In the eye of the hurricane

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 17, 1997 | by Michael Rust

Opinions abound about the campaign-finance probe: Republicans have let themselves down; the Democrats are outmaneuvering the GOP; GOP expectations are too high, etc. fred Thompson finds himself ...

It's hard to miss Fred Thompson. The 6-foot-5-inch Tennessee Republican towered above other newcomers literally and figuratively when he arrived in Washington following the 1994 Republican landslide. Thompson's background as minority counsel to the Senate Watergate committee nearly 25 years ago, as an actor in major Hollywood movies and as a Washington insider lawyer/lobbyist made him seem a perfect fit for the presidential sweepstakes.

Thompson's chairmanship of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which is investigating the Democrat campaign-finance scandals, seemed the ideal spotlight for the Tennessean. But while he still is easy to spot, his presidential hopes, say disappointed conservative Republicans, are dim and growing dimmer.

When it comes to uncovering Clinton White House scandals, Thompson "has not really engaged the issue in the way a lot of people had hoped," conservative commentator Robert Novak said on Direct Line With Paul Weyrich, the flagship talk show on conservative activist Weyrich's NET television network. Weyrich's viewers tend to be vehement opponents of the Clinton administration; they want Thompson and House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman Dan Burton of Indiana, Thompson's counterpart, to cripple if not destroy the Clinton White House. "Those who are critical of the investigations are critical because they believe strongly, passionately, that this is the most corrupt administration in American history," says Thomas Mann, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution. And they wonder, he adds, why something so obvious to them isn't apparent to everyone.

Indeed, for Republicans Christmas did not arrive early this year. Instead of limping toward ignominy, the Clinton administration, GOP partisans believe, is evading censure. And they look back with envy to what they see as powerful Democratic congressional-committee chairmen of the past who guided their panels with firm hands and firmer purpose. "There are two fundamental problems," a Republican lawyer with close ties to House investigators tells Insight. "First of all, Republicans tend to play fair. And they have an inability to spin the media."

This summed up conventional wisdom among Republicans on Capitol Hill as Insight went to press, and a case can be made for both points. At the same time, the situation is much more complex. Some see the Democrats outmaneuvering Republicans; others say Republicans have let themselves down. A minority view has it that the Thompson committee actually accomplished its mission with flying colors. And some observers think Republican expectations were just too high to be realized.

Republicans, meanwhile, look back to the days when Democrats such as Michigan Rep. John Dingell ran committees with iron fists. Now in his 22nd term, Dingell chaired the House Commerce Committee with an almost autocratic authority; both fellow Democrats and minority Republicans thought long and hard before challenging him. But times have changed. And Republicans agreed to limiting the budget for Thompson's committee to a sum said to be equivalent to what was spent for the Watergate hearings nearly a quarter-century ago. At the same time, Thompson accepted an end-of-the-year deadline urged by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi.

"And Republicans just can't seem to spin the media," says the GOP lawyer close to investigators. "Republicans tend to shy away from [reporters]," because they either have been ordered to by their leaders and bosses or because "they think the media are a bunch of liberal whores." Either way, Democratic staffers get the jump in presenting their case to the media. And, at the same time, GOP lawmakers are restrained by the nature of the subject being investigated -- a topic guaranteed to put politicians of both parties on their guard.

"I really think it has much more to do with what's being investigated," says Mann. "The fact is that when it comes to fund-raising, any problems we have with one party almost certainly apply to the other as well." And in fact, many Republicans criticize Thompson for spreading too wide a net. At the same time, the now-minority Democrats have shown a unity the GOP lacks. Senate Democrats "have been tough," Novak said on NET. "They have been well organized. They've been orchestrated by the White House. They line up in front of the committee hearing room for action every morning, and the Republican side is empty." Republicans, meanwhile, have seemed fractious and timid.

Perhaps this is rooted in tensions between the chairmen and the leadership. Reports that Lott is unhappy with the Thompson committee long have circulated on Capitol Hill. Part of the trouble may be misdirected energy. At times it has seemed that Thompson was not reading from the same script as GOP congressional leaders. Last March, with the backing of only four other GOP senators, Thompson defied Republican leaders and broadened the scope of the committee's investigation not only to look into "illegal" acts by the Democratic Party, but also "improper" acts by both parties. This was aimed at giving an imprimatur of nonpartisanship to the committee, as well as a boost to campaign-finance reform supported by the Tennessee senator.