Tuesday, September 29, 1998

Perhaps Perot not best man to judge Clinton

Talk about the thief calling the burglar guilty.

Texas' favorite little nutcase, Ross Perot, has looked under the hood of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and furnished his carefully reasoned judgment: "The part of (President Clinton's) brain that controls morality and honesty never got connected," Perot said last weekend to delegates of the Reform Party, which he founded before running for president a second time in 1996. "The president is mentally and emotionally unstable."

Mentally and emotionally unstable? This is the same Ross Perot, you will recall, who accused President Bush of fabricating a smear campaign against Perot's daughter in order to get Perot to drop out of the 1992 presidential race. Perot charged that Bush was passing around doctored photos of Perot's daughter in an intimate lesbian relationship just before she was about to get married. That's why the Texas billionaire claimed he disappeared from the '92 contest for a while.

Republicans and Democrats alike were amused by Perot's analysis of the present White House occupant.

"Ross Perot says a lot of things that I think are beyond the pale, and he hasn't changed any," 1996 GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole said. "I think Ross Perot deals in overstatement a lot, and it doesn't serve any real purpose." Clinton adviser James Carville called Perot "a man that would sure be able to recognize mental and emotional instability. He's about a half a quart low, to tell you the truth."

At least this time, thank goodness, Perot didn't offer any charts and graphs to support his conclusions.