Editorials: The Party of Corruption/Who's the Bossie?
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
EDITORIALS by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. The Party of Corruption A few weeks back the Democrats' foxy rhetoricians put the poor Republicans on the defensive once again. The battleground...
...Moreover he distribI'm right...
...manner...
...We shall see...
...Bossie served that bugaboos is "politics...
...There are senators of integrity such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Joseph Lieberman, who recognize corruption when they see it and have called for proper inquiries...
...He spoke of the hundreds of thousands of dollars that the committee discovered flowing towards Hubbell as he engaged in the sham of his plea bargaining...
...It was Bossie who drew early attention to the charges of David Hale...
...He tried to warn Americans that the Chinese had played an illegal role in the 1996 elections...
...tored transcripts to make it appear that Bossie has elicited shrieks of partisan Hubbell had implicated Hillary Milhous outrage from Democrats for his parti- Clinton in billing fraud...
...When the corruption of this administration is fully revealed and the reform of Washington politics begins, Bossie will be one of the remembered heroes...
...Not only does "The Party of Corruption" roll from the tongue more sonorously than the ungainly "Party of Investigations," it is an infinitely more onerous burden to bear, particularly before the electorate...
...And I — we — haven't seen evidence that they are there...
...He took credit for the Independent Counsel now investigating Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt...
...The me...
...Do you really think the American people are lenient toward government corruption...
...After all, what would you rather be known as, corrupt or inquisitive, a crook or an investigator...
...Paul Begala...
...Bossie has for a certi- the insight that the Clintons were protude found himself in difficulty...
...san behavior ever since he arrived at Reporters who have listened to the Burton's office...
...Rather they were some-months chief investigator to Congress- thing in between, thus opening Bossie to man Dan Burton's House Government unwarranted charges that he had docReform and Oversight Committee...
...It is as though the legendary bank robber Willie Sutton pointed to all his scrapes with the law as proof of biased police work...
...Yes, that...
...He needed his friends when he uted that evidence widely...
...of the late Governor Earl Long's crafty He was an ingenious investigator who declaration to one of his Louisiana polit- could draw connections from evidence ical allies, to wit, "I don't need you when that others missed...
...Suggesting the vast corruption of the Clinton administration, Bossie reminded Burton that his committee has been "faced with the unprecedented stonewalling of nearly too witnesses who have taken the Fifth Amendment or fled the country...
...In their committee appearances they misled the public into thinking Thompson was making baseless charges...
...He was foundly corrupt he offered his evidence held responsible for the Burton commit- to the press...
...04 wbo,s the Bossie...
...So did the Black Panthers...
...The release was legal, but itics timing is of the utmost the documents were clumsily prepared...
...They called the Republicans "The Party of Investigations...
...Now, of course, thanks to the revelations of Johnny Chung, we know that the evidence was there, and in a recent column Robert Novak made clear that these Democrats had in fact seen that evidence...
...In James Stewart's Blood The American Spectator • July 1998 17...
...Now that he has been forced to the Clinton White House has lied to resign he is a martyr to their cause...
...In his resignation letter Bossie recalled some of the Burton committee's achievements...
...His departure will assist the Clintons in their master plan to run out the clock even as they criticize the investigators for dragging out their investigations...
...None ever Chris Vlasto told the Washington Post, defended him, at least until it was too "Dave Bossie has never lied to me, and late...
...Bossie might remind the Republicans But the indefatigable Bossie did act...
...Many people have, particularly none of his Republican colleagues had journalists, who will tell you as ABC's a clue as to what was afoot...
...The Democratic mouthpieces were less so, James (The Skull) Carville and the bewitched Dr...
...Oh no, not that...
...But if the Republicans believe that the sacrifice of Bossie will assuage the Democrats' partisanship, it is only a matter of time before the Democrats are shrieking about yet another Bossie in the Republican ranks...
...And Vlasto adds that "If it comes Republicans can be counted on to honor down to a question of whom do you their martyrs...
...Such White House co-conspirators as Senators Richard Durbin, John Glenn, Carl Levin, and Robert Torricelli were privy to the same intelligence reports as Thompson...
...KARL O'LESSKER The American Spectator mourns the passing of its long-time senior editor and adviser Karl O'Lessker, who died on Memorial Day in our old home town of Bloomington, Indiana...
...and more congressional inquiries than any previous American government...
...That would be a hoot, for among the Democrats' historic boasts is that they are the Party of Reform...
...They Byron York, who asserts that Bossie wait to defend their own until it is too "never lied or acted in an irresponsible late...
