Newt Gingrich predicts that “the Democratic Party will gradually split into two factions. One faction will work on legislation and get things done and join us in lowering taxes and returning power to the American people. The other faction will be a small group of bitter people who will sort of chant anti-Newt slogans and march in circles.” . . . Wall Street Journal opines, “Our judgment is that in fact Mr. Clinton is guilty of essentially the same things over which Mr. Nixon was hounded from office—abusing his office to cover up criminal activity by himself and his accomplices, and misleading the public with a campaign of lies about it.” Michael Kelly, editor of The New Republic, asks, If Bill Clinton really believes he’s innocent, why doesn’t he encourage Susan McDougal to testify? “Why does an innocent man not rush to urge his friend to end her suffering, and to clear his name?” . . . Feistiness of Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson cheers conservatives. When Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said, “There is no case [for repeal of the estate tax] other than selfishness,” Nicholson replied, “The Clinton–Gore Administration now wants to tax us to death after death.” (Summers apologized the next day.) Nicholson calls on Democratic National Committee Chairman Roy Romer to keep his word on returning $1.5 million in tainted contributions. And he challenges conventional wisdom on gender gap: “We lost a lot of women over education, not abortion.” . . . Slip of the tongue? House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich (R., Ohio) refers to Sen. Pete Domenici (R., Ariz.), frequently at odds with conservatives: “I’m working with Domenici and the Republicans to try to get a good budget deal.” . . . Finance ministers of industrialized countries, including Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan, at G7 meeting, agree that the dollar’s value should go down.
New York Times runs editorial favorable to school vouchers, concluding that “the Milwaukee data should serve notice on the teachers’ union—and large, urban districts everywhere—that if the schools do not improve quickly, vouchers could become irresistible.” . . . Speaking of teachers’ unions, Alexis de Tocqueville Institute reports that more than two thousand officials of the National Education Association and its state affiliates make more than $100,000 per year in salary and benefits. . . . In The Nation, Edmund White delivers what he intends to be an endorsement of multiculturalism: “To me the idea of multiculturalism is incompatible with a canon; now I’d go even further and say multiculturalism is incompatible with the whole business of handing out critical high and low marks.”
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