Crooks in the Whitehouse?

Published on Sunday, March 11, 2001 in the Baltimore Sun
Democrats, Who Needs Them?
Oligarchy: The Marc Rich scandal shows how Clinton and his followers raked in big bucks from the rich and dumped working people, the poor and grass-roots activists.
by Jeff Cohen

THE conventional wisdom is that Bill Clinton's fall from grace over the pardon hysteria has hurt the Democratic Party. In fact, Clinton's disgrace is a blessing in disguise for Democrats, at least for those who want the party to stand for social justice and economic fairness. Had Clinton exited the White House cleanly, his continued leadership would have enriched the party financially but burdened it politically and morally.

When Clinton pardoned a fugitive financier on his last day in office, he appeared to end his administration in the manner he had governed for eight years - by obliging the well-heeled and well-connected, and by figuring that his rhetorical gifts and charisma would obscure the absence of principle. (There were only a few pardons for the thousands of nonviolent drug offenders, largely poor and minority, who fill America's prisons.)

In assessing Clinton's impact on his party, it's worth remembering that when he entered the White House, Democrats controlled the U.S. Senate 57-43, the U.S. House 258-176 and the country's governorships 30-18. Under his leadership, the party has gone from majority to minority status.

Another legacy for the Democrats is money-saturated politics that values party donors more than activists, weighing policy in terms of fund-raising potential. Clintonism is a zig-zagging ideology that seeks the votes of liberals and racial minorities while borrowing Republican policies in an effort to hew to "the center," seldom straying far from the interests of corporate America.

Since corporate dollars flow more naturally toward Republicans, the grubbing of the Clintonites for this same cash has caused not only ethical lapses but corruption of Democratic positions. In 1993-94, when they controlled the White House and Congress, it was the Democrats who blocked campaign finance reform. In 1996, it was the Clinton-Gore campaign that widened the soft-money loophole into a canyon that obliterated campaign finance laws.

Give the Clintonites credit for achieving the seemingly impossible: They've allowed Republicans to pose as the party of campaign finance rectitude.

The sad truth about the Marc Rich pardon is that it was not atypical for Clinton to succumb to the entreaties of major donors and their high-powered lawyers and lobbyists. Indeed, it was business as usual in the Clinton-Gore administration, like the corporate-drafted trade deals the White House championed and the 1996 giveaway to media conglomerates known as Telecommunications Deregulation. (Al Gore bragged about supporting media deregulation on his presidential campaign Web site.)