...The Democrats seem to think that the American people are likely to share their prejudice against government investigations, which of course implies being lenient toward government corruption...
...If their consciences do not come alive and they continue to frustrate the investigation into the Clintons' lengthening list of scandals, the Democrats of the 1990's may indeed go down in history as the R.I.P...
...Actually in recent history some rather famous criminals have cited their brushes with the law as evidence of their innocence and of prosecutorial overzealousness...
...A wonderful and devoted friend, a first rate scholar and astute political player and observer—and an unbudgeable fan of his beloved Philadelphia Phillies—Karl was a warm, sweet, modern man whom we will always miss and fondly remember...
...Some day—not far off— histoevidence has mounted that the Clintons rians will be pondering whether the Clinwere continuing their rude political ways tons made the Democrats the Party of in the White House...
...My answer is timing...
...Whether it be the Corruption or whether the Democrats suppression of an RTC investigation, the already were sufficiently corrupt to coop-breaching of campaign laws, the treat- erate with the Clintons...
...surprise of no one who has dealt with Yet as Bossie was being undermined him...
...By some weird intellectual contortion the Democrats believe that they can cite these investigations as proof that their president is innocent...
...And how about this whopper: "But in terms of drawing dots between China and the presidential race, those dots are not yet there...
...Really, senator...
...After Senator Lauch Fair-cloth hired him to work on the Senate Whitewater Committee, Bossie continued to gather up useful information of Clinton scandals and to distribute it to the press...
...And of that we haven't seen any evidence whatsoever...
...14 Sport one reads that Bossie was one of the chief agents in getting the mainstream press to look into C ' Whitewater, its devious land...
...partisan Democrats dramatically abhor Clinton, but with the confusion about in public even as they practice parti- Bossie's mislabeled transcripts came calls sanship ubiquitously...
...Bossie noted the committee's discovery of the Democratic National Committee's fundraising among South Americans and the information it gathered for the indictment of Charlie Trie...
...Goaded by was in difficulty...
...The battleground was suitably telegenic, the Sunday moming chat shows...
...With the latest revelations about American technology being transferred to China to profit Democratic financial supporters—some residing in Peking—we might think back on the impediments the Democrats put in the path of Senator Fred Thompson...
...But a surprising number of Democrats when confronted with White House cover-up have cooperated with the cover-up...
...This is not to say that all Democrats suffer this mental disorder—or is it a character disorder...
...another of their for a sacrificial lamb...
...Partisanship" is one of entire tapes of Hubbell's conversations the many bugaboos that the intensely believe Hubbell does implicate Mrs...
...Consider the recent defen- They were neither edited transcripts nor estration of David Bossie, for eighteen paraphrased logs...
...Principled ment of White House interns, or any of Democrats still have time to summon the other White House scandals, the their party to cooperate in reasserting the Clintons have continued the machine rule of law in Washington...
...The Mafia makes this claim regularly...
...On CNN the lubricious Senator Levin claimed that "All you've heard is the innuendo that somehow or other the China plan affected the presidential election...
...Yet when Thompson disclosed this the Democrats ridiculed him and stonewalled despite threats to our national security...
...importance...
...The Clinton administration has attracted more independent counsels Adapted from RET's weekly Washington Times column syndicated by Creators Syndicate...
...purpose...
...And do the Republicans allow the martyrs to there is that other Whitewater sleuth, accumulate...
...Their stroke of genius was boldly to acknowledge all the investigations that the Boy President had attracted and to make a rhetorical virtue of his scandalousness...
...c onservative Republicans have a tee's release of Webb Hubbell's jail house problem with timing, and in pol- conversations...
...deal, the assorted lies by the ---- -s, Clintons...
...Not one of the verbally constipated Republicans had the fluency to reciprocate with the logical retort, to wit, identifying the Democrats as "The Party of Corruption...
...The Republicans were speechless...
...The question arises, why believe, I'd believe Bossie any day...
...His Senate Governmental Affairs Committee had access to classified information proving that Chinese money had been distributed to the Clinton campaign...
...Since Arkansas state troopers first stepped forward in 1993 to reveal the reflexive abuses of power, conflicts of 16 July 1998 • The American Spectator interest, and coverups in which the Clin- politics they learned in one-party tons regularly engaged in Arkansas, the Arkansas...
...After all this the Republican leadership let Bossie take the heat and be driven from the job he did so well...
...His letter of resignation At any rate, each shriek against Bossie revealed him to be a gentleman, to the weakened his standing on Capitol Hill...
Vol. 31 • July 1998 • No. 7
