Beltway Culture Blinded by Spin As Farce Turns Into a Tragedy

It’s said that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. That wisdom is being reversed here in Washington, where a farce is returning as tragedy.

The farce was the relationship between President Bill Clinton and intern Monica Lewinsky in the late 1990s. The tragedy, or so it increasingly appears, is the connection between another married 50-something politician, Rep. Gary Condit (D-Ceres), and another 20-something intern, Chandra Levy.

The two keys to understanding this cyclical dynamic are, first, the culture of Washington, in which even a missing-person investigation is seen as a game of sorts and, second, the legacy of the Clinton impeachment trial, which convinced just about everyone inside the Beltway to ignore an adulterous affair, even if larger issues present themselves.

The daily diary of Powertown, the Washington Post, was slow to pick up on the story, burying its relatively few items in the Metro section. And oftentimes, the paper seemed as interested in defining the spin as in discovering the truth. On June 23, the Post headline, referring to Condit’s hiring of a well-known D.C. attorney, read in part: “Decision to Retain Seasoned Lawyer Called Savvy Move.”

It could be argued, of course, that the Post is just reflecting its readership. One reader, no doubt, is Marina Ein, a Washington fixture hired recently to do public relations for Condit. After a D.C. police official said Condit was not a suspect in the Levy case, Ein told the New York Times, “That was a home run,” adding, in regard to the cop’s statement, “It underscored what we’ve been saying all along. That Congressman Condit has been fully cooperative.”

And that, of course, is a complete whopper; it was not until his third police interview, more than two months after Levy’s disappearance, that Condit reversed his previous denials and admitted he’d had an affair with Levy.

Will Ein ever pay a professional price for such truth-spinning? More often, in Washington, the ability to assert, with a straight face, that up is down and down is up, is regarded as a talent. And so if the past is any guide, she’s a lot more likely to be offered more gigs, and maybe even a book contract, than she is to be labeled as a liar.

But how about the Republicans? They have said little about the Levy case. How come?

Most likely, it’s because GOPers remember what happened to them during the impeachment saga, when much of the first string of House Republican impeachers--Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, Henry Hyde, Dan Burton--were found to be hypocrites themselves on sexual issues.

So nobody in Washington--certainly not pundits and reporters--gets worked up over infidelity any more, which leaves D.C. clueless when extramarital passion veers into a murder investigation.

And here it must be noted that the Levy family has played a strange role, as if they, too, were hypnotized by Washington’s nonjudgmental, noninquiring culture. They reported their daughter missing on May 5, and yet while they seemed to hint at a more intense relationship between Chandra and Condit than the congressman had admitted, they didn’t publicly accuse Condit of being intimate with Chandra until July 5. That’s when relative Linda Zamsky came forward to say that she knew last year that Levy and Condit were having an affair, and that the parents knew, too.

Had the Levys raised hell immediately, two months ago, when their daughter first disappeared, demanding that Condit, as her lover--an obvious initial suspect in whatever happened to her--take a lie-detector test and submit to a search of his apartment, this case might not be so mysterious anymore.

An energetic investigation might not have found Chandra, but now, after so much time has passed, it’s quite possible that the malefactor will get away. And that’s a further twist on the possible tragedy, that the guilty party walks because Washington has continued to see only the farce.