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

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The House Judiciary Committee decided today to make President Clinton's grand jury videotaped testimony available to the public. Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot and syndicated columnist Mark Shields discuss the political implications of the House's decision.

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A RealAudio version of this segment is available. NEWSHOUR LINKS September 17, 1998: A discussion on the videotape debate. September 16, 1998: Senator Daschle discusses President Clinton's problems. September 15, 1998: Two members of the House Judiciary Committee debate releasing President Clinton's videotaped testimony. September 14, 1998: A discussion on the media's coverage of the Starr report. September 11, 1998: The Starr report and White House rebuttal. September 11, 1998: Mark Shields and Paul Gigot debate the potential impact of Kenneth Starr's referral to Congress. September 11, 1998: Two former federal prosecutors examine the legal issues presented in the Starr report. September 10, 1998: What is the constitutional basis for impeaching a president? September 9, 1998: Kenneth Starr drops off his case to the House. September 3, 1998: Four former senators discuss whether the president should step down. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Starr investigation, the White House and Congress. OUTSIDE LINKS: The White House homepage. The House Judiciary Committee.

JIM LEHRER: And to syndicated columnist Mark Shields, Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot. Paul, the two congressmen didn't talk about it specifically, but do you think the committee was right to decide today to release the videotape of President Clinton's four-hour testimony before the federal grand jury?

Mr. Gigot: "This is a politician...who is the master like none other of television."

PAUL GIGOT: I do, Jim. I think it was John Dingell, the ranking Democrat and the ranking member of the House last week, who said, get it all out because if you don't get it out, it's all going to leak, and if you're going to judge the president on perjury, which is really what part of the charge against him and impeachment, his frame of mind, his temperament, his approach to the questions are important. And this gives a chance for the American public to see it straight up. This is a politician, remember, who is the master like none other of television, the medium of television. And he's going to be performing on television. I don't know why that is unfair - to get his defense, his side of the story out on TV.

JIM LEHRER: Is it unfair, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: I think it is a mistake, Jim. I think it's a mistake for a bunch of reasons. First of all, you're breaking the seal of the grand jury, which I think is a serious matter and is going to make it tougher for prosecutors in the future. But quite aside, I think the Republicans run the risk here of spilling out into the body politic just sort of pornographic details gratuitously. I mean, the questions are physiological, in detail, bordering on the pornographic. It's not - it's not a happy time. I was with John Dean this past week out in California, who had been Richard Nixon's counsel, and he made the point that to this very moment, this very moment, 25 years later, in order to hear the Nixon White House tapes, you have to go to the archives of the United States and put on the ear phones, sign out to listen to them. They were never revealed. Obviously the transcripts were. And I just - I think that - I think the Republicans may have overstepped, and I think they will be accused of overkill.

JIM LEHRER: Overkill?

PAUL GIGOT: Can I make a response?

JIM LEHRER: Yes.

PAUL GIGOT: On the grand jury point, once it goes to Congress, the grand jury rules are waived. That's always been the case. And Congress has that right. And the Democrats last week did vote two to one to do that, along with the majority of Republicans. Everything - the rule that would include that. On the backlash point, Mark's right - the Republicans have to be careful of the backlash. In that category, one thing I would put in that may be overreaching is Frank Murkowski, Republican senator from Alaska, who said the president should pay 4 or 5 million dollars to buy the delay in the investigation. I think that's a little excessive, a little piling on. But I don't think the release of the video is. This is all going to come out anyway one way or another; might as well get it out early.

JIM LEHRER: What about the point that Congressman Scott just made that this is the cart before the horse, they haven't even voted to hold an impeachment inquiry yet?

PAUL GIGOT: So it's released three weeks later? I mean --

JIM LEHRER: The timing doesn't matter.

PAUL GIGOT: There's ultimately going to be a vote - I think probably in early October -- on whether or not to have an impeachment inquiry. You could have released everything then; that would have been closer to the election. Do you think he'd have been happier to have it happen then, as opposed to now?

JIM LEHRER: You say there could be a backlash against the Republicans, Mark. This could seriously hurt the president too, couldn't it?

