GEPHARDT'S MOMENT
BARNES, FRED
GEPHARDT'S MOMENT by Fred Barnes SINCE REPUBLICANS TOOK control of Congress in 1994, Democrats have pursued a simple strategy in congressional investigations of President Clinton: obstruct,...
...He imposed Abbe Lowell, a Washington defense lawyer and active Democrat, on Conyers as the chief minority counsel while impeachment is considered...
...Two days later, the minority leader shaved back on his comments, but only slightly...
...This is not a second election...
...This is not spinning...
...Gephardt didn't take up the White House complaint that the press is prying too much, and obsessively, into Clinton's private life...
...GEPHARDT'S MOMENT by Fred Barnes SINCE REPUBLICANS TOOK control of Congress in 1994, Democrats have pursued a simple strategy in congressional investigations of President Clinton: obstruct, obstruct, obstruct...
...The White House was not pleased...
...Last Friday, Gephardt urged Democrats "to go more than halfway to make this a non-partisan process...
...This is not polling...
...The thrust remained, and he reiterated his "deep desire to do this in a non-partisan way...
...Gephardt then left the session early to attend a meeting with House speaker Newt Gingrich on impeachment procedures...
...And that Democrat quickly informed Hyde...
...They took their marching orders from White House aides...
...He's bent on holding the Democratic caucus together while separating it from Clinton...
...In response, Clinton aides got two allies of Gephardt in organized labor—AFL-CIO president John Sweeney and Gerald McEntee, head of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees—to urge him to back down from his statements...
...Gephardt feared Conyers and other Democrats were prepared to do Clinton's bidding during impeachment hearings...
...This is not politics...
...Gephardt declined...
...All this is tricky business for Gephardt...
...Given the amount of attention the hearings are bound to get, this would be embarrassing for the party...
...Just ask Rep...
...That meeting represented a new stab at bipartisanship, since he and Gingrich hadn't conferred for several years...
...In 1997, when Republican senator Fred Thompson chaired hearings on campaign-finance abuses, Democrats acted in the same way...
...Gephardt, a strait-laced Baptist from st...
...So he took control away from Conyers...
...He told Ceci Connolly of the Washington Post the media scrutiny is "legitimate...
...During the session, according to Ron Fournier of the Associated Press, he told the president that impeachment was in the air...
...Anyway, the early departure irritated Clinton aides, especially because he didn't stop in the White GEPHARDT IRRITATED THE WHITE HOUSE WHEN HE DIDN'T SAY A KIND WORD TO REPORTERS ABOUT CLINTON'S APOLOGY...
...So far, Gephardt is passing...
...Also, he believes independent counsel Ken Starr's charges against Clinton are serious, will be taken as such by the public, and should be treated seriously on Capitol Hill...
...One way is by noisily protesting GOP plans for conducting impeachment proceedings as unfair to Clinton...
...And he carried two-thirds of House Democrats with him in voting with Republicans to release Starr's report to the public imme-diately—without giving Clinton a prior peek...
...He insisted impeachment was a possibility, and if it came to that, the House should "do it the right way...
...The reason is Dick Gephardt, the House Democratic leader...
...Yet when Rep...
...His answer was to nick Republicans but also say this: "We are called to be better than sometimes our natures allow us to be...
...This is not a witch hunt...
...Henry Hyde, the committee chairman...
...But now, as the House Judiciary committee takes up the impeachment of Bill clinton, Democrats have promised to be non-partisan and not toe the White House line...
...Louis, is appalled both at Clinton's philandering and his self-serving apology on August 17...
...This is a constitutional test...
...In 1995, they denounced the senate Banking committee probe of the Whitewater scandal as partisan, then impeded its progress...
...We have to, under the Constitution, carefully examine the facts and then make a judgment on whether or not he should be expelled from office...
...House driveway and say a kind word to reporters about the president's apology...
...He joined a small delegation of House Democrats on September 9 who chatted with Clinton over coffee and Danish...
...Jim McDermott of Washington expressed concern about a Republican lynch mob out to get Clinton, Gephardt balked...
...Which is what Gephardt did...
...Why the change...
...A week after Clinton's nationally televised speech, Gephardt made his move...
...Meanwhile, Gephardt was one of the first Democrats summoned to the White House when Clinton began his flurry of personal apologies...
...He noted calmly that if Clinton were to be driven from office, "we'll get through this...
...To tighten his hold, Gephardt privately asked one Judiciary Democrat to serve as his liaison to Rep...
...There's more to Gephardt's lurch away from Clinton than one vote and some lofty words...
...The White House had asked Democrats to say in their public appearances that Clinton had apologized fully and thus it was time for Congress and the country to turn to more important matters...
...But that is only one of the reasons why he decided Democrats should cease being apologists for the White House...
...Dozens of the Democrats are uncomfortable with this, preferring to mount a strong defense of the president, and Gephardt has to placate them...
...Ditto when the House Government Reform and Oversight committee looked into illegal election fund-raising...
...so the smart thing for House Democrats was to declare their independence from Clinton in hopes of minimizing their vulnerability...
...They also prompted Terence McAuliffe, a prominent Democratic fund-raiser, to call Gephardt...
...Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee...
...Conyers was furious and his own chief counsel on the committee, Julian Epstein, all the more so...
...This is not a lynch mob...
...Never fond of Clinton, Gephardt concluded the president was on the verge of leading the Democratic party to an election disaster in November's mid-term election, just as he had in 1994...
Vol. 4 • September 1998 • No. 2
