It Was Just One (More) of Those Things

By Rick Horowitz

WASHINGTON, ANY DAY NOW -- Attempting once again to keep his administration from being distracted by scandal and cynical speculation, President Clinton called today for creation of a Cabinet-level Department of Coincidence.

In a commencement address at the University of New Happenstance, Mr. Clinton offered a broad rationale for the new department, which will require congressional approval.

"Not everything happens for a reason," the president told the 3,500 graduates and their families. "Sometimes things just happen, and we need to do a better job of getting that message out to the American people."

While observers quickly assumed that Mr. Clinton's comments were spurred by recent charges that he may have allowed sensitive American satellite technology to fall into Chinese hands in exchange for campaign contributions from the satellite maker or from the Chinese themselves, White House officials denied any "specific connection" between the allegations and the speech. Both the timing and the subject of the president's remarks, they insisted, were "fortuitous."

On the other hand, officials maintained, the low-key reaction to the speech in many quarters made the case for a Department of Coincidence that much more compelling.

"Look," said one senior aide in frustration, "I spend half my time every day knocking these kinds of stories down, and I'm hardly the only one around here. We need a department whose total mission would be to put out the word that this particular set of facts or that particular set of facts is nothing but a fluke, no matter how bad it looks."

Among the "flukes" the aide may have had in mind are administration misadventures ranging from White House coffees that raised large sums of money despite official insistence that they were not, strictly speaking, "fundraising" events, to the disappearance -- and sudden reappearance in the White House living quarters -- of long-sought records from First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's former law firm.

A Department of Coincidence would presumably coordinate administration reaction to these matters, which are currently being handled at the White House and by multiple departments and agencies.

Likewise, skeptics still wonder precisely how the White House came to possess the personal FBI files on hundreds of Republicans from former administrations, or why this administration and its friends in the private sector took such an active interest in finding one former intern, Monica Lewinsky, a job outside of Washington. The new department would take a lead role in these matters as well.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the president's proposal was greeted with a mixture of caution and disdain. Democrats worried about being seen as accepting uncritically the White House's most benign explanations for suspicious ties between campaign dollars and Clinton policies. Republicans, for their part, sensed pay dirt, and seemed no more willing than ever to help this president sidestep his latest political minefield.

Indeed, an aide to House Speaker Newt Gingrich announced late this afternoon that Congress would not take up Mr. Clinton's proposal any time soon. Republican leaders, the aide declared, had put the final touches on their legislative agenda for the rest of the year just minutes before the president began his speech; further changes were impossible.

The Republicans' stance, party leaders emphasized, was no reflection on the merits of the president's plan, but merely an unfortunate accident of timing.

Said one veteran congressman, wise to the ways of Washington, "You could even call it a coincidence."

5/26/98