By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources
August 19, 1998
Chris Matthews, host of CNBC's Hardball, long a friend of the Clinton Administration, talked about the difference in how President Clinton delivered his lines when they were a lie, "I did not have sex with that woman …Monica Lewinsky," :back in February, and the petulant, resentful and far from contrite presentation of "truth" on Monday night. "Why," he asked one of his guests, a young man, "was he more convincing at telling the lie, "I did not have sex with that woman…," than he was when he was telling the truth?"
The guest responded, "I guess he's better at fancy than reality." I thought of what my daughter-in-law, Grace Grooms, told me Sunday as I was surveying the parents of my own grandchildren about how they were explaining all this to their children: She summed up the meaning of the Clinton Saga with: "It's really Sixties Philosophy versus Real Life." (Go to: http://originalsources.com/OS8-98MQC/8-17-1998.1.shtml 1960's Philosophy versus Real Life)
What we are beginning to see is Real Life, or reality beginning to sink into the American people. They are finding out something I discovered several years ago as I researched issues being debated when Republicans took control of the Congress in 1994. Remember the big battles over Newt Gingrich's Contract with America? In 1995 during the first session of the Republican controlled Congress, as the Republicans tried to implement their Contract, which called for balancing the budget, President Clinton led the Democrats in an incredibly successful scheme to demonize the Republicans.
Under Newt Gingrich's leadership in the House, and Bob Dole's leadership in the Senate the first balanced budget since 1969 was passed by Congress. Bill Clinton promptly vetoed it in December 1995 while claiming that the bill was a "tax break for the wealthy." That precipitated the Government shut-down, which was blamed entirely on the Republicans, not the veto.
As part of my research, I began to read the 3000 page bill, looking for the "tax break for the wealthy, and could not find it. So, I called the White House Office of Management and Budget and asked them where it was. I was told to read the bill.
"I have," I responded. At that point I thought that the tax break for the wealthy, which supposedly gave the rich something like $269 billion, was actually in there somewhere, but I was just not seeing it. That began a keystone cops slapstick comedy routine in which I was passed from one person to another in the White House as I asked my question. No one could tell me where it was. I thought there for awhile I was going to end up talking to President Clinton himself. No one in the OMB could answer my question.
Each person I talked to invariably said, "Why don't you call the Republicans?" "Because," I would answer, "It's the Democrats who keep talking about it being in there. The Republicans say it isn't. The only provision in the bill I can find that would generate that much of a tax cut is the proposed $500 per child tax credit for families with children. Are you saying that anyone with children is wealthy?"
I was hastily assured that was not what was meant, and the person on the other end of the telephone would pass me off to someone else. It finally dawned on me that the so-called "tax-break for the wealthy" which the entire media was talking about, and which came directly out of a statement made by the President, simply was not in that Balanced Budget Bill.
At the time the Investors Business Daily observed that "while Bill Clinton has been winning the PR battle with the public, the Republicans have been quietly winning the war." For months during the early part of election year 1996, the government was funded with tight continuing resolutions which did not increase spending. However, because of the spin coming out of the White House, senior citizens became convinced that a vote for Bob Dole meant their Social Security and Medicare would be drastically cut. It was a lie, but it worked sufficiently well for Bill Clinton to get re-elected. Clinton also vetoed the Welfare Reform Act in mid-1996. Millions of people on Welfare were assured that only a vote for Bill Clinton would enable them to have a roof over their head - because the Republican Welfare Reform would mean no free school lunches, and people dying in the streets from starvation.
Rep. Joe Scarborough of (R-Fl) said at the time: "Mr. Speaker, there has been so much debate over the past 6 months to 1 year over the balanced budget, and the budget battle, and Americans have been so swept away with sort of the currents of the demagoguery that is coming out of the White House and the debate that is going back and forth that we have really lost sight of really what has been happening here.
