If they can make peace...

One Good Deal Deserves Another

By Rick Horowitz

NOT FAR FROM WASHINGTON -- After more than a week of on-again, off-again negotiations culminating in an intensive all-night bargaining session to hammer out final details, the White House announced today that a land-for-peace agreement had been reached between President Clinton and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr.

The breakthrough accord, which was finalized just before dawn at the picturesque Wye-Nott plantation on Maryland's Eastern Shore, provides a new framework for resolving conflicts which have poisoned the relationship between Mr. Clinton and Mr. Starr for years.

Under the terms of the agreement, as reported by senior White House officials, the Office of Independent Counsel will be granted an autonomous homeland comprising 13 percent of the current territory of the United States. Within the borders of this new nation, whose location and specific boundaries are still to be determined, the independent counsel will have undisputed authority to investigate and prosecute citizens for legal and moral transgressions of his own choosing, and to issue long and detailed reports whenever somebody has done something Mr. Starr doesn't approve of.

In exchange, Mr. Starr has agreed to end his investigations of President Clinton's relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and other matters, and to urge congressional leaders to drop the subject as well. Equally important from the White House point of view, Mr. Starr has agreed to remove from the charter of the Office of Independent Counsel language calling for the destruction of Mr. Clinton.

For his part, the president agreed to station CIA operatives in the West Wing of the White House to help screen future female visitors to the Oval Office. He also agreed to a May, 1999, deadline for demilitarizing James Carville.

"This is not everything," said an obviously weary president at an impromptu meeting with reporters this morning, "but it opens the door to everything."

While initially resistant to turning over territory which had been under United States control for generations, the president, according to aides, finally bowed to reality -- getting the independent counsel off his case would take a major concession on his part. White House officials, meanwhile, were quietly celebrating the possible end to years of bitter conflict.

"We made him an offer he couldn't refuse," said one senior aide familiar with the negotiations, referring to Mr. Starr. "Instead of poking around in one guy's life, now he can poke around in millions."

It was unclear whether Mr. Starr would be able to deliver the support of the more militant members of his office, let alone radical elements on Capitol Hill. In seeming to permit Mr. Clinton to finish out his second term in relative calm, the agreement reached today went far beyond anything these longtime enemies of the president are likely to accept without a fight. The White House was said to be bracing for possible terrorist acts from various dissident factions.

On the other hand, there were signs that the Clinton-Starr pact could gain important support in Congress. One key to the successful negotiations, in fact, was the 11th-hour intervention of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who urged the parties to put aside their differences for the good of the country. Hatch also threatened to sing patriotic ballads until an agreement was reached.

By all accounts, the negotiations were highly contentious, with the possibility that the agreement might unravel at any moment never far from participants' thoughts. Indeed, on at least one occasion during the tense final hours, Mr. Clinton apparently stormed out of the room, raising the prospect of a full diplomatic meltdown.

The president, White House officials now admit, was looking for more french fries.

Posted 10/27/98. Fresh stuff right here twice weekly!