House delivered a stinging rebuke and voted to provide only a small fraction of the IMF money Clinton wanted.

Scandal Stalls Legislative Progress

On other issues, the scandal has exacerbated tensions that had already stalled legislation. For example, even before the tumult surrounding Clinton reached gale force in August, efforts to give patients more rights in dealing with managed care health plans were caught in partisan cross-fire, with Democrats seeking more sweeping reforms than Republicans were willing to accept. But there was some chance that election-year pressure could force a compromise, especially if Clinton had a strong hand. Now, GOP congressional leaders seem to feel far less pressure to actually bring the measure to a Senate vote before adjournment.

“A bill of this size and complexity can’t get through the Congress without the full support of an active, vigorous president who has the ability to cut deals, cajole members and push them to reach agreement,” said one Senate Democratic aide. “Obviously, that’s not going to be able to happen now.”

The scandal has dammed up the course of more bite-sized legislation as well--such as the bill seeking to rein in paparazzi behavior in the wake of the death of Princess Diana. Championed by the entertainment industry and carried by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the once-promising measure appears destined to die in a Senate committee as time runs out on an otherwise occupied Congress. The bill’s sponsors hope to try again in the spring.

Even legislation steaming toward passage may be at risk. A long-awaited bill to make it harder for people to declare bankruptcy overwhelmingly passed the Senate. But there may not be time to iron out big differences with the House version--in part because the bill’s House negotiators are Judiciary Committee members who are consumed by the debate over possible impeachment.

Looking ahead, many analysts believe the scandal deals a setback to hopes that Congress next year will grapple with reforming Social Security. Until now, 1999 had been seen as a rare window of political opportunity to address the sensitive issue, with Clinton committed to doing something to bolster the program for baby boomers’ retirements.

“It doesn’t look now like he’s going to be able to provide as much leadership as we hoped earlier this year,” said Martha Phillips, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group pushing for Social Security reform. “We don’t even know if he’s going to be in office next year.”

Some Issues Gain Momentum

Paradoxically, some issues have had their prospects improved as a result of Clinton’s perceived weakness. On Saturday, House Republicans passed an $80-billion tax cut, financed largely by dipping into the newly emerging budget surplus. Earlier this year, many Republicans were wary of such an approach because it seemed a risky challenge to Clinton’s demand that the surplus be saved until Congress shores up Social Security. But Clinton’s problems have emboldened the House GOP leadership to push harder for a tax cut.

Still, the tax-cut measure faces an uncertain future, in part because Clinton has shown no signs of backing off from his veto threat.

Of potentially graver concern than the scandal’s effect on domestic issues, many analysts are worried that Clinton’s personal crisis has diverted attention--both his and Congress’--from pressing international issues.

“We may be able to delay debate on the minimum wage or managed care, but national security issues don’t take a break,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “The Middle East peace process is stalled. North Koreans seem to be intent on developing nuclear weapons. The world’s economy is in the tank. Russia is now ruled by a former KGB agent. We are completely diverted.”

So, for example, a recent Senate hearing on Russia’s financial crisis began 30 minutes late and, despite the gravity of the issue, drew a grand total of three of the subcommittee’s nine members. Part of the problem: It conflicted with a caucus of congressional Democrats dealing with Clinton’s personal travails.

Two days later, a similar hearing opened with five of the House International Relations Committee’s 48 members plus a handful of reporters while, around the corner in the same building, a media army camped outside a packed meeting of the House Judiciary Committee, which was reviewing the Starr report.

At the State Department, the director of the department’s internal policy-planning think tank, Gregory Craig, was pulled off the job to coordinate Clinton’s response to Congress on the Lewinsky case.

Visiting Estonian Foreign Minister Toomas Hendrik Ilves joked that in normal times, recent comments by a senior Russian official that he deliberately lied to the IMF to get a $22-billion loan package would have caused an uproar in Congress.

“It would have been a big story, but Congress hardly noticed,” he said. “They were already in an uproar about something else.”

Toll on World Policy Debated

The toll of this distraction on the conduct of America’s foreign affairs is as impossible to measure as it is to ignore.

Administration officials deny that the scandal has slowed their response to Russia’s economic collapse and other international crises. But Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott acknowledged, “The fact that this is detracting as much energy as it is is obviously something that those of us on the foreign policy side have to deal with.”

Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III predicts the scandal will make it harder for Clinton to build support for his foreign policy in a Congress that will determine his personal fate. “How many political chits is the president going to use to pressure or cajole or plead with a congressman on a foreign policy issue when he might need his vote on something as important as an inquiry of impeachment?” Baker asked.

There have been wisps of encouragement for the beleaguered president on the international scene. Within the last week, Czech President Vaclav Havel and South African President Nelson Mandela expressed their support for Clinton during visits to Washington, easing some worries that the scandal may have poisoned his personal relationships with important world leaders.

In the eyes of many capital observers, the problem posed by the scandal isn’t the distraction of the White House or Congress as much as the single-mindedness of the media. With the major news organizations devoting huge resources to covering Clinton’s problems, press secretaries with other agendas are having a hard time getting their message out.

The Sierra Club recently held a news conference to denounce environmental measures that Republicans have buried in big annual spending bills--a battle that depends heavily on directing media attention to obscure provisions of arcane bills. But it was the day Starr’s report was released, and hardly anybody came.

The Center for Responsive Politics recently tried to interest reporters in a new service to help analyze money in politics. “Trying to sell that was like being a comedian and getting tomatoes thrown in my face,” said Jennifer Schecter, a researcher at the nonprofit center.

The current atmosphere is especially frustrating for the many people who came to the capital to push a cause, stand for an idea, shape policy.

“This is a tough time for folks who have been working on these issues for many months,” said Jim Manley, press secretary to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who has been pushing for a minimum wage increase and health care reform. “It’s a little disheartening to see all this hard work go down the drain.”

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Times staff writers Art Pine, Paul Richter, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Faye Fiore contributed to this story.

* GOP STATE CONVENTION

Republicans are deeply divided over how best to capitalize on the White House scandal. A3

* (LACK OF) INSTANT RECALL

President Clinton’s memory lapses during grand jury testimony are raising eyebrows. A21