The Clinton Meltdown: Spinning Wheels

FOR the White House, the Starr Report was a political neutron bomb: it left the institution standing but fatally poisoned everybody inside. Ann Lewis, Rahm Emanuel, Paul Begala, and the others who had lied and attacked for the President had been hiding in their fallout shelters ever since the President’s non-apology on August 17 (“Hung Out to Dry” read the Washington Post headline the next day). The Starr report incinerated them even so. Bill Clinton himself can withstand the heat longer because, over the years, he has developed an immune system commonly referred to as “shamelessness.” But those around him are gone. Few people would now take Rahm Emanuel’s word on the spelling of his own name.

According to several reports, one of the main reasons Clinton’s cadre of lawyers had to hit the Sunday shows after the report came out was that no one thought the official spinners could elicit anything but laughter. The worst of it was David Kendall on This Week when he was asked— quite legitimately—if his wife held to the same definition of sex that the President had used before the grand jury. When the cameras went dark, Kendall reportedly walked off in a silent fugue of rage.

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Jonah Goldberg

Jonah Goldberg is a National Review contributing editor.

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FOR the White House, the Starr Report was a political neutron bomb: it left the institution standing but fatally poisoned everybody inside. Ann Lewis, Rahm Emanuel, Paul Begala, and the others who had lied and attacked for the President had been hiding in their fallout shelters ever since the President’s non-apology on August 17 (“Hung Out to Dry” read the Washington Post headline the next day). The Starr report incinerated them even so. Bill Clinton himself can withstand the heat longer because, over the years, he has developed an immune system commonly referred to as “shamelessness.” But those around him are gone. Few people would now take Rahm Emanuel’s word on the spelling of his own name.

According to several reports, one of the main reasons Clinton’s cadre of lawyers had to hit the Sunday shows after the report came out was that no one thought the official spinners could elicit anything but laughter. The worst of it was David Kendall on This Week when he was asked— quite legitimately—if his wife held to the same definition of sex that the President had used before the grand jury. When the cameras went dark, Kendall reportedly walked off in a silent fugue of rage.