Whitewater Hearings

WASHINGTON -- There is a long bipartisan tradition of congressional hearings being used for the most partisan purposes. There has rarely been a more obvious example than the current hearings being conducted by the Senate's special committee on the Whitewater affair.Such hearings are supposed to have some serious purpose. They are intended to elicit information that will help Congress write better laws. Or they are intended to let Congress better carry out its oversight function by examining the performance of agencies whose budget it provides.

WASHINGTON -- From a month of Whitewater hearings in the Senate and a week in the House, Americans gained an insight into President Clinton's White House two years ago and Governor Clinton's Arkansas 10 years ago.The public listened to a secretly taped conversation, saw handwritten memos, heard emotional stories about tearful nights and angry phone calls and broken promises.But what the public gained mostly was a series of conflicting stories and facts that raise more questions, could even heighten suspicions, but don't offer hard evidence of wrongdoing on the part of President Clinton or first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

WASHINGTON -- From a month of Whitewater hearings in the Senate and a week in the House, Americans gained an insight into President Clinton's White House two years ago and Governor Clinton's Arkansas 10 years ago.The public listened to a secretly taped conversation, saw handwritten memos, heard emotional stories about tearful nights and angry phone calls and broken promises.But what the public gained mostly was a series of conflicting stories and facts that raise more questions, could even heighten suspicions, but don't offer hard evidence of wrongdoing on the part of President Clinton or first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

REP. BARNEY FRANK accused mild, befuddled House Banking Committee Chairman Jim Leach of being a "McCarthyite" for his handling of the Whitewater hearings.My Merriam Webster's defines McCarthyite as a practitioner of McCarthyism, "a mid-20th century political attitude characterized chiefly by opposition to elements held to be subversive and by the use of tactics involving personal attacks on individuals by VTC means of widely publicized indiscriminate allegations esp. on the basis of unsubstantiated charges."

WASHINGTON -- It was a bizarre moment, even in the nation's capital. A senator once cited for improper conduct was questioning a former top administration official who is preparing to spend most of the next two years in jail for tax fraud. The subject of their discussion: ethics.The scene unfolded yesterday as Sen. Alphonse D'Amato, R-N.Y., questioned former Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell during the second day of renewed Whitewater hearings.Privately, Republican strategists acknowledged that Hubbell had been called to testify at the Senate hearings primarily because his appearance was likely to embarrass President Clinton.

WASHINGTON -- After 115 hours of proceedings, 6,000 pages of documents, 35 witnesses and 71 questioners, after eight days and nights of gavel-banging, finger-pointing, sound-biting, it's appropriate to ask the question that a congressman posed at the start of the House and Senate's Whitewater hearings:"What is going on here?"What went on over the past two weeks -- all of it under hot TV lights -- didn't reveal a smoking gun to bring down a president. It didn't answer questions about the Clintons' Ozarks land deal at the heart of the Whitewater controversy.

These Whitewater hearings are a year too early for maximum help to the Republican cause. Maybe we can have reruns in '96.Congress could strangle itself on tangled telephone lines, short and long.The Baltimore County school interim administration will introduce ethics into the curriculum.Harvard University has determined that academic freedom requires it to permit Dr. Mack to associate with space aliens just as much as he wants.

REP. BARNEY FRANK accused mild, befuddled House Banking Committee Chairman Jim Leach of being a "McCarthyite" for his handling of the Whitewater hearings.My Merriam Webster's defines McCarthyite as a practitioner of McCarthyism, "a mid-20th century political attitude characterized chiefly by opposition to elements held to be subversive and by the use of tactics involving personal attacks on individuals by VTC means of widely publicized indiscriminate allegations esp. on the basis of unsubstantiated charges."

ADMITTEDLY the Whitewater hearings are not as interesting as the O.J. Simpson court motions, but a man has to watch something on his summer vacation.The advantage of the Whitewater hearings is that there are so many more people involved. At a recent one, there were 980 members of Congress and one witness.It went something like this:"Mr. Ruth, you have stated under oath that you come from California. As you know, I also come from California, and the good people of that state have elected me to office six times.

WASHINGTON -- As the Senate opened its Whitewater hearings yesterday, the lawmakers tried to tread gently on what they acknowledged was a topic that bordered on the macabre: last year's death of Deputy White House Counsel Vincent W. Foster Jr.But on the topic of the administration's handling of the Whitewater matter, the members of the Banking Committee came out swinging, launching fresh charges of White House misconduct and deception.Unlike this week's Whitewater hearings in the House, where the relentless Republican attacks could be chalked up to partisan sniping, several Democratic senators were skeptical about the truthfulness of administration officials and the propriety of some of their actions in handling the Whitewater matter.

