Hill and Billy.

• Author: Hazlett, Thomas W.

The Clinton administration's school for scandal

In 1992, the Clintonistas made the case that 12 years of Reagan-Bush had led to a marked decline in the fine public morality that had distinguished the Jimmy Carter years. True, the Republican presidents hadn't been guilty of any crimes, but they had surrounded themselves with the most unsavory opportunists: the "sleaze factor," as it was dubbed by the Democrats.

The litmus test on what these exemplars of honest government consider Conduct Unbecoming arrived with Pulitzer prize winner James Stewart's Blood Sport. A chorus of Hill & Billy wannabes (including virtually every op-ed regular at The New York Times and Washington Post) instantly proclaimed the Clintons out of the woods on Whitewater: As despicable as their behavior may have been, no crimes were committed. See, their apologists boasted, they're only sleazy!

The double standard is rich. Criminal near-misses in the investigations of Republicans like Ed Meese and Neil Bush were considered bulls-eyes, and we were treated to Democratic bellowing on the dangers of the mere appearance of impropriety. When was the last time you heard the administration use that cliche? Or say a peep about the "public's right to know" - that one sacred protective coating of democracy that so recently stood between America and totalitarianism?

Indeed, now we're hearing loads about a new freedom: The public's right not to be subject to the embarrassing television footage of their president testifying in court to try to get his criminal buddies off the hook. In response to requests from news organizations to gain control of Citizen Clinton's video testimony on behalf of the McDougals and Jim Guy Tucker, the White House crafted that ingenious legal pretext for keeping the tape on strictly a need-to-know basis.

Otherwise, it would be used by his partisan political opponents to humiliate him in the fall campaign. Of course, that's exactly what the opposition party is supposed to do: Inform the voters as to what the (other) miscreants in high public office have been doing with their tax dollars. And if you don't want the American people to know that you've been testifying in lots of criminal cases lately, maybe you ought not go into business with people who smell like Jim McDougal.

There is no shame to Hill & Billy. They are both imbued with one extra gene, medical diagnostics will surely attest, that empowers them to reflexively a) ruthlessly demonize their...