POLITICAL WRAP August 18, 1998 The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript

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After testifying before Kenneth Starr's grand jury, President Clinton addressed the nation on his "inappropriate relationship" with Monica Lewinsky. Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot and syndicated columnist Mark Shields discuss the political implications of the president's speech.

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A RealAudio version of this segment. A RealAudio report from Dan Balz of The Washington Post. NEWSHOUR LINKS: August 17, 1998: A special package of coverage on the president's testimony. August 17, 1998: What is the grand jury's role in the Starr investigation? August 13, 1998: What impact will Starr's investigation have on the presidency ? July 30, 1998: Should Clinton address the public about the Lewinsky matter? July 28, 1998: Ken Starr makes an immunity deal with Monica Lewinsky. July 27, 1998: Ken Starr subpoenas the president to testify in front of his grand jury July 21, 1998: A roundtable discussion on Chief Justice Rehnquist's decision not to interfere with the subpoenas of secret service agents. July 15, 1998: Can the Justice Dept. force secret service agents to testify? July 1, 1998: A report on the question of executive privilege and the Starr investigation. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the Starr Investigation. OUTSIDE LINKS The Washington Post. The White House.

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, how it all looks to Shields & Gigot, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot. So, Mark, how do the president's approach and words look like nearly 24 hours later?

Mark Shields: "For a man who gives 105-minute State of the Union going 4 minutes was quite short."

MARK SHIELDS: Jim, I think there was too much expectation, in part some of it fueled by yours truly and others in our profession that this was going to be the defining moment; this was going to be the checkers speech of Richard Nixon that saved his career and for a great part the speculation and deliberation as to whether he should remain on the 1952 ticket. And Bill Clinton did not meet that expectation. For a man who gives 105-minute State of the Union going 4 minutes was quite short. It was not only short in content-I think people needed more last night. It was interesting to listen to Andy Kohut. Peter Hart, the pollster, had an audience watching it where they hold hand-held devices that register the emotions of the audience as they watch it. Peter told me that as people watched the president's contrition, his apology, his apology to his family, there was a very strong, affirmative reaction to him. When he launched into the attack upon Ken Starr, people cooled to it, and that that did not work.

PAUL GIGOT: It needed both more and less. It needed more contrition and less anger, it seems to me. Twenty-four hours later it looks to me like the speech was a bad political misjudgment and maybe a failure. It doesn't seem to have given him the public inoculation he was hoping for against whatever Ken Starr brings up and far from rallying Democrats to the cause, which it seemed was also a goal, it's made them a lot more nervous.

JIM LEHRER: I heard a suggestion today that maybe he should have done-should have done it one at a time-maybe last night he should have been contrite and then waited a week or two and taken on Kenneth Starr. Does that make sense to you?

PAUL GIGOT: Well, that or maybe have your surrogates take on Kenneth Starr after you have asked for contrition, forgiveness.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Now, you all said that, and a lot of other folks have said that, who write and talk about all of this, but-

PAUL GIGOT: Never let it be said that we're original.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. No. No. Your words-I was making the point that he didn't do the right-he didn't do enough, he didn't pull it off. And yet, we heard what those folks said in Denver. We heard what the polls-Andy just gave our rundown on the polls. The public apparently sees this very differently, right?

MARK SHIELDS: Yes. I mean, the president-if you look at the speech last night-the purpose of it in large part, beyond the obvious, to apologize and to set the record straight, apologize to the American people, was to firm up what is already a public will to have this over. There's no question about it. I mean, the president made that case, and he gave public-he was appealing to a public that is ready to have this over with, that's had it. It's a tawdry, depressing, debasing story, and people would like to just have it out of their living rooms and out of their lives.

PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think they do want that. On the other hand, they watch it a lot, and the admission that the president made chopped in his favorable rating, and a big 20 percent chopped into his credibility, enormously.

JIM LEHRER: Now there are a lot of-the polls had shown going in that they-they thought he was lying but they-when he confirmed it, do you think that just made it worse, rather than better?

