It's not what they say -- it's what they don't say.

The Noisy Ones, Strangely Silent

By Rick Horowitz

They say they feel "betrayed," some of these congressional Democrats suddenly scurrying to put extra distance between themselves and the sinkhole at 1600 Pennsylvania.

I don't buy it. They may be feeling nervous about the latest sordid twists in the Lewinsky saga. Depressed. Maybe even sick to their stomachs. But to feel betrayed by someone, you have to have trusted him in the first place.

And on Capitol Hill, they haven't trusted Bill Clinton in years.

Let's be clear here: I'm not talking about the true believers at the other end of the avenue, at the White House itself. There's every chance that at least a few of those dedicated and devoted Dupes of Bill, trooping out to the White House lawn and the Sunday-morning TV studios month after month, actually swallowed the line they were putting out against the growing pile of evidence to the contrary: He says he didn't do it. (Therefore...) He didn't do it.

Those folks have every reason to feel betrayed -- and that's even before they look at their legal bills. Maybe someday, they'll get a nice handwritten note from the boss thanking them for their efforts.

But that's at the White House. (And that's why it's called blind loyalty.) I'm not talking about those folks. I'm talking about the professional political class up on Capitol Hill, the people's elected representatives in self-interest assembled. They know better. They've always known better.

And it's not what they've said on the subject of Bill Clinton. It's what they haven't said.

For years now, as the various allegations -- Travelgate, Filegate, the White House coffees, the Lincoln Bedroom, the Asian connection -- have chased each other across the headlines and into the hearing rooms, I've waited for Bill Clinton's fellow Democrats to defend the man on character grounds. To grab the microphone at some podium and say, in essence, "I work with him. I know him. He's innocent."

I've never heard it, or anything remotely like it.

They'll defend him, all right, often tenaciously, sometimes even effectively, but it's always on some other basis. They'll question -- properly -- the motives of his accusers and the zeal of his prosecutors. They'll search for the scent of hypocrisy, the whiff of rank partisanship, in the charges against him. They'll raise doubts about hostile witnesses, and offer up more benign explanations for suspicious words and deeds. They'll talk about the policies he favors and the legislation he's helped enact. They'll sing hosannas to the economy, point to the polls, warn against leaping to conclusions.

But what they won't do -- what I've never heard one of them do, not even once -- is say, "You know me. You trust me. I will put my character, and my reputation, on the line to attest to his: This man could not have done these things."

That tells me everything I need to know.

They're not stupid, these people. These are men and women who make their living taking the measure of other people, who conduct much of their business with a word and a handshake. They're forced to figure out pretty quickly whose word is solid, whose handshake they can count on. And they've been measuring Bill Clinton for years. If they can't vouch for him after all this time, there's a reason for it, and a warning in it.

Sometimes silence sounds as loud as a siren.

Posted 8/21/98. Fresh stuff right here twice weekly!

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