These Whitewater hearings are a year too early for maximum help to the Republican cause. Maybe we can have reruns in '96.Congress could strangle itself on tangled telephone lines, short and long.The Baltimore County school interim administration will introduce ethics into the curriculum.Harvard University has determined that academic freedom requires it to permit Dr. Mack to associate with space aliens just as much as he wants.

WASHINGTON -- In a brutally partisan opening day of House Whitewater hearings, the Republican chairman of the Banking Committee accused President Clinton yesterday of belonging to an "insider political class" that "considered itself above the law."During hearings to examine the failure of a savings and loan with ties to the president and his wife, the committee chairman, Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, charged that as governor of Arkansas, Mr. Clinton granted favors to James B. McDougal, his partner in the Whitewater land deal and owner of the failed thrift.

WASHINGTON -- This week could bring the stormiest Whitewater weather the Clinton administration has encountered so far.Hearings before the Senate Whitewater Committee will heat up with the long-awaited testimony of Bernard W. Nussbaum, the former White House counsel who is the key figure in the events that followed the 1993 suicide of deputy counsel Vincent W. Foster Jr. and who will likely be roughed up by Republicans on the committee.At the same time, the House enters the fray. The Banking Committee will examine the tangle of Arkansas money and politics that is at the heart of the expanding Whitewater controversy and that has already led to numerous indictments.

WASHINGTON -- This week could bring the stormiest Whitewater weather the Clinton administration has encountered so far.Hearings before the Senate Whitewater Committee will heat up with the long-awaited testimony of Bernard W. Nussbaum, the former White House counsel who is the key figure in the events that followed the 1993 suicide of deputy counsel Vincent W. Foster Jr. and who will likely be roughed up by Republicans on the committee.At the same time, the House enters the fray. The Banking Committee will examine the tangle of Arkansas money and politics that is at the heart of the expanding Whitewater controversy and that has already led to numerous indictments.

WASHINGTON -- There is a long bipartisan tradition of congressional hearings being used for the most partisan purposes. There has rarely been a more obvious example than the current hearings being conducted by the Senate's special committee on the Whitewater affair.Such hearings are supposed to have some serious purpose. They are intended to elicit information that will help Congress write better laws. Or they are intended to let Congress better carry out its oversight function by examining the performance of agencies whose budget it provides.

WASHINGTON -- It was a bizarre moment, even in the nation's capital. A senator once cited for improper conduct was questioning a former top administration official who is preparing to spend most of the next two years in jail for tax fraud. The subject of their discussion: ethics.The scene unfolded yesterday as Sen. Alphonse D'Amato, R-N.Y., questioned former Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell during the second day of renewed Whitewater hearings.Privately, Republican strategists acknowledged that Hubbell had been called to testify at the Senate hearings primarily because his appearance was likely to embarrass President Clinton.

WASHINGTON -- In a brutally partisan opening day of House Whitewater hearings, the Republican chairman of the Banking Committee accused President Clinton yesterday of belonging to an "insider political class" that "considered itself above the law."During hearings to examine the failure of a savings and loan with ties to the president and his wife, the committee chairman, Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, charged that as governor of Arkansas, Mr. Clinton granted favors to James B. McDougal, his partner in the Whitewater land deal and owner of the failed thrift.

WASHINGTON -- During last summer's Whitewater hearings before the Senate Banking Committee, Chairman Donald W. Riegle Jr., who is retiring after this session of Congress, talked about passing the gavel to Maryland Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, the Democrat next in line to head the prestigious committee.Not so fast, piped up the ranking Republican member, Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato of New York, suggesting that if Republicans won control of the Senate in November, he would be the next chairman.He laughed.

WASHINGTON -- Former Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell finished a second day of questioning yesterday about the actions of bereaved and shaken White House officials in the hours and days following the death of deputy White House counsel Vincent W. Foster Jr.In Day 2 of the Senate's Whitewater hearings, lawmakers questioned Hubbell about the actions of Bernard Nussbaum, the former White House counsel who resigned last year after coming under fire...

WASHINGTON -- Recalling the night two years ago that his longtime friend Vincent W. Foster Jr. was found dead in a Virginia park, former Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell choked back tears yesterday, telling a Senate panel that,"It was the worst day of my life."The Senate's opening day of Whitewater hearings before a Republican-led investigative committee provided several noteworthy moments.Mostly, it revealed two distinctly different explanations for the actions of White House aides after the suicide of the deputy White House counsel in July 1993, the subject of this round of hearings.