DOWN PAYMENT
Most folks sitting atop more than $5 million in unpaid legal bills and who hadn't made a mortgage payment in 16 years would have trouble getting a home loan, let alone one for $1.35 million. But then the Clintons have always been special people. The normal rules don't apply to them, and all the Democrats who howled when Bob Dole loaned Newt Gingrich some cash to pay off a fine aren't peeping about the dirty financing scheme the Clintons have arranged to secure an 11-room house in swank Westchester County, N.Y.

They needed a guarantor for the loan, and turned to Democratic fundraiser Terence A. McAuliffe, the man who urged President Clinton to rent out the Lincoln Bedroom and sell $10,000 cups of coffee. Even worse, however, McAuliffe appears to be a subject in two federal investigations. As the New York Post says, "McAuliffe was reportedly questioned by a grand jury and U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White in 1998 for an admitted swap of funds between the Teamsters and the Democratic National Committee." And the National Legal and Policy Center reports that the Department of Labor filed suit in May against two trustees of an electrical workers fund for making an improper loan to a development company owned by McAuliffe and his wife. The loan was in default for nearly five years, and the DOL suit seeks to have the trustees reimburse the fund for losses, including interest.

Now McAuliffe is effectively the Clintons' landlord. If these federal probes go anywhere, the First Couple will probably have their water turned off. Don't count on it.

LABOR'S HAPPY DAY
From the Capital Research Center's Labor Watch newsletter: "The AFL-CIO and the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice are co-sponsoring the 'Labor in the Pulpits' campaign this Labor Day weekend, for the fourth year running. The campaign is responsible for organizing worship services around the country which, in the words of the AFL-CIO, 'highlight the many ways in which faith, work, and the union movement are intertwined in bringing forth a new vision for justice in communities.' The United Methodist Church issued a special Labor Day liturgy saying that, among other things, 'we will remember those who have lost long-held jobs due to technical change,' and 'we will remember all workers exploited by multinational corporations pursuing cheap labor.'"