Thursday, March 26, 1998

Get ready for the spin when Jones loses

By WILLIAM A. RUSHER

Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

Conservatives had better start preparing themselves for the likelihood that Paula Jones will lose her case against President Clinton.

That likelihood has nothing to do with her basic claim she was invited to then-Gov. Clinton's hotel room, where he proceeded to drop his pants and ask her to "kiss it." But the statute of limitations had run on more easily provable offenses when the American Spectator's reference to a "Paula" who had been escorted to the governor's room finally prompted Jones to go public with her story. So she and her lawyers were forced to sue under laws that variously require not only proof of the basic charge but proof of emotional injury, deprivation of job opportunities, and the like.

Jones' pleadings in the case do indeed allege both of the the above, in detail and with specificity, and it is possible she will be able to convince the jury she has proved everything she needs to prove. But the general consensus among people who have studied the evidence is that her case is relatively weak when it comes to demonstrating true emotional injury and serious vindictiveness in her subsequent job history. Whether an Arkansas jury can be persuaded to find for the plaintiff under those circumstances is a good deal less than likely.

If the jury finds for defendant Clinton, you can expect the biggest hullabaloo since the acquittal of O.J. Simpson. The vast machinery of the Clinton spin process will swing into action with a single exultant theme: The jury found Clinton innocent of Jones' accusation.

It will be up to the rest of us to reply, as calmly and firmly as possible, that the jury did not necessarily do any such thing. It may well have believed every word of Jones' account of what went on in that hotel room, but failed to find she suffered emotional distress as a result or that she was subsequently mistreated in connection with her job - one or both of which the judge will have instructed the jury are absolutely indispensable elements of her case.

Our protests won't do a lot of good, however. The drums will be throbbing: The jury found Clinton innocent! That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

What's more, if the testimony of one or more of the women (e.g., Kathleen Willey) who have had similar experiences with Clinton is admitted as evidence of a "pattern" of such conduct, the White House megaphones will roar (quite falsely) that that testimony, too, was necessarily "rejected" by the jury.

We had better prepare, therefore, for an all-out effort by the Clinton propaganda machine to discredit, on the basis of a favorable verdict in the Jones case, the entire series of allegations of sexual misconduct beginning with Gennifer Flowers and stretching through Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky to Kathleen Willey.

To be sure, the allegations will not in fact be so easy to vaporize. Special prosecutor Ken Starr knows Clinton and Willey have flatly contradicted each other under oath; one or the other of them is lying, and no verdict against Jones can tell us which. He has also listened to 20 hours of tapes in which Lewinsky told her friend Linda Tripp all about the sordid affair with Clinton that both have, under oath, denied having. There is also the fascinating list of "talking points" wherewith Lewinsky tried to change Tripp's testimony concerning Willey - a transparent attempt to suborn perjury on the part of both Lewinsky and whoever prepared that list. And speaking of suborning perjury, what do Lewinsky (and the tapes) have to say about Vernon Jordan and about the president himself?

So a verdict for Clinton in the Jones case won't end his problems by a long shot. But to listen to the massed choirs of his defenders, you'll think it has.

William A. Rusher is a Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy.