Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [389]
Those close to the president and First Lady during this period of public humiliation later described it as “dispiriting in the extreme.” Because the Starr Report had been released in a vacuum, without any evidence defending Clinton to provide balance, the White House braced itself for a pummeling that weekend. Said one aide, “And we did get killed on the weekend.”
The version of the Starr Report bouncing around the Web wasn’t even the correct one. A bug in OIC’s computer software had caused outdated text to pop up once Congress had downloaded the document onto the Internet. Much to OIC’s embarrassment, the publicly released version of the Starr Report included typos and other sloppy editing errors. Now the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune and dozens of other papers were churning out stacks of copies of that flawed version like hotcakes at a Rotary Club breakfast.
As men, women, teenagers, and curious children gazed upon pullout sections of newspapers containing the presidential sex-scandal document, there seemed to be no middle ground. Some exclaimed that they could not “fully understand” how the president could have defiled his office so egregiously. Others declared the Starr Report to be “pornography.” “You got both flavors,” recalled Jackie Bennett.
The Starr team members had expected some backlash. But they were shocked by the vehemence of the attacks aimed at them following the worldwide release of their referral. Bob Bittman later objected, “We had nothing to do with it. Congress released the material without even reading it. It was a hundred percent their fault. They didn’t have the political guts to read it first.”
In the wake of the huge stir created by the Starr Report, over sixty-five major newspapers called on President Clinton to resign before he was run out on a rail. The Los Angeles Times, ordinarily supportive of the Clinton administration, wrote with disgust: “The picture of Clinton that now emerges is that of a middle-aged man with a pathetic inability to control his sexual fancies.” The Philadelphia Inquirer blasted: “Bill Clinton should resign. He should resign because his repeated, reckless deceits have dishonored his presidency beyond repair.” The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, reflecting the sentiment of working-class America, declared: “Character does matter, we’ve always known that.… A spontaneous and immediate resignation without histrionics is the only outcome that might salvage a measure of respect for [Mr. Clinton] and help the nation regain its moral bearings.”
In the aftershock of the Starr Report’s release, however, it was not clear that many high-ranking government officials were buying it. Attorney General Janet Reno later stated that she was at a loss for words after seeing a copy of Starr’s handiwork. Reno’s principal problem was, “I didn’t know what the purpose of it was.” Although any federal prosecutor had an obligation to transmit information to Congress in an “orderly” fashion if he or she believed that an impeachable offense had been committed, how that was accomplished was crucial. In this case, Starr certainly had a duty to “fully apprise” the House of relevant evidence. Yet Reno also felt strongly that he had “the responsibility to maintain that evidence,” and to protect his investigation from being wrecked by disclosing sensitive grand jury information.
Sitting on the screened-in porch of her modest home in Miami, Attorney General Reno later summed up her dismay at the Starr Report. “I would have handled it differently,” she said, her jaw locked tight.
One of Reno’s top assistants would put it more bluntly: “It made me want to take a shower after reading it.”
Professor Julie O’Sullivan, who had worked closely with both Robert Fiske and Ken Starr during the early stages of Whitewater, found the Starr Report “