Sunday, December 27, 1998

Finishing off this year of loathing

By Morton Kondracke

The only day of 1998 that the U.S. Congress has any right to feel completely proud about is July 28, when it solemnly memorialized two Capitol Police officers, J.J. Chestnut and John Gibson, who gave their lives defending the institution from a crazed gunman.

The rest of the year -- culminating in the resignation of Speaker-elect Bob Livingston, R-La., and the party-line impeachment of the president -- has been a disaster when it has not been a disgrace. You can hope for better in 1999, but realistically, the chances are not good.

This has been a year of fear and loathing. And what's dangerous is that it's not the first and is not likely to be the last. The investigation of Livingston's private life by Hustler magazine means the dregs of U.S. media can call the shots in politics. Already it's a trend that "opposition research" is a key part of campaigns. The "research" is getting increasingly slimy.

Low and high, politicians indulge in what Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., correctly termed "the politics of personal destruction." As it happens, Democrats and the left have done more of it than Republicans. They assassinated the character of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork and tried the same with Clarence Thomas. Hustler publisher Larry Flynt is a Clinton supporter who knows that Republicans are more easily destroyed by sexual scandal than Democrats are because their values are different.

But the Republican Party and the right is deep into annihilation politics, too. President Clinton deserves the fate that has befallen him, but Ken Starr went after Clinton with unseemly vengeance. And others on the right have accused Clinton of far more than has ever been proved about him.

We can only hope the public will somehow express its displeasure with the tabloidization of American politics so that good people won't be scared away from service. Good people do serve -- overwhelmingly, believe it or not, members of Congress are good people -- but many do not. And the public demonstrates its dismay for the business of politics not by taking action, but by staying away from the polls, leaving it to militants to decide who wins.

Substantively, this was a year in which Congress did one truly meritorious thing: It increased the federal medical research budget by nearly 15 percent. Over five years at that rate, the budget would be doubled. But does anyone know about this? Republicans seem to fear if they tout a government achievement, their base voters will think they are "spenders" even if the expenditure might save their own lives.

Besides research, IRS reform and a pork-laden highway bill, there is little to show for the year but dead bills: campaign finance, tobacco legislation, Superfund reauthorization, financial services reform, bankruptcy legislation. One can argue that killing bad bills is useful work, but more useful work is crafting a compromise that works. In almost every case this year, compromise was blocked by a powerful special interest that used campaign contributions as its instrument of access.

Failing to do much positive and concentrating on Clinton scandals, Republicans this year were administered a stunning defeat at the polls. For the first time since the early 19th century, an opposition party lost seats in the sixth year of a president's term. The defeat cost House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., his job. Unfortunately, Gingrich abdicated leadership of the House before the end of the year, leaving it to others to manage the year's most traumatic event, impeachment.

Impeachment was bound to be divisive, but it also offered Congress an opportunity to rise above its chronic corrosiveness. The opportunity was missed. At every turn, Republicans gamed the process to embarrass Clinton, and Democrats resisted to serve his interests. Rather than a sober act of deliberation, impeachment became a matter of tribal conflict.

The last days before impeachment demonstrated how sulfurous the climate of American politics has become. The president ordered U.S. forces to bomb Iraq, and major Republican leaders immediately -- and without proof -- denounced the action as an attempt to divert attention from impeachment. And then, of course, came the Livingston disclosure and resignation and Flynt's promises of more.

In this climate, it's almost impossible to see how Livingston's successor, Rep. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., with a fragile, six-vote margin of power, can successfully address the politically charged issues Congress should try to solve in 1999, topped by Social Security and Medicare reform. I'm sure Hastert wants to restore civility to Congress, but I doubt he has the power. My first New Year's wish is to be wrong about this.

Morton Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.

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