"We have been governing by CR, continuing resolutions, where, since we cannot get the President to agree to a balanced budget deal, we go from month to month to month. I have been disappointed that we have not been able to get a balanced budget and wish that we could have moved swifter, wished that we would have had a President that would have signed the first balanced budget plan in a generation. But I found out something very interesting this past week.
"What I found out was, even governing by CR, we are ahead of schedule to balancing the budget. We are further along on that 7-year track to balancing the budget than we would have been even if we had passed our 7-year plan last year. And this is great news for all Americans."
When Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott managed to woo enough conservative Democrats into their corner and pass the Balanced Budget and Welfare Reform by a veto-proof two-thirds majority, Bill Clinton signed the bills. After signing them, since vetoing them would be futile, even though the bills were even more stringent with money than the original bills he vetoed, he immediately took the credit for the passage of both a balanced budget and welfare reform!
The result is our present prosperity, low unemployment rate and a budget balanced four years ahead of its original 2002 target date.
Somehow, all of that went right by the American people. Clinton has been such an accomplished liar, that the majority of the people, who don't have the time or the interest to track what is really going on in Washington, believed him. They also believed that their improved financial status and the ability of even untrained former Welfare recipients to find and keep jobs was somehow because of Bill Clinton successfully foiling the evil Republicans. As a result, Clinton's approval numbers have remained high throughout the scandals - filegate, travelgate, campaign finance, Paula Jones, etc.
Then, along came Monica Lewinsky and the sex story. That got the people's attention far beyond the dry blather about balancing budgets and reforming welfare. And, again, they believed their president. After all, had they not been trained to believe that the Republicans were dangerous extremists? And why did people believe it? Because, people just have a tendency to believe what they hear over and over, and that's what the media was saying over and over.
The president gave his deposition on January 17, 1998 to Paula Jones' lawyers. In that deposition he said, under oath, that he never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. Exactly seven months later, after being basically cornered by fact-finding Kenneth Starr, whom he has tried to destroy, he admitted he had an "inappropriate" relationship with Lewinsky. In a four minute speech in he spent about a minute and a half admitting that he had lied. He spent the rest of the time blaming Kenneth Starr for his problems. He didn't apologize even to those supporters who are now heavily in debt with legal fees because they supported his lies.
Before he spoke Monday evening, everyone, especially the President's supporters, thought the speech would give him a boost in the polls and convince the people to insist that the investigation be ended. Instead, he experienced a 20 point drop in his approval rating, and not even the majority of Democrats were willing to give him the kind of backing he was expecting.
It was, as Grace Grooms observed, Real Life. The manipulation and the lies about Monica Lewinsky, and about Kenneth Starr, Paula Jones, and even Newt Gingrich suddenly were simply not flying. People were angry. Spontaneously, without encouragement, people began e-mailing their members of Congress demanding impeachment of the President.
All the gimmicks suddenly looked different. As the First Family marched stiffly out to the helicopter to begin their vacation, with Chelsea in the middle, a parent on each side holding her hand, as if she were a baby just learning to walk, they looked simply absurd. It was so phony, the CNN White House reporter could only say it was "meant to be a statement that the family would work it out somehow." Even master White House spin-doctor James Carville, who first declared war on Kenneth Starr, observed on the Larry King show that Bill Clinton would "probably spend a lot of time in the woodshed" while they were vacationing in Martha's Vineyard.
Throughout the day one member of Congress after another, Republicans and Democrats, began urging impeachment or resignation. Even without Kenneth Starr's report - somehow the bubble had burst. It was Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, not a Democrat, who appealed to everyone to reserve judgement until they had seen Kenneth Starr's report.
Then in the midst of all that it was announced that Al Gore's campaign fund raising from the White House may be re-investigated by the Justice Department.
We have all the signs of a major Constitutional Crisis, plus the very real possibility of the general public beginning a clamor for instant trial and punishment of a president whom they had believed, and who callously "shattered the faith" of people like arch-liberal Senator Diane Feinstein.
Welcome to Real Life, Bill, Hillary and staff. You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com