Has Fred Thompson Blown It?

...This is easily the worst congressional investigation in recent memory," says a well-placed Senate Republican aide...

...Would that be a fair charge...

...Thompson is getting something of a bum rap here, even though he created the problem for himself...

...Are the other charges against Thompson valid...

...He Has Tried Too Hard to Be Bipartisan...

...Committee aides say he suffers from an "NIH" problem...

...majority leader Trent Lott is foremost among them...

...You don't have to prove high crimes and misdemeanors to be successful...

...He has a point...

...You've got to investigate and kind of see where you are and what the facts are before you go public with them," he told me...

...But congressional hearings don't work this way...

...Why Thompson was so naive about Glenn's capacity for obstruction and subversion is a mystery...

...But it would have gotten the process started—no small matter considering the fact that the committee goes out of existence on December 31...

...This charmed life history made it possible for Thompson to get elected to the Senate in 1994 with no previous experience as an elected official, and to lead a major investigation into presidential wrongdoing, and to consider a presidential bid before he had even served a full term in Washington...

...Thompson claims that, basically, he had run out of ammunition following the sensational testimony that caught the public's attention...

...This not only gave the opposition time to mobilize (and witnesses to flee the country), it heightened expectations about what Thompson was going to deliver far beyond what he could realistically expect to reach...

...Thompson could have begun calling witnesses in February or March and started getting testimony on the record...

...Many Republicans believe that if the bill ever became law, it would wipe out the Republican party's majority in Congress, as it would restrict fund-raising from major sources of GOP money...

...Thompson's conduct has led to divisions in the GOP cloakroom greater than any seen since the 1990 budget deal...

...It's kind of ridiculous...

...Has he really been as bad, or as good, as people say...

...Thompson had already agreed with committee Democrats to spend the week beginning September 22 looking into alleged Republican abuses...

...Madigan is an experienced litigator—he's a partner at the Washington law firm Akin, Gump—but he has stumbled when it comes to the byzantine procedures of a congressional investigation...

...In fairness to Thompson, however, the decision on September 19 to start campaign-finance hearings was of little significance...

...Thompson says he has no regrets...

...It didn't take Lott long to grow disillusioned, especially when Thompson announced he wanted to expand the scope of the investigation from "illegal" activities (a subject that clearly put the Clinton camp at a disadvantage) into "improper" activities—which meant the investigation would likely spill over onto Republicans...

...Releasing a three-paragraph statement on a Friday made Thompson look duplicitous, as if he were engaging in a stealth campaign to pass the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance bill he supports but which many Republicans loathe...

...But in the week beginning September 15, the Thompson hearings finally started to generate serious public attention...

...The reality is that there wasn't going to be another week of hearings about Democratic wrongdoing in any case...

...Some complain simply that Thompson has botched the hearings...

...The announcement—there was no press conference, just a bland three-paragraph statement—immediately produced waves of criticism...

...He Has Tried to Impress the Media...

...To no one's surprise, these characters never showed up, and the hearings didn't begin until July...

...In 1982, he was, to his own amazement, hired to play himself in a Hollywood movie about the case of the Tennessee governor—and proved so likable and convincing that he became an A-list character actor making upwards of half-a-million dollars a year...

...Some staffers have taken to conducting their own investigations after being repeatedly rebuffed by Madigan...

...It would be a bitter irony if the biggest fish netted by Thompson's investigation were the man who played a key role in getting Thompson elected and getting Republicans into the majority, Haley Barbour...

...Instead, Thompson wrangled with Democrats over everything from subpoenas to photocopiers...

...But others dislike him because he is a free agent who is more interested in his own success than that of the Republican party...

...What Thompson might not understand—and what he might have learned from the experience of his old boss, Howard Baker—is that one of the qualities conservative Republican voters like in a politician is a willingness, even an eagerness, to stand his ground and take the heat from the liberally biased press...

...You can't just get out there and kind of wallow around with people who may or may not have any knowledge of the subject...

...Thompson hasn't overtly lobbied for the passage of McCain-Feingold, though his support for it explains some of his behavior...

...And even after the Democratic onslaught, he maintains, "You've got to not only be fair, but give the appearance of fairness...

...Thompson created a no-win situation for himself...

...He doesn't understand how to run a Senate hearing, and he never bothered to learn because Fred Thompson's agenda has always been Fred Thompson...

...Thompson staffers argued they needed time to hunt down Clinton cronies like Charlie Trie and Pauline Kanchanalak...

...Thompson may not have hurt himself all that much by staying out of the line of fire, but he hasn't made himself a hero either...

