A sex scandal becomes a political scandal

By Gus Hall

This article was reprinted from the February 14, 1998 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

One of the most fascinating and important questions about the White House crisis is how to explain that, through it all, President Clinton's popularity keeps climbing.

His ratings in public opinion polls range between 60 and 80 percent, the highest rating for any president in U.S. history. No president has ever had such strong public support, especially not in the midst of so much controversy and scandal.

Out to 'get' Bill

What are some of the possible explanations? How and who turned the sex scandal into a full-blown political scandal?

Certainly not everyone believes the president's denials of wrong doing. But people overwhelmingly do believe the first lady. The strongest defense so far has come from Hillary Clinton, whose approval rating is also at an all-time high. The first lady's dramatic TV interview exposing "a right- wing conspiracy" against her husband hit a nerve among the people.

Her charges - that there's an elaborate, long-term, right- wing scheme to "get Bill," led by point man, Kenneth Starr - has been heard by a sympathetic nation. People agree with her charge that the right wing is using the events for reactionary, partisan political purposes, to weaken the president, the presidency and the Democratic Party.

Thus, some of Clinton's high rating is a protest vote against the right wing. People are using the polls to send a protest that they see through the ultra-right-media vendetta. And they are rejecting it. Keep in mind that the great majority of the American people are going through a radicalization process that includes a rejection of "Contract on America" right-wing politics.

Why the conspiracy? This is a very important election year. Voter support for the ultra-right Republican extremists has been going downhill fast. Their continuing domination of Congress is not assured by any means. Public support for Clinton, for his State of the Union speech, the big crowds and applause at his rallies and the negative reaction to the media feeding frenzy has thrown the Republicans for a loop. That is why the likes of Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich have temporarily melted into the woodwork, to let the right-wing front men like Starr, the TV anchors and lawyers do the open dirty work.

The ultra-right in Congress knows full well that the majority of Americans have lost their sense of security. They are suffering job insecurity, lack of health coverage, downsizing, upcoming layoffs, threats to Social Security and declining wages while corporate profits skyrocket.

The ultra-right seized on Clinton's alleged wrongdoing to divert people's attention from the nation's real problems. And the corporate news media were, and are, more than willing co-conspirators.

Kenneth Starr, a long-time right wing Republican with ties to many reactionary forces, organizations and causes, has been trying for years to destroy Clinton and the Democratic Party. Besides all his other right-wing connections, one of Starr's biggest clients is the tobacco industry. He has spent four years and $40 million unsuccessfully pursuing the Clintons on Whitewater, campaign financing, fund raising and now sex and perjury. All to no avail - so far.

This doesn't mean the Clintons are clean. No capitalist politician is. It means the American people do not like Starr's politics or his methods. They see his role not as a non-partisan, independent counsel, but as part of the right-wing conspiracy.

The public sees him as the front man of a massive witch hunt. Starr's record shows that he does not hesitate to violate democratic laws or trample rules of human decency and respect for individual rights to get what he wants. People are rightfully asking whether it is time to either abolish or limit the power and authority of the so-called independent prosecutor.

Media feeding frenzy

The mass media has reached a new and dangerous low. The "feeding frenzy" has become a new right-wing danger. The public is also reacting negatively to the media's role in relentlessly pursuing the sex scandal-perjury line and ignoring most of the urgent issues of the day. The gossip, rumor-mongering and yellow journalism has been totally irresponsible.

The political right wing, including Starr and the mass media, couldn't care less about Clinton's sex habits, his morality, ethics or marital fidelity. They are using the sex issue for all its worth.

This crisis was definitely on Clinton's mind as he wrote the State of the Union Address. Thus, his high ratings are also for the positive elements in that speech: For example, his call for an increase in the minimum wage, for "saving" Social Security, more money for education and child care, for a nuclear test ban and support for the U.N.

Clinton was influenced by his need to keep the people on his side, to keep his ratings up. Even his efforts to maintain a focus on issues and programs, as he stumps the country speaking to receptive crowds, is motivated by the crisis. His overall tactic is to ride out the crisis by staying close to the people and retaining their support.

Iraq & the political crisis

Of course, threats to bomb Iraq is the other, negative, side of the crisis. He thinks that because he is under attack, the people will even support a new war against Iraq. But there is strong evidence that the people will not support an air war against Iraq, and definitely not a ground war which would repeat the nightmare of the Desert Storm debacle.

On the other hand, Hussein has stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons which he refuses to destroy or dismantle. His dictatorship has pushed the region toward war by refusing to allow U.N. inspection teams to carry out the U.N. resolution. Another war against Iraq would be another war of death and destruction against the Iraqi people and their country.

If Clinton wants to maintain his popularity with the people, he must call off the Republican war hawks who threaten not only to bomb the Iraqi people, but to overthrow Hussein by force and install another U.S.-puppet regime in Iraq.

There is a sort of schizophrenic attitude to all this. On the one hand, the U.S. is determined to force Iraq to comply and get on with the long-term, thus far unsuccessful, efforts to impose total U.S. imperialist control over Iraqi and Persian Gulf oil. On the other, U.S. imperialism is worried that if Hussein is removed by a mass uprising they will lose everything.

The U.S. will do anything to block the democratic forces, including the Communist Party of Iraq, from overthrowing and establishing a "united democratic federal Iraq," including using Iraq's oil riches to improve the people's lives.

Thus, the American people and the U.S. peace movement must compel Clinton to recall the huge war fleet amassing in the Persian Gulf and renew efforts to solve the crisis through diplomatic means - and to put an end to the U.S.-imposed, seven-year blockade which continues to kill, especially, the children of Iraq.

The right wingers are working overtime on many fronts to use the crisis, one way or another, to destabilize and discredit the Democratic Party and, thereby, open the door to increasing the right-wing majority in Congress this year and even winning the White House in 2000. The forces of reaction see the crisis as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to move the country to the right on domestic issues and toward another war in the Persian Gulf.

The extreme right forces have become bolder and more open in their efforts to discredit the new trade union leadership, to cripple the new trade union movement, to transfer even more taxpayer's money from the working and poor to the filthy rich and go to war with Iraq.

For example, on the domestic front, the right wingers in Congress are busy working on a bill that would severely disenfranchise trade unionists and their ability to support and fight for working-class representation. Under cover of creating a national obsession with the sex scandals, the right wing is pushing huge tax cuts for the filthy rich and schemes to reduce Social Security and Medicare, to stop a minimum wage increase, to give millions more to the International Monetary Fund, to pass the secret Multilateral Agreement on Investment and to greatly expand the power of NATO - and, of course, expand their domination of Congress.

People are smarter

The people sense this right-wing danger. That is why Clinton's support remains high. Who makes up this majority support? Of course, it includes people who approve of Clinton's politics. It includes Democrats. However, a big section of this support is also a protest vote against the ultra-right and its mass-media promoters.

At this point, the majority of Americans see the right-wing danger as a much bigger threat than any sex scandal or lies. They know that the right wing is using the issue in a disgusting and dangerously fascist-like way.

The majority realize that discrediting and/or removing Clinton at a moment when the balance of power in Congress is at stake can throw the democratic process into chaos, deepen the political crisis and thus open the door even further for the extreme right and fascist forces.

Fortunately the right wing has seriously miscalculated the wisdom of the people. We stand foursquare with this wise, vigilant and militant majority.

It is time for this majority to take to the streets to tell the right-wing conspirators that we demand a turnaround to a national agenda of jobs, equality, democracy, justice and peace.