PAUL GIGOT: I think that there is a sense that the public does not want to face this. We have a contradiction in the polling now, which Andy talked about, which is on the one hand his-we don't trust what the president says, and we think he may-probably committed crimes, but we really don't want to have to face the consequences of that, which is impeachment, which is the trauma of that. And that's a real contradiction that doesn't make-give any clear direction to politicians.

Reactions of Democrats and Republicans.

JIM LEHRER: And speaking of that, how do you read the politicians' reaction today? We ran on the News Summary a while ago Tom Daschle, Richard Gephardt issued a similar statement, he's with the Democratic leaders, saying they regretted the fact that the president waited so long; they called for almost quietly to move on and yet they did express disappointment with the president.

MARK SHIELDS: They did, and, Jim, I mean, this is seven months of stonewalling, seven months of silent treatment, seven months of no comment, and during which privately Democrats were assured that this charge was false and they were encouraged.

JIM LEHRER: Did they believe it?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, enough of them did. He went to the cabinet and he put it directly to his cabinet. He-I mean, people like Paul Begala, who has worked with him since 1991, who went through the whole thing, I mean, Paul Begala gave up seven months-I mean, he's working in the White House. He doesn't need a care package. We don't have to hold a benefit for him. But I mean, that's seven months of his life he gave up defending this fellow in every possible venue, on some of the worst cable shows in America, doing that, and given up kids' birthday parties and long weekends with his wife and everything else, and sure, there's a sense of betrayal. On the Republican side, by contrast, Vice President Dan Quayle broke the silence, the code of silence today. He called for the president to resign. Immediately a cold sweat broke out at Republican National Headquarters, because what they-the Republican agenda for 1998 is two-fold: to run against a wounded, hurt Bill Clinton down in the polls, and to promise somewhere a cut in capital gains tax. But I mean, that's it. And that's basically the ball game.

PAUL GIGOT: Mark is thrilled because Dan Quayle's back for him to kick around some more. (laughing)

MARK SHIELDS: No. No. He broke the Republican rule.

JIM LEHRER: Quayle said that, but of course Newt Gingrich said just the opposite.

MARK SHIELDS: That's right.

JIM LEHRER: He said, cool it, don't say anything; wait till-wait till the Starr report has been-

PAUL GIGOT: Well, and Dan Quayle can afford to say that, because he's outside of Congress and he wants to set a moral tone, and the Republican base was angered, frankly, by that speech last night, because that-they didn't see the contrition; they didn't see the forgiveness; and they want their members to speak up and say this was wrong, their representatives. Now Gingrich, on the other hand, has to receive the report. He wants to be more statesmanlike, and he can afford to be, frankly, because the nervousness is on the Democratic side, and we've begun to see some cracks frankly in the façade on the Democratic side, which has been firmly for the president. But you had Paul McHale, the Democrat from Bethlehem, Allentown, Pennsylvania, swing district, Reagan Democrat district, call on the president asking-well, echoing Dan Quayle, saying the president should resign, and a California senator, Dianne Feinstein, saying that her faith in the president's credibility had been shattered, badly shattered, so you're beginning to see there hasn't been-the dam isn't breaking yet, but you're beginning to see some cracks form.

JIM LEHRER: Now, the other thing that everybody said last night and again in the paper this morning was that the president, in addition to the contrition in the first part of the speech, he really laid the gauntlet down to Starr-get on with it, get this thing over with. What can you tell after-in 24 hours how Kenneth Starr is likely to take that?

Paul Gigot: "I think the one thing that this whole experience has done for Starr is that it's toughened his skin."

PAUL GIGOT: I think he's likely to have taken that as more of the same. I think the one thing that this whole experience has done for Starr is that it's toughened his skin. I think it's made him oblivious to poll ratings. If he looks at it, he'd be depressed. I don't think he cares about poll ratings. I think he has-he now sees his obligation as fulfilling his mandate and making sure that the laws are faithfully executed, and I think that's exactly what he's going to proceed to do.