...Thompson is one of three Republicans in the Senate to support McCain-Feingold (McCain and Susan Collins are the others...

...Thompson's about-face is only the latest action he has taken as chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee to mystify and enrage congressional Republicans and conservative partisans...

...Thompson's biggest liability, say Republican sources, is Michael Madigan, whom they blame for an array of substantive and tactical blunders...

...He's Using the Committee to Help Pass the McCain-Feingold Campaign-Finance Bill...

...Now, after observing Thompson's conduct over the past nine months, Lott has a laundry list of complaints...

...He Doesn't Understand How a Congressional Hearing Works...

...Moreover, the first day of hearings last week was sparsely attended and received practically no media coverage...

...If he doesn't, he will have trouble erasing the impression that he gave up on the hearings just as he was starting to draw blood...

...Its original purpose was to go after the Clinton campaign for its fund-raising abuses, which had become such a focus of concern in the fall of 1996...

...Lott and Thompson tangled over this in February and March, and when Lott lost the fight, he publicly blasted Thompson in a story that made front-page news in one of Thompson's home-state dailies, The Tennessean...

...Thompson's decision to shift focus away from Clinton's fund-raising to campaign finance last week—a decision that meant the first witness to follow the amazing Roger Tamraz was Washington talking head Norm Ornstein—was made without consulting Lott...

...His Chief Counsel Is a Dud...

...Getting a reputation as an establishmentarian good guy doesn't cut it with the Christian Coalition...

...Not only does he make his Senate colleagues cringe, he may fall out of favor with the conservative, rabidly anti-Clinton voters who dominate Republican presidential primaries...

...They would have screamed and yelled, but with a two-vote majority on the committee, Thompson could do just about anything he wanted, except grant immunity to witnesses...

...Baker tried to protect his party and his president, but was, in the end, interested in getting at the truth...

...NIH stands for "Not Invented Here," and it means that if Madigan or one of his staffers isn't the one to come up with a lead, they're not interested in it...

...Senate Matthew Rees is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard...

...Thompson's staff doesn't get along with many of the other Republican staffs, and they're often pursuing completely separate agendas...

...Part of the problem is that he has failed to grasp the difference between conducting a congressional hearing and trying a case (more on that later...

...He's trying to look bipartisan because he thinks that will win him the favorable media coverage he needs for his presidential campaign...

...I wanted no message at all other than that we were moving some stuff up...

...In other words, Thompson believes, if Democrats charge the investigation is partisan, the committee will be compromised...

...Having spent a healthy chunk of his professional life arguing cases in courtrooms, Thompson brought to the investigation the same methodical approach a lawyer would bring to preparation for a trial...

...Indeed, it is a simple fact that the Thompson committee did not have to investigate Republicans...

...For a few weeks, it would set aside the fund-raising scandals and concentrate instead on campaign-finance legislation...

...A Republican willing to break so dramatically with his colleagues on campaign finance would be willing to conduct an investigation in which Republicans are targeted as well as Democrats...

...Thompson should have recognized that he was going to be fought every step of the way in January, when he requested a $6.5 million budget and was blasted by Glenn and the other committee Democrats for being a spendthrift...

...But he feels the committee has succeeded in putting new pressure on Janet Reno, and he remains hopeful this pressure will result in the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate Gore...

...Lott has concluded that selecting Thompson to lead the investigation into last year's fund-raising abuses has been the biggest mistake of his tenure...

...Thompson still has time to make up lost ground, but not a lot of time...

...If that happens, Thompson will deserve some credit, though there's no guarantee he'll be given any...

...I've always thought that regardless of what we came up with, . . . unless we had credibility as a committee it wasn't going to matter much...

...Thompson assumed Glenn would be a modern-day Howard Baker, who served as the ranking Republican on the Watergate committee and was Thompson's boss and mentor...

...He acknowledges some weeks have been better than others...

...Skeptics believe Thompson gave subpoena power to Democrats— knowing full well they would go after Republicans— as a way to boost his political viability outside Washington...

...Thompson takes a dim view of this criticism...

...The contributor then testified about how President Clinton's advisers gave him the run-around after he contributed $300,000...

...Thompson's critics say both of these problems could have been easily avoided: Democrats never should have been given time to probe Republican transgressions, and if Thompson had maintained a capable staff there would have been more than enough material to keep things lively...

...Moreover, Thompson had begun sounding out his committee colleagues about shifting the hearings away from abuses and toward campaign-finance legislation...

...Moreover, he allowed the committee to be used against Republicans, like former party chairman Haley Barbour...

