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                                                                                THE POLITICAL INTEREST, Page 26

The Lies of George and Bill


By Michael Kramer


    Bill Clinton did everything he could to dodge the draft,
and George Bush was up to his neck in the Iran-contra affair.
Assume these conclusions (as most people do) because available
evidence and common sense effectively refute the candidates'
denials. Now what? Leave aside the actions themselves; they are
less troublesome than the dissembling designed to conceal them.
Is one lie somehow worse than the other? Does one reflect more
negatively than the other on a politician's fitness to serve as
President?

    Within the memory of many who will choose between Bush and
Clinton, official lying once stunned the nation. In 1960, after
Dwight Eisenhower wrongly swore that a U.S. reconnaissance plane
had strayed inadvertently over the Soviet Union, the country
was shocked. Many had naively assumed that an unwritten code
forbade their leaders to lie to them. Within 15 years Vietnam
and Watergate had inured the nation to official lying. In 1976,
69% of respondents agreed in a national poll that "over the past
10 years, this country's leaders have consistently lied to the
people." Today there is an almost bored tolerance of political
lying, a disgust reflected in an increasing decline in voter
participation, a corroded environment in which those who elect
and those who are elected both lose. Whoever eventually wins,
says the philosopher Sissela Bok, invariably discovers that his
"warnings and calls to common sacrifice meet with disbelief and
apathy, even when cooperation is most urgently needed."

    In this campaign Clinton's obfuscations demand greater
attention. Bush's lies, which stretch beyond Iran-contra and
embrace the continuing distortion of his opponent's record and
proposals, play a smaller role in determining our judgment of
him; the President has a first-term record voters can consider.
Clinton is another matter simply because he has yet to serve.
We just don't know if the character flaw his dissembling reveals
is a significant indicator of how he would govern or a jumble
of white lies the country can safely ignore. So the search for
clues continues.

    During the primaries, Clinton seemed headed for the trash
heap. Gennifer Flowers had become a household name, the first
round of draft stories dominated the news, and the candidate
insisted improbably that he hadn't inhaled. But some of
Clinton's closest associates were most disturbed by the fact
that during those dark days the candidate played golf at the
Little Rock Country Club, which has yet to admit its first black
member. "We discussed it all," says a Yale classmate of
Clinton's who has supported him ever since. "Bill had privileges
at the club because he was Governor -- he wasn't a member -- but
he agreed that his continuing to play there would look bad. When
he did it anyway, it struck some of us as a sort of Gary
Hart-like death wish. When Bill didn't fold, like Gary, we put
it out of our minds. But this new flurry of draft stuff has
caused us to wonder again. We thought he had learned that Henry
Kissinger was right when he said that political survival demands
that `whatever will come out eventually come out immediately.'
We thought he had learned not to push his luck, and when he said
there was finally nothing more to say [in Clinton's now
infamous "last word" statement on the draft to the American
Legion on Aug. 25], we believed him. We're his friends, and we
know him better than most, but we're as mystified as everyone
else."

    The Bush campaign is obviously delighted. "It's Clinton's
to lose," concedes a top G.O.P. official. "But he may be on the
verge of doing just that, and on the very issue we've been
pushing -- trust. Clinton could have come clean months ago, or
even last week. Every day that he doesn't, we'll do what Bob
Kerrey predicted we'd do: we'll take Clinton's draft record and
open it and him like a soft-shelled peanut. It's that simple."

    So far, Clinton has reverted to type. He massages and
fillets the facts, leaving behind pronouncements that are
technically accurate but devoid of the inner truth. His
explanations about avoiding Vietnam do not hang together. From
the beginning it has been obvious that if Clinton truly thought
it unethical for him to remain home after four of his friends
died in Vietnam, he could have exposed himself to the same risk
at any moment simply by enlisting in the military. Even now, a
last "last word" and a forthright mea culpa would help
immeasurably. In seeking to understand his candidate's
self-defeating silence, a senior Clinton aide turned again to
Hart and recalled the miniautobiography Hart had written shortly
before the 1988 campaign. In the last paragraph of that
otherwise forgettable book, Hart said, "The immortal Yeats
wrote, `Not a man alive has so much luck he can play with.' As
usual," continued Hart, "Yeats put it right. A man would be a
fool to take his luck for granted." Clinton has already admitted
an overeagerness to please, an aversion to saying anything that
could cause people to dislike him. If he doesn't transcend that
foible quickly, his luck may run out on Nov. 3, and he will be
back in Little Rock with no one to blame but himself.