Partisan reflections - comparison between the Whitewater Development Corp. scandal and the Iran-Contra Affair investigation - Editorial

THE TEMPTATION to compare Whitewater to Iran-Contra has so far mostly been resisted; but it shouldn't be. There are necessary lessons the nation still has not learned.

First, Iran-Contra now, more clearly than ever, must be understood as the attack of a Democratic Congress on a Repulican White House. The House hearings on Whitewater were a farce not because Henry Gonzalez is a fool, but because he is a Democratic fool. The Senate hearings were better, but lacked the intensity of Iran-Contra partly because the committee refused to hire a tough counsel who could bore in on witnesses for hours at a time. Think of the interrogation of Roger Altman if someone like Brendan Sullivan (Ollie North's former lawyer) had been conducting it instead of Don Riegle.

Second, the legal stadards imposed on Republicans in Iran-Contra are now, more clearly than ever, revealed as ad hominem attacks rather than neutral rules of conduct. When Elliott Abrams failed to reveal to Congress that the Reagan Administration had secretly--with a promise of confidentiality--asked the government of Brunei to help the Contras, he was threatened with a perjury charge and railroaded into a plea to "with-holding information from Congress." When Roger Altman failed to reveal to Congress that there had been many White House/Treasury contacts about Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, the sin was worse, for there was no countervailing nationalsecurity consideration, no pledge to a foreign government. It was just politics. Moreover, Mr. Abrams immediately sought permission from his superiors to reveal the secret solicitation, got it, and returned to the Hill to tell all. Mr. Altman misled Congress with letter after letter that purported to set the record straight but actually continued to withhold information.

We will see how Mr. Altman is henceforth treated. Democrats are divided: some want him fired while others argue that "he has suffered enough," presumably meaning that he stayed up late two nights in a row to testify and even had to hire a lawyer. Mr. Altman spent the Decade of Greed on Wall Street and can well afford a lawyer, and at his age he can probably afford to stay up late too. To our knowledge no Democrat has said, "Prosecute him: apply the same standards we applied in Iran-Contra."

The pre-Iran-Contra view was far more sensible: Withholding information from Congress, short of actual false statements or perjury, is a political phenomenon and part of the inevitable and indeed healthy interbranch rivalry. If witnesses go too far, they have committed a political sin and they should receive a political punishment, even up to losing their jobs; they should not be subject to criminal prosecution. But when Democrats insist that Republican witnesses be prosecuted while their own have already "suffered enough," the criminal-justice system is being prostituted to serve partisan ends.

Third, we can now see more clearly that the Reagan Administration did itself great harm by accepting Democratic descriptions of the constitutional enormity of the Iran-Contra scandal. The Clinton Administration downplays Whitewater, and many citizens accept its assessment. Most TV stations carried little if any of the hearings, while Iran-Contra was carried gavel to gavel. Clearly the Reagan people panicked, and for that panic they paid a huge price both in terms of the Iran-Contra hearings and in the dispirited nature of much of Reagan's second term (when what should have been a conservative government was being run by Howard Baker).

With any luck the next set of hearings, about whatever scandal, will find the Republicans in control of one house. The main piece of advice to start with is: Push aside members' egos and desire to hog the TV time, and find a terrific counsel. Write rules that allow him to take whatever time is needed to push witnesses to the wall. Hold the hearing from 10 A.M. to 6 P.M., no more. And make sure that Democratic witnesses are held to the same standard for testimony that the Republicans were, including the criminal prosecutions. Giving the Democrats a taste of their own medicine may create a coalition to stop the criminalizing of political fights once and for all.

COPYRIGHT 1994 National Review, Inc.
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