What a Tangled Web(ster) They Weave...

By Rick Horowitz

You see how hard it is to shake a bad reputation? You get off on the wrong foot with certain people, they just never forget, no matter how hard you work to put the thing behind you. And the pity of it is, nobody's immune -- not even the President of the United States!

The particular character blot we're talking about today (sorry, only one blot per session) is the way Bill Clinton treats his friends. The way he supposedly treats his friends, that is: Coldly. Callously. Uses them up and throws them away. Doesn't stand by his man -- or his woman. Lani Guinier, for instance. Joycelyn Elders. Harold Ickes. When the going gets tough, he changes the locks.

Oh yeah? So what about Web Hubbell?

You don't see the president treating Web Hubbell callously, do you? You don't see the president tossing Web Hubbell to the sharks -- no way! The president treats Web Hubbell like a brother. Better than a brother.

There isn't anything the president and his team wouldn't do for Web Hubbell. In fact, they spend more energy trying to do nice things for Web Hubbell than you could possibly imagine.

For instance? For instance, take the time back in 1994 when Web Hubbell stumbled into a bit of bad luck -- something about bilking his former law firm and some clients out of a few hundred thousand dollars. Now, you know how messy that must have been for the poor guy; he even wound up resigning from his high-level job at the Justice Department.

But that wasn't all; he was also, at the very same time, becoming a key witness in the Whitewater investigation. A silly thing, really. Just because he'd been one of the president's closest confidants for years and a law partner of Hillary Clinton while she was handling some questionable real-estate deals, and just because his own father-in-law was involved in one of those deals, and just because he took some of the law firm's billing records home with him --

Anyway, just because of little things like that, the investigators thought Web Hubbell might have some valuable information to pass along.

Now, a cold and callous man would have let Web Hubbell dangle out there, just dangle out there with all his problems and his mounting legal bills and all the pressure to cut a good deal for himself and tell what he knew, no matter who might get hurt.

But not Bill Clinton. From the president's very own chief of staff to the lowliest head of the Small Business Administration (who is now the president's very own chief of staff), they sprang right into action, working the phones, trying to find Web Hubbell a job. A job? They found him close to a dozen jobs, jobs that paid him almost a half-million dollars!

Talk about relieving the pressure...

Sure, sure, the skeptics say; so a few people made some calls, called in some chits. So they're great humanitarians. But why does Bill Clinton deserve the credit?

Well, because maybe he knew about the "Save Our Web" campaign all along, despite how modest he's always been when reporters ask him about it. According to the White House, it now turns out that Mack McLarty, the president's chief of staff back then, "thinks he remembers" telling the president what he and his colleagues were up to on Hubbell's behalf.

And McLarty does remember telling Hillary Clinton about it; she "either nodded her head," the White House says, or "acknowledged" McLarty's "expression of concern" some other way. (A "thank you"? A smile? A secret handshake?)

Do you think Hillary forgot to mention it to Bill? Of course not. So he had to know, too, even if McLarty didn't tell him directly. If he'd wanted his people to stop, if he'd wanted them to leave his old friend Web Hubbell dangling, he simply had to say the word.

He didn't, did he? So no more of these scurrilous attacks on Bill Clinton's character, OK?

Callous? Hush your mouth.

4/4/97

©1997 Rick Horowitz. All rights reserved.