The Lanny Davis Defense
A preliminary look at the Clinton rebuttal report, reveals no surprises. Anything you've heard Lanny Davis say over the last seven months is in this report. The White House hammers a couple of themes particularly hard. One is "private," i.e., this is a private matter for which the president has already apologized. According to the report, "the OIC report is left with nothing but the detail of a private sexual relationship told in graphic details with the intent to embarrass." Where have we heard that before?

The report then goes on to outline what constitutes impeachable offenses, and in this case emphasizes another theme: "public." Impeachment is for crimes against the state, according to the White House. It must focus on public acts. So the message is clear: Clinton's offense was private, therefore not an appropriate matter for impeachment.

The report then hammers away at Ken Starr as a Republican partisan (he according to the report, left no stone "unturned" or "unthrown"), blasts away at Linda Tripp's motives, and pulls out every possible legal stop to make a case in defense of the president. The report raises the prosect that Tripp's taping of Lewinsky is a federal offense, and therefore not legitimate as evidence.

The report also explains how technically, under the law, the president didn't obstruct justice or suborn perjury. It mounts a big defense on perjury itself, which the White House clearly sees as vulnerability. It contends that "fundamentally ambiguous questions" can't result in perjury. It also says that perjury can't be based on just the testimony of one witness.

The White House is clearly trying to set up a "he said-she said" defense, where the president maintains that no matter what Monica says he never laid a hand on her (in order to keep himself outside the bounds of the sex definition in the Jones definition). But for anyone who has read the Starr report, the never-laid-a-hand-on-her defense is the least plausible one the White House can possibly attempt.

"I Have Sinned": The Perfect Apology
He's had lots of practice, so eventually you had to figure that Clinton would perfect the art of apologizing. His performance today at the national prayer breakfast was vintage Clinton--shameless, infuriating, and just plain brilliant. With his repeated, ineffective apologies over the last few weeks, Clinton risked seeming to grovel, without any of the benefit of a genuine apology. But today's mea culpa, with its deep-felt (and put-on) emotion and biblical cadences, may help him (remember, just yesterday, according to the Washington Post, Clinton was basically telling Donna Shalala to get over it-JFK had affairs too). Decent Americans will have trouble blowing this one off. It plays perfectly into the White House strategy of Clinton apologies, coupled with the same old aggressive anti-Starr and legalistic counter-attacks.

Gephardt's Stage Anger
Dick Gephardt gave a top-of-his-voice speech this morning about the budding unfairness of the impeachment process-don't buy it. If Gephardt and other Democrats really thought the White House deserved an advance look at the report they would have fought over it, but they didn't. In meetings yesterday, Democrats just rolled over when Republicans denied their request for a 24-hour sneak peek by the White House. Democrats didn't even offer any amendments to force a delay, because they knew they would lose an embarrassing number of Democrats on such vote. At one point yesterday, Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.) pathetically pleaded for just a one hour delay. But when Gephardt didn't seem willing to fight for even that, Republicans denied that request too. The proof is in the pudding. When the resolution came up for a vote today, Gephardt voted for it. So did David Bonoir (described by sources on the Hill as a pivotal Democrats, hanging out somewhere between the Clinton's die-hard defenders and the Democrats seemingly considering cutting the president loose). In total, 138 Democrats voted for the resolution. Only 63 voted no (a group described to us as consisting of "retirees and the black caucus"). So, Democrats weren't willing to give the president 24 hours. Will they be willing to give him another 2 1/2 years?