The Truth, The Partial Truth, And Nothing But The Partial Truth

By Rick Horowitz

They say "Hey!"

They say "Whoa!"

They say "Somebody stop this guy!"

They are Republicans, and they are perturbed; this isn't quite what they had in mind. And the source of their distress, the poor dears? The reason for those furrowed brows, those quivery lips?

One of their own.

"Hey!"

The name in the news -- the stick in the craw -- is Fred Thompson: former Watergate lawyer, occasional actor, United States senator from the Great State of Tennessee. Republican senator, which is the very thing that's got his GOP colleagues so totally twitchy. He should know better.

He's on the fast track, this Fred Thompson, with the rugged good looks and the voice that sounds like God's own chief of staff. Only a guy on the fast track gets handed the kind of high-profile plum he's been handed, leading the Senate's investigation of the latest Washington scandal pit: shady political fundraising practices.

High-profile and on the side of the angels -- people have made careers out of less. (This thought may have crossed his mind.) Thompson plays his cards right, people say, and he could be the Republicans' knight in shining armor in the year 2000.

If the Republicans are still talking to him.

What they're doing right at the moment is talking about him, behind the scenes, in nervous whispers. An investigation like this, you see, should be the Republicans' ticket to glory, a chance to put Bill Clinton and his money-grubbing minions on the spit and turn them nice and slowly:

"What about the Lincoln Bedroom?"

"What about the coffees?"

"What about the Buddhist temple?"

"What about the Chinese?"

And on. And on.

That ought to be enough to satisfy any senator's curiosity, wouldn't you think? But not Fred Thompson; he's pushing for more. He wants the authority to investigate not only the Clinton campaign, but questionable practices in congressional campaigns, too. And not only Democrats, but -- gasp! -- Republicans.

"I will not sweep any Republican wrongdoing under the rug," he says.

This is not what the Republicans want to hear. After all, they raised even more "soft money" last time around than the Democrats did. They apparently funneled big dollars to tax-exempt groups to help turn out their vote, same as the Democrats did. Is it possible, just possible, that folks on their side of the aisle might have strayed from the rules a time or two themselves? Once you start looking under that rock, who knows what you'll find? So why bother?

Thompson can send out a first batch of subpoenas that go overwhelmingly to Democrats. He can talk all he wants to about not having a quota system, about how he won't feel obliged to come up with a "dirty" Republican for every "dirty" Democrat he uncovers. He can insist until he's blue in the face that the more serious violations will get the more serious attention, that there's a difference between cozying up to lobbyists, say, and selling America's foreign policy to the highest bidder.

The Republicans are not amused. Or reassured. They're all for fact-finding, yes indeed -- but there are facts, and then there are facts. A man with a bright future should know which ones are worth pursuing.

Fred Thompson keeps promising a fair investigation.

Who said anything about being fair?

2/18/97

©1997 Rick Horowitz. All rights reserved.