7/21/00 4:55 p.m.
Tornado Warning
The Clintons leave devastation in their wake.

Robert A. George is an editorial page writer
for the New York Post------------------------------------RAGGEDmail@aol.com

aren Adler is the latest name on the list. It's a list that includes Maggie Williams. Betsey Wright is there. As is, to some extent, Betty Currie. Perhaps Vince Foster deserves to be at the top of the list. And there are so many, many more.

Bill and Hillary's former business partner, Jim McDougal, once described the Clintons as tornadoes that sweep through people's lives and leave nothing but chaos in their wake. Karen Adler now finds herself joining the list of those who have gotten sucked into the vortex.

Adler is your basic party activist. No disrespect meant to her. Both parties have people like Karen Adler. She's committed to her party and her candidate. Unfortunately, this time her candidate happens to be Hillary Clinton, and Karen happens to be the campaign's Jewish-outreach coordinator.

Now, Karen can't complain too much, because she's been a Friend of Hillary for a while. She's a board member of the United Jewish Appeal Federation and, as the Post reported today, was one of only two people to accompany Hillary to a closed meeting last year with the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations.

This week, as Hillary was caught in F*J*B*-gate, Adler leaped into action and sent a memo to the "Jewish Advisory Group" urging them to call notable Jewish reporters to let them know that Hillary was not anti-Semitic. Adler urged callers to be sure not to tell the reporters that it was Hillary's campaign that told them to call, but that they were "outraged" about what was said about her.

Aside from actually committing instructions to paper, Adler made a big mistake: She faxed the memo out from campaign headquarters — with "HRC For U.S. Senate, Inc." prominently displayed at the top of the page. Oops!! Guess how quickly that was distributed around the media? So Karen Adler has now become something of a household name as part of Hillary's cover-up crew. So much for the anonymity of being a background Party person.

But, so far, Karen Adler is lucky. Right now, she's only in the middle of a political scandal and has some egg on her face. She should consider herself far more fortunate than Maggie Williams.

Williams, the First Lady's former chief of staff, entered Vince Foster's office after his death and picked up various files of interest to the Clintons. As a result of this (damage control? cover-up? misguided loyalty?), she has been deposed by investigators from the independent counsel's office, not to mention various other private lawyers. Unlike Golden Boy George Stephanopoulos, Williams hasn't gotten a cool TV gig, pricey book contract, and an Ivy League teaching position. Instead, she's hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and, last we heard, had retreated to Paris (not to escape a subpoena, a la several campaign-finance figures).

Betsey Wright was the Arkansas Clinton operative charged with covering up various "bimbo eruptions." She smartly did not follow the crew to Washington and has somehow survived. Of course, anyone who saw Primary Colors and saw what happened to the Wright-like character portrayed by Kathy Bates can figure out what slavish devotion to Bill Clinton can do to someone's soul.

Clinton's loyal secretary Betty Currie? She ended up facilitating his liaisons with Monica Lewinsky. On top of that, he tried to coax her into perjury by reminding her that he and Monica were "never alone." Who knows exactly how much Mrs. Currie owes in legal bills? Well, whatever it is, it's not as high as the price Vince Foster paid.

Karen Adler should thank the heavens that the Clinton tornado hasn't completely ruined her — yet.