JIM LEHRER: And the Clinton folks are going to continue to attack Starr, are they not? Isn't that the number one strategy now?

MARK SHIELDS: Yes. What Peter Hart mentioned-one of the reasons that the attack didn't work on Ken Starr last night in the president's speech in the control group was that the American public has already made their opinion on Ken Starr. I mean, they're down on Ken Starr, and-

JIM LEHRER: So you can't say anything more-

MARK SHIELDS: There really isn't. I would question Paul's crucible of adversity theory about most people who haven't been in Ken Starr's position. Ken Starr had had nothing but positive comments about his public career up until this moment. And when you start getting banged around the way he's got banged around, it hurts; it hurts a lot.

PAUL GIGOT: It hurts but-

MARK SHIELDS: I don't think that extra skin-I've very rarely seen it grow. Now, maybe there's a dermatologist who can do that on the Republican side, but I've very rarely seen that happen. And it has to pain and it continues to pain, and the point is they want him to be not a plausible, convincing case maker when he does go, and the Republicans, as well, have to be leery of the fact on the Hill that the man making the case-that's why the case has to be so much stronger-they don't want Ken Starr going in there at 9 percent approval or 11 percent believability making a case that is not in itself strong.

PAUL GIGOT: The thing that I find amazing, though, Jim, is the best way to inoculate himself against Ken Starr, I think, would have been to take the scenario that Orrin Hatch on the right and Leon Panetta on the left had laid out. They'd laid out a strategy of contrition. Orrin Hatch was begging the president. He was begging the president-look, we don't want to have impeachment hearings. We don't want to have this trauma; please come out and make enough of an apology that I can plausibly embrace, and we'll forgive. And, instead, that should have been his audience, and instead he rejected that and he left poor Orrin Hatch sputtering and saying, I've got nowhere else to go now.

JIM LEHRER: What do you think about that? Could he have helped himself with the right if he-if he had set out to do so?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, when you say the right, I mean, Paul spoke of the base of the party that is upset-that he feels Vice President Quayle was addressing-I don't think it ever reached them. I mean, these are people who-in large part-who have never accepted the legitimacy of Bill Clinton's election in the first place, I mean, a large number of them. Orrin Hatch I'd put in a different category. I mean, Orrin Hatch I think is certainly one of the leaders of the Senate and a respected leader on the conservative side, and I think there's no question-he was-

JIM LEHRER: The Senate Judiciary-one of the most important committees on this issue.

Mark Shields: "I think the American people's capacity for forgiveness is near infinite."

MARK SHIELDS: And he was sending that message to the president of contrition. I think the contrition-I think the American people's capacity for forgiveness is near infinite. I still insist 25 years later that Richard Nixon-as late as 1974-could have gone to the American people and said terrible things were done, I was responsible for them, I ask your forgiveness, and I don't think the president did that last night. I think politically he should have. I think it would have been good for the country. I think it would have been good for our public life.

JIM LEHRER: And then, of course, back to Starr, today the president, his attack, and wanted this thing to move on, get this behind us, we ought to-Starr--today he has a witness, Dick Morris, and the word gets out that Lewinsky is coming back on Thursday. That sends a message. That also sends a message, does it not?

MARK SHIELDS: The Dick Morris thing was deft. I mean, I give Ken Starr credit for that. I mean, he knew the president was going to make the speech last night. He brings up Dick Morris, and what's the message? Birds of a feather-right? I mean, Dick Morris comes with his own problems.

JIM LEHRER: You're going like this.

PAUL GIGOT: I don't know how subtle-that's-maybe.

JIM LEHRER: But is it a message?

PAUL GIGOT: Starr is trying to get this done absolutely as quickly as possible. You know, I had this eerie sense, Jim-we've got--you know, we had Ken Starr and the president going down full speed at a highway and a game of chicken right at each other, and what I felt with that speech last night is the president decided to slam on the accelerator and say I'm not getting off the road, Republicans or Starr, you'd better, and I'm afraid we're headed for a crash.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. Well, we'll be around to report it when it happens. Thank you both very much.

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