Latest CNN/USA Today poll finds understandable skepticism about the budget deal: 81 per cent of people say the budget will definitely or probably not be balanced in the year 2002; only 16 per cent think it probably will be balanced, and 1 per cent say it definitely will. . . . In Time/CNN poll, 50 per cent of respondents say the deal doesn’t cut government enough. . . . Disputing notion that former Clinton advisor Dick Morris served as intermediary between Clinton and Trent Lott during budget talks, a Lott spokesman says: “Lott is not denying that Morris is calling, and when he is here, he takes the calls. But he is not an intermediary between Lott and Clinton. He calls the President and the President calls him.” . . . Former White House adviser George Stephanopoulos says deal “will probably reassure [sic] the election [of the] Republican Congress in 1998.”
House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman Dan Burton says payments to Webster Hubbell in 8-month period after his resignation from Justice Department may go as high as $1 million. . . . Blood Sport author James Stewart asks of stone-walling Whitewater witness Susan McDougal: “In the wake of all this talk about Hubbell and how the White House may have helped Hubbell, does she have some expectation that she is going to be rewarded for her silence?” . . . Liberal New York Times columnist A. M. Rosenthal concludes that both the Clintons are lying on Whitewater. . . . New York Post reports that there are seven government-funded lawyers doing scandal work at the White House, running up a bill as high as $500,000 or even $1 million, at taxpayers’ expense. . . . Meanwhile, Democratic attack dog David Bonior ostensibly calls off ethics war on Newt Gingrich: “The Speaker was caught violating House rules and he was punished for it and we see no reason to dwell on this. We’re going to move on to other issues.”
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