For the Record

In Harvard speech, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt sets off intra-Democratic firestorm by dissenting from Dick Morris’s vision for his party: “Too often, our leaders seem enamored with small ideas that seem to nibble around the edges of big problems. There’s a dangerous vacuum where principled politics should be.” New Democrat Rep. Tim Roemer (Ind.) soundbites back: “If the strategy is one of moving to the left, we’ve had that debate—it was called the 1994 Republican landslide.” Rep. Cal Dooley (Calif.) issues not-so-veiled threat: “It’s going to be difficult for him to attack the Vice President and at the same time remain leader of the Democrats in Congress. He’s going to have to be a little more careful with his rhetoric.” White House press secretary Michael McCurry huffs, “1998 may have fallen out of Mr. Gephardt’s calendar book, but it’s surely in the President’s.” But other Democrats rally to Gephardt. Says Rep. David Obey (Wisc.): “It was a terrific speech. Our party cannot win by being bloodless, by being tactical.”

In editorial titled “Whoops, More Evidence to Ignore,” New York Times editorializes on Clinton—Gore fundraising scandal that “the evidence that has oozed so far from an obstructionist White House is compelling enough to have persuaded any modern Attorney General other than Ms. [Janet] Reno to start acting like an aggressive federal law-enforcement official.” It concludes, “You have to wonder whether even Ms. Reno, when she is alone with her thoughts in the late watches of the night, does not worry about what else is going to ooze out of the White House evidence closet.” . . . Best Line of Fortnight Award goes to Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), who said of FBI director Louis Freeh’s support, contra Janet Reno, for independent counsel: “The Justice Department cannot survive half-slave and half-Freeh.” . . . Worst Political Analysis Award also goes to Specter, for suggestion that Republicans’ rejection of Bill Lann Lee for civil-rights post risks repeating Bob Dole’s fatal 1996 error: trying too hard to appease Right. … McCurry says of Lee, “We’ve been trying to get the Senate to wise up. We’re trying to give them a chance to do the right thing, as opposed to the stupid thing.” . . . Speaking of Dole, he’s said to share Sen. Specter’s view of his campaign, angry especially about implacability of pro-lifers. “I guess he would have won if he’d been able to put that ‘declaration of tolerance’ in the right section of the platform,” one social conservative lobbyist retorts.

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In Harvard speech, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt sets off intra-Democratic firestorm by dissenting from Dick Morris’s vision for his party: “Too often, our leaders seem enamored with small ideas that seem to nibble around the edges of big problems. There’s a dangerous vacuum where principled politics should be.” New Democrat Rep. Tim Roemer (Ind.) soundbites back: “If the strategy is one of moving to the left, we’ve had that debate—it was called the 1994 Republican landslide.” Rep. Cal Dooley (Calif.) issues not-so-veiled threat: “It’s going to be difficult for him to attack the Vice President and at the same time remain leader of the Democrats in Congress. He’s going to have to be a little more careful with his rhetoric.” White House press secretary Michael McCurry huffs, “1998 may have fallen out of Mr. Gephardt’s calendar book, but it’s surely in the President’s.” But other Democrats rally to Gephardt. Says Rep. David Obey (Wisc.): “It was a terrific speech. Our party cannot win by being bloodless, by being tactical.”

In editorial titled “Whoops, More Evidence to Ignore,” New York Times editorializes on Clinton—Gore fundraising scandal that “the evidence that has oozed so far from an obstructionist White House is compelling enough to have persuaded any modern Attorney General other than Ms. [Janet] Reno to start acting like an aggressive federal law-enforcement official.” It concludes, “You have to wonder whether even Ms. Reno, when she is alone with her thoughts in the late watches of the night, does not worry about what else is going to ooze out of the White House evidence closet.” . . . Best Line of Fortnight Award goes to Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), who said of FBI director Louis Freeh’s support, contra Janet Reno, for independent counsel: “The Justice Department cannot survive half-slave and half-Freeh.” . . . Worst Political Analysis Award also goes to Specter, for suggestion that Republicans’ rejection of Bill Lann Lee for civil-rights post risks repeating Bob Dole’s fatal 1996 error: trying too hard to appease Right. … McCurry says of Lee, “We’ve been trying to get the Senate to wise up. We’re trying to give them a chance to do the right thing, as opposed to the stupid thing.” . . . Speaking of Dole, he’s said to share Sen. Specter’s view of his campaign, angry especially about implacability of pro-lifers. “I guess he would have won if he’d been able to put that ‘declaration of tolerance’ in the right section of the platform,” one social conservative lobbyist retorts.