On the Whitewaters

THE MOST telling thing about President Clinton’s Whitewater press conference on the night of March 24 was his body language—as stiff and inanimate as a mouse in the mouth of a snake—as he walked to the White House lectern. Over the course of the diffuse questioning, he relaxed, and even got off a joke about the NCAA playoffs. The President’s initial assessment of his situation may prove more accurate, however, since he has been hit on the Whitewater affair from three directions: Congress, the special prosecutor, and the press.

The most publicized thrust came from the House Banking Committee, despite the best efforts of Chairman Henry Gonzalez to blunt it. Gonzalez, a 17-term veteran from San Antonio, is known as a populist, so long as his victims are Republicans: during the S&L clean-up of the late Eighties, he pursued Neil Bush, but not the crooked Texas friends of Jim Wright. He carried his partisanship over into the investigation of Madison Guaranty, denouncing the ranking minority member, Jim Leach, who wished to use semi-annual hearings into the progress of the Resolution Trust Corporation to probe the Arkansas S&L. The House parliamentarian had ruled that, while Leach could call witnesses, the chairman could control the questioning. The Democratic leadership, evidently taking fright at the prospect of the bumptious Texan wielding his gavel like a baton in endless C-SPAN repeats, agreed to delay the committee hearing scheduled for March 24, in return for full hearings later.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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THE MOST telling thing about President Clinton’s Whitewater press conference on the night of March 24 was his body language—as stiff and inanimate as a mouse in the mouth of a snake—as he walked to the White House lectern. Over the course of the diffuse questioning, he relaxed, and even got off a joke about the NCAA playoffs. The President’s initial assessment of his situation may prove more accurate, however, since he has been hit on the Whitewater affair from three directions: Congress, the special prosecutor, and the press.

The most publicized thrust came from the House Banking Committee, despite the best efforts of Chairman Henry Gonzalez to blunt it. Gonzalez, a 17-term veteran from San Antonio, is known as a populist, so long as his victims are Republicans: during the S&L clean-up of the late Eighties, he pursued Neil Bush, but not the crooked Texas friends of Jim Wright. He carried his partisanship over into the investigation of Madison Guaranty, denouncing the ranking minority member, Jim Leach, who wished to use semi-annual hearings into the progress of the Resolution Trust Corporation to probe the Arkansas S&L. The House parliamentarian had ruled that, while Leach could call witnesses, the chairman could control the questioning. The Democratic leadership, evidently taking fright at the prospect of the bumptious Texan wielding his gavel like a baton in endless C-SPAN repeats, agreed to delay the committee hearing scheduled for March 24, in return for full hearings later.