9/15/00 4:25 p.m.
Going for Wen
President Clinton shouldn't get off the hook.

By NR's John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru

e's already trying, even in the aftermath of Judge James Parker's rebuking officials at the Departments of Energy and Justice for their conduct. Yesterday, Clinton played innocent: "The whole thing was quite troubling to me and I think it's very difficult to reconcile the two positions that one day he's a terrible risk to the national security and the next day they're making a plea agreement for an offense far more modest than what had been alleged."

Clinton's implied criticism of Janet Reno is certainly newsworthy if only because his blame-shifting targets usually lie outside his own Cabinet. But Reno herself has refused to apologize for DOJ's conduct. Either Clinton should make her do so or he should fire her — or he should reconsider his own words.

One of the political dangers of the Lee case is that it will become an Alger Hiss controversy for the 21st century — not in the sense that Chinese archives will prove Lee guilty half a century from now, but in its potential to split Americans over the next few decades. The Asian-American Left now has a martyr, and Lee will be used to suit its purposes.

Lee is a fitting symbol for the "model minority": He's a scientist who speaks good English and presides over an assimilated family. He seems humble and pleasant on television. If this nice old man is not immune to racism, then what Asian-American is? It's a poisonous thought in a society whose every generation is in fact less racist than the one to come before it, to the point where racism really can't be called a dominating feature of American life today.

The White House may yet get away with the ultimate blame shift by suggesting that racist forces doomed Lee and it was only through the good offices of liberals that he is now free. When the Chinese spy revelations started to blossom last year, it was Bill Richardson who said, "Those who have questioned the patriotism of Asian-Pacific Americans are also sowing the seeds of a darker xenophobia." How long before Richardson, who is as responsible for Lee's treatment as anybody, comes back with an "I told you so"?

People forget that it was the liberal icon Franklin Roosevelt who presided over the internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. That's why Republicans shouldn't let Clinton wash his hands of the Lee case now: Legacies are at stake, and people forget.

Abuses of Power
"Remember America, I gave you the Internet and I can take it away," joked Vice President Gore on David Letterman's show last night. Well, he certainly knows all about taking things — like this joke, which he ripped off from the Modern Humorist.