...For if Republican abuses can be highlighted alongside Democratic abuses, overhauling the campaign-finance system—which McCain-Feingold would do—will look like an idea whose time has come...

...This is an apt description of what this year's committee Democrats have done, especially John Glenn...

...The irony in this is that had Thompson not bogged himself down and delayed the first round of hearings until July, he might have been responsible for revealing more information on Gore...

...Lott doesn't have the power to do that, but the sentiment captures just how unpopular Thompson has become with his Republican colleagues...

...After watching Madigan pass up one investigative opportunity after another over the past nine months, one committee source asked, "Are we throwing the game or just shaving points...

...Instead, he sought to win the support of Democrats for much of what he did, and was rattled by their non-stop criticism...

...The committee's investigation officially expires December 31, and Thompson told me there's no guarantee that he will turn his committee's attention back to Clinton fund-raising abuses...

...Yes, the committee heard testimony last week from individuals sympathetic to McCain-Feingold, but opponents also testified...

...you just have to highlight inconsistencies and malfeasance...

...Turf battles are to be expected in Washington, but this one has severely hampered the majority's investigation...

...But no matter what he does, the Democrats levy that charge...

...As it is, the one thing that can be said for Thompson is that by turning the spotlight on boring campaign-finance legislation, he delayed indefinitely a set of potentially embarrassing hearings for Republicans...

...As it is, the accomplishments of the Thompson committee remain unclear...

...It's elementary...

...At the time, it seemed a brilliant choice...

...Relations have descended to such a level that Republicans have stopped referring to Madigan by his nick-name—"Mad Dog"—and started calling him something somewhat less flattering: "The Poodle...

...Thompson, after all, had experience in such matters—20 years earlier, he was the boy-wonder Republican counsel on the Watergate committee—and the image of cool authority that made him such an effective character actor in movies like The Hunt for Red October and No Way Out was perfect for a politically delicate effort that had previously been the bailiwick of the hilariously unpolished Al D'Amato...

...Consider the following counts in the anti-Thompson indictment: He Delayed the Hearings at the Wrong Moment...

...In addition, he has been exceedingly deferential to the Democratic staff, particularly chief counsel Alan Baron, who GOP aides say has regularly gotten the better of him...

...It's no surprise he's losing more than he's winning...

...Thompson acknowledges that "the signal from that little press release about changing the schedule did not have the desired message...

...Some of the witnesses would have been effective, others would have been a dry well...

...The charges have some validity, though the complaints are also wrapped up in the jealousy Thompson's career inspires in almost anyone who thinks about it: After his Watergate celebrity at the age of 32, Thompson began practicing law in Nashville and litigated a case that drove a corrupt Tennessee governor out of office and into prison three years later...

...There's a revealing passage in the book Thompson wrote after serving on the Watergate committee in which he quotes himself talking to Sam Dash, the committee's Democratic counsel: "The worst thing in the world for the Republican party would be for the Republicans on the Watergate committee to play an obstruction role and look like we're covering up the facts...

...He thinks Thompson has done a horrible job with the investigations and the hearings...

...And he thinks Thompson has been too tough on Republicans and too soft on Democrats...

...But on Friday, September 19, Thompson dropped a bomb: His committee was going to shift its focus...

...A Clinton foreign-policy aide testified that the chairman of the Democratic party, as well as a CIA official, lobbied her to sign off on a meeting between the president and a shady, wealthy contributor...

...There's a strong case, say Republican aides, for getting John Huang's secretary at the Commerce Department to testify and for hauling Gore confidants Peter Knight and Nathan Landow before the committee and asking them to explain their dealings with an Oklahoma Indian tribe...

...The story provided the kind of theater Republican partisans had hoped for ever since Thompson started the investigation earlier this year...

...At that point, Thompson should have ignored their criticisms and proceeded without them...

...Now the majority leader's frustration with Thompson is so great that he'd like to shut down the hearings before any more damage is done...

...Thompson says he is surprised that "people think a few days of testimony from my committee that everybody claims no one is paying any attention to is going to change the future of the campaign-finance debate...

...By Matthew Rees Fred Thompson hasn't had many good weeks chairing the Senate committee investigating illegal and improper activities in last year's presidential campaign...

...He thinks Thompson's counsel, Mike Madi-gan, has been clownishly ineffective...

...They think he wanted to show the country he wasn't a standard-issue politician, and that he would root out corruption on both sides of the aisle...

...Thompson and McCain have become pariahs among their Republican colleagues...

...Thompson's meteoric rise may have reached its zenith...