| What Will Bill Clinton Say? |
Bob Rusbasan
August 5, 1998
Oh, what a tangled web we weave...
As I write this, President Clinton is testifying before Kenneth Starr's grand jury. CNN is "covering" this story by having a bunch of talking heads speculate about what is going on. A graphic onscreen shows the elapsed time ("0:56") and the status ("testifying"). Sheesh...
So what will Bill Clinton say? What can he say?
The American public, as the news media has duly informed us, has finally decided that Clinton should "tell the truth" -- in other words, that he should 'fess up to the affair with Monica Lewinsky. This is apparently the same American public that until recently has angrily insisted -- according to the media's polls -- that all of this does not matter and is nobody's business. Perhaps they began to understand that the true issues here were perjury, subornation of perjury, and obstruction of justice (not to mention character). Or perhaps they still think that the people who claim to care about these issues really are just interested in a juicy sex scandal, but now they want to get in on the fun.
According to our eminent media, the truth is that people just want to move on. If the President goes on TV and confesses, it will be a dead issue, and the whole scandal will end. It is just that simple.
Or maybe not.
Bill Clinton, you see, is in a bit of legal trouble. If he makes a public confession, he will at the same time be admitting that he committed perjury when he testified in the Paul Jones case. Whether or not he had an affair with Lewinsky will be a dead issue (as it has been to anyone with two brain cells to rub together for a long time), but he will be in even deeper legal trouble. That makes "getting all this behind us" much more complicated that the public seems to believe.
The smart money seems to be on Clinton making one of those weasely pseudo-confessions for which he has become famous. Perhaps a variation of the "didn't inhale" story (and the FBI has the stained dress to prove it). Some of his staff has leaked to the press (this is often done to test public reaction) that he may simply admit to an "inappropriate relationship" with Lewinksy. This may possibly work for the speech to the public expected after his testimony, but the grand jury will doubtless expect him to answer more specifics question to determine if he committed perjury when he denied a sexual relationship.
The problem with using this tactic with the grand jury is that he will have to straddle a fine line. He will have to simultaneously admit to something that virtually everyone would agree was a sexual relationship while trying to convince them that he did not consider it to be one. This story is very hard to swallow (insert your own bad joke here). I am hard-pressed to think of a situation in which a non-sexual relationship could produce a semen-stained dress. Kenneth Starr and the grand jury will doubtless agree.
As far as the public goes, this tactic could also backfire. They have cut Clinton a lot of slack in the past, but there are signs that they are tired of him talking about out of both sides of his mouth. If Clinton tries to pull the wool over their eyes again, this may be be the time that the public decides enough is enough.
If Clinton uses this strategy, expect his staff to immediately start coming down on Kenneth Starr for any further investigation of this matter. They will attempt to dupe the public into believing that since Clinton "confessed", it is a non-issue, when in fact a confession to a sexual relationship will make the perjury charge more valid than ever.
Clinton's legal team has claimed that the President will tell the complete truth when he testifies (and, by implication, will be honest with the American public in the speech afterwards). Is this likely?
I don't think so. Clinton has shown a pattern of dishonesty. I find it hard to believe that he will suddenly drop all the carefully worded sentences that never completely say what they seem to.
You never know, though. This is probably his best long-term bet for getting himself out of this mess. He could plainly admit to an affair, without hedging his words. He could ask the public to forgive him. He might even apologize to his family for the pain he has caused them. He would then ask the country -- and Kenneth Starr -- to move beyond this issue.
But what about the perjury charge? In this situation, I would expect the President essentially admit that he committed perjury in the Paula Jones case but claim that he did it to protect his family and because he did not think it was anybody's business. The public would likely go for this. In today's world, putting your hand a Bible, swearing by God to tell the truth, and proceeding to lie like mad is not considered as big a crime as, for example, criticizing someone for cheating on his wife with someone half his age. Besides, we know Clinton is a God-fearing Christian by all the photos and news footage of him coming out of church carrying his Bible yesterday (does he pay the press, or do they do his PR voluntarily?).
Personally, if the President is completely honest, I would be inclined to mostly go along with the "drop it" attitude. I would feel that he committed perjury, he confessed to it, let's note it and move on. Clinton has a lot of unethical and illegal things during his presidency, so there is no point in clinging to this one. The public will not support impeachment for this charge alone, and continuing to harp on it will play right into Clinton's hands. Again, I would only feel this way if he makes an honest confession and essentially stops fighting the perjury charge. He can't have it both ways.
Even though a full confession would mean the end of this particular dispute, I would hope that the public would gain a further appreciation of how dishonest Clinton is. He could have said from the start that this was not anybody's business. He did not do that. He thought he could do even better by telling a lie -- more emphatically -- and pull it off. If he backs away from the lie today, it will be only because he thought he had no other choice.
Least likely of all is that Clinton will actually continue to claim that nothing improper happened. At this point, I honestly believe that will spell the death of his presidency. If he were not actually impeached, he would become a lame duck and an albatross around the Democratic Party's neck for the remainder of his term. I would be better for him to say nothing than to continue lying. He can wag his finger, look stern, and rant about "that woman" all he wants, but almost nobody will buy it.
The only advantage to this approach is that a lot of people have a vested interest in "believing" Clinton. A lot of people that have been publicly raging about how this is all a right-wing lie are going to look very foolish if Clinton confesses (or even pseudo-confesses). A minority of the population, 20% to 30%, still says they believe nothing happened (who are these people?). What would the effect on them be if Clinton changes his story?
This is not a good day for President Clinton. Any missteps on his part could lead to a strong perjury charge, a backlash from the public, or both. The tactics that have worked for him in the past could blow up in his face today.
Despite that, I expect Clinton to continue his weasely ways. I expect him to make some typically vague statements to the public that sound sort of like a confession but not to actually admit to anything. I expect him to maintain to the grand jury that he did not commit perjury because while he acted "inappropriately" he did not consider it to be a sexual relationship. I then expect his administration to try to marshal public opinion against Starr's investigation. The rallying cry will be, "He confessed -- leave him alone!"
If that is what Bill Clinton does, then it will probably work in the short term. The poll numbers will go up and the media will report that the public wants the matter dropped.
In the long term, I believe that this could be the beginning of the end of Clinton's popularity. People will know that he lied to them, that he cheats on his wife with women half his age, that he commits perjury, and that his people commit smear campaigns against people making charges that turn out to be true. Charges of a "right-wing conspiracy" and an "anti-Arkansas bias" will not be so readily believe in the future. People will start to resent Clinton for making the Office of the President look bad. The public attitude may very well change into, "Leave him alone -- we'll be through with the creep in a few years anyway."
Or perhaps that's just wishful thinking on my part.
Copyright © 1998 Bob Rusbasan. All rights reserved.