MARK SHIELDS: No question. I think that's what its calculated to do. We're not trying to enlarge the public debate here, Jim. I mean, Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, Paul's very favorite - nominated for president in one of his columns - said the Republicans are giving the American people - for giving the American people pornography - we're for giving them - patients bill of rights and the minimum wage increase. Well, I mean, that's exactly obviously where Democrats would prefer to have the discussion. We're going to do the videotapes this week. Next week there will be another - another media event, and just kind of keep pumping that stuff into and dominating the dialogue and the debate of 1998.

PAUL GIGOT: This has very little to do about Bill Clinton. This has everything to do with the election. Democrats are sitting there having to talk about perjury, they're having to talk about destruction, having to talk about something they're divided on, which is their own president. Something they can unite on is the process, the unfair Republicans. Their voters are sitting there saying, boy, we're not really enthusiastic about this election; if they can create an ogre, if they morph Henry Hyde and Al D'Amato -- can say they're trying to railroad our president out of town, unfair, unfair -- some of those Democrats may go to the polls. If they want to talk about process and we're going to hear that from here to November 5th --

Mr. Shields: "They're angry at Bill Clinton for taking their own issues off the agenda."

MARK SHIELDS: Democrats don't want to talk about process. They want to talk about patients bill of rights, they want to talk about education, and they want to talk about saving Social Security against tax cuts. I mean, there has not, Jim - quite frankly, in my lifetime, I can't recall since 1964, perhaps, or 1982, the time when there's been a better issues environment for the Democrats. So, as long as this is out there and just pump it out every day, Paul's right - Democrats are anxious and they're angry. They're angry at Bill Clinton for taking their own issues off the agenda.

JIM LEHRER: I'm going to be very unfair to both of you guys. Remember, last Friday, a week ago, you were sitting in these exact same chairs, and I asked you about the non-partisan and bipartisan prospects for conducting this, and you both said it's going to happen; these were grown-ups - and you went through the list of grown-ups on both sides.

PAUL GIGOT: That's right.

JIM LEHRER: They were going to make this happen. And what happened, Paul? All the votes in the Judiciary Committee that mattered -- we heard Congressman Gekas talk about some of the reactions. Those were unanimous, but the main votes were strictly down party lines.

PAUL GIGOT: I think I was on vacation last week.

MARK SHIELDS: I wasn't.

JIM LEHRER: What happened?

PAUL GIGOT: It all fell apart. There's no question about it. I think what's happened is that -- Mark made a point last week, which is right, which is that the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are to the left of the Democrats in the House and the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee to the right of the Republicans in the House by and large. Democrats in the House voted two to one to release everything. Democrats in the Judiciary Committee voted two to one against releasing it. So that's an element here that's working. They don't have a lot of comity there, no question about it. The other thing is it seems to me that the elections are critical, and I think it's possible that once we get to the serious business of actual impeachment hearings after the election probably, then we can see more bipartisanship. But before the elections it looks like there's not going to be much.

JIM LEHRER: Some people are smelling meltdown today on bipartisanship.

Meltdown for bipartisanship.

MARK SHIELDS: I think bipartisanship is very much in jeopardy. Two things happened, in my judgment. First of all, the best hope of the Democrats or the pro-Clinton people, however you want to call it, had -- continue to have for fair hearings for the President - that is not railroaded -- there's a sense of bipartisanship - is in Henry Hyde, I mean, the respected chairman of the Judiciary Committee. So what happens? Somebody puts out a story of Henry Hyde going back 30 years involving an affair, allegations of an affair with another woman. I mean, you're driving Henry Hyde into the right wing bosom of the Republican caucus, where - the other thing is Newt Gingrich, whom I praised on this broadcast last week as a statesman -

JIM LEHRER: I remember.

MARK SHIELDS: I mean, that lasted -

JIM LEHRER: Paul remembers.

MARK SHIELDS: That had a shelf life of about 72 hours.

PAUL GIGOT: The statute of limitations ran out on it.

MARK SHIELDS: I mean, really -- read the narrative on Bill Clinton in the Starr Report - and each time he's going to stop; he wants to stop; you know, this is the last time with Monica Lewinsky - I'm through, I'm going to be a good guy; I'm going to be a better husband. And then he's on the phone calling her. And that's Newt. I mean, Newt had made up his mind, and he was right. He was trying to be a statesman. He was going to be above it. And all of a sudden, there's Newt. I mean, he just can't help himself. He's back right in the partisan mix. And I think he sets the tone on this on as much as any individual on Capitol Hill.

JIM LEHRER: On the Henry Hyde story, to recap it very briefly, Tom DeLay asked for an FBI investigation - he's the minority whip of the House - on the grounds that the White House is behind this -- Salon Magazine, the Internet magazine that put it out, says, no, that's not so. And where are we in terms of the Henry Hyde story, getting out. And who's getting hurt here?

PAUL GIGOT: I think it backfired on - whether or not this was --

JIM LEHRER: I said minority whip. He's the majority whip, sorry.

PAUL GIGOT: The majority whip. I think it backfired on its perpetrators, frankly. Whoever leaked this and there's no evidence that in this case it was the White House -- though there has been - there were a couple of - ABC has reported that a couple of reporters told them that a White House official said look into something on Henry Hyde - but that's not a direct link to this story, but I think that what you're - excuse me-

MARK SHIELDS: I think what's happened is that I think that the Democrats, whoever was out there was to embarrass Henry Hyde, show hypocrisy, to show inconsistency. Okay. It was obviously - whoever set it out there, who had a political agenda, was to help the president or at least to neutralize it. They all do it; however you want to do it. And it did boomerang; Paul's absolutely right - it came back and bit the Clinton folks, and Henry Hyde was the object of encomiums on the House floor last night - I mean, people on both sides of the aisle -- and legitimately so because he is a fair man.

JIM LEHRER: But, Paul, there are some people who are saying this is only the first of many - not the first but maybe the third or fourth - of many more to come, that this is the new warfare; it's going to be where people are going to be looking at sexual affairs and years and years back, with everybody in public life who's connected to this story. You have to be connected with this story in some way.

Mr. Gigot: "These people didn't raise their hands under oath and say, we didn't have an affair."

PAUL GIGOT: There are three - this is the third Republican it's happened to -- Dan Burton and Helen Chenoweth -- but I think it's going to make it more likely, frankly, that the Republicans are more - it angers them. And it makes a lot of the Republicans think, well, look, we have to make this distinction. It's a very important distinction between just having an affair and these other things the president is charged with, things like perjury and things like obstruction. That's different. These people didn't raise their hands under oath and say, we didn't have an affair. And that's an important distinction to make.

MARK SHIELDS: I just don't want to suggest - and I don't think Paul intended that - but there's a Democratic pattern on these. I mean, Helen Chenoweth in Idaho was ousted, if you would, by the Idaho Statesman newspaper, not an - an annex of the Democratic National Committee - or the White House -- after she ran a television spot bewailing and bemoaning Bill Clinton for being sexually unfaithful. So, I mean, that raised the question of hypocrisy. On Dan Burton I think again this is outrageous, because Dan Burton was raising questions or had been raising questions about the fund-raising. He hadn't raised questions about Bill Clinton's marital fidelity. So, I mean, the idea of leaking that on him, I think it's wrong. But I think in answer to your question, Jim, we are approaching an era of sexual McCarthyism. Call it what you want. Have you now, have you ever been - did you lust in your heart - did you lust - whom did you double date with -- Sally Sue - at the junior prom, and what did you do, how late did you get her home?

PAUL GIGOT: I think this might burn itself, out, Jim, though, because I don't think the public has a real appetite for this to go anywhere. And if it weren't for these other charges, in other words, if it weren't for these serious issues of perjury and the rest, I think this story would have gone away in January, if it had just been a simple matter of an affair, just like Gennifer Flowers in 1992. I don't think this would have the staying power, it would have gotten to this point. And so I think these other things, while embarrassing, I don't think they're going to have the same political salience or impact.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. Our impact is over. Thank you both very much.

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