Bipartisans in Crime

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During the Vietnam War, we reached a point where political attempts at containing the fallout were bound to fail. The exposure of Newt Gingrich’s tax schemes and the impending investigations of President Clinton’s fundraising represent early defining moments in a comparable crisis for democracy: the decisive influence of money over government. Both Gingrich and the president have engaged in massive damage control of their respective scandals, but at some point reality must overwhelm those efforts and open the door for a new breed of politician: one who embraces clean fundraising as the minimum requirement of a democracy.

In a performance that would put to shame the most skilled contortionist, the Republicans in charge of the ethics circus succeeded in minimizing Newt’s public moment of truth. But this is Newt’s, and hence his troupe’s, special gift: the ability to shame others while displaying near absolute shamelessness.

Still, at the House Ethics Committee hearing, the special counsel coolly analyzed Newt’s multiyear pattern of reckless disregard of basic fundraising laws and of the simple truth. What was the speaker’s excuse for his repeated violations? For two years he called all the charges “bizarre.” Then, when confronted with the thoroughly documented case against him, he said his lawyer did it. His lawyer then quit, raising the possibility that he could be used as a witness against Gingrich. So, Newt said his lawyer didn’t do it, his lawyer’s first-year associate did.

Even as Newt professed, frankly, to be sorry for the controversy his brash behavior caused, he and his chief lieutenants dismissed the whole ethics investigation as a vicious partisan attack. His second lawyer then offered some 25 separate “contextualizations” under the apologetic banner that Newt was so busy saving American civilization he didn’t notice that he had given conflicting excuses in writing to the investigative subcommittee. Newt so lacks shame that he claims “divine guidance” has now led him to decide to bring together all Americans — poor and rich, black and white — to heal as a nation.

Newt’s main rival in shamelessness lives at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. As befits the president’s “I Feel My Pain” mode, he has also pardoned himself for crimes he swears he didn’t commit. The Democratic National Committee — over which he claims to have no control — did it. They rented out the White House when Bill was at home but unaware. He, too, wants us to heal these painful, partisan wounds and get beyond our outrage at political scandals (especially his own).

Gingrich and Clinton’s common gift is to divert attention with reams of rhetoric while sacrificing everyone and everything that endangers their careers. These two men engender such diffuse cynicism that the public is losing the ability to focus on ethical corruption. But if other leaders stepped forward to declare that it’s no longer acceptable for the highest officials to hide contributions and sell favors, then Americans might reclaim their right to elect “honest” representatives.

I put “honest” in quotes because the word itself is in play. As a culture, we’re fighting for control of the word’s meaning. Was it dishonest for Congressman McDermott to give the press tapes of the Republican leadership’s conference call strategizing how to defeat the ethics process? Newt & Co. would have had us believe that this was a much more crucial moral issue than the contents of the call itself, which captured Newt participating in precisely the type of attack on the ethics process he’d forsworn that very day as part of his plea bargain.

Yet the Republicans succeeded in keeping the Democrats on the defensive. Though reprimanded and fined, Newt held on to his job and kept his prime-time exposure to a minimum. Why? Because Republican pressure met with Democratic ambivalence. In fact, Minority Leader Dick Gephardt helped orchestrate all aspects of the Gingrich deal, including McDermott’s recusal. The Democrats lack the deep cohesion necessary to sustain counterattack for at least two reasons: First, they don’t want the Republicans to turn the ethical spotlight on them. (Of course the GOP will do so anyway.) And second, they want to embarrass Newt but not to oust him, rationalizing that they will have more leverage against a wounded speaker.

Meanwhile, because Newt escaped this ethics battle without losing the speakership, in his mind he’s vindicated. According to Newt’s authoritarian logic, if you’re not thrown out of office, then you didn’t do anything terrible. For its part, the House has endorsed as its speaker someone who believes that lying under oath to colleagues is of limited consequence. By declaring that Newt’s brazen, repeated violation of our charitable tax codes isn’t worthy of expulsion, Washington has broadcast its belief that lawmakers are above the law.

President Clinton, of course, lobbied for Gingrich to survive as speaker in the hope that the same lack of ethical standards will prevail when his own fundraising scandals move onto center stage. But the president was re-elected in large part because when Gingrich shut down the government, Clinton stood up to the bully. Right now the electorate wants others to stand up to the leadership of both parties. The public wants nonpartisan reform, not bipartisan corruption. They don’t care if the reformers who demand this are Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or progressives. Those who insist that our government no longer be up for sale will emerge as heroes and political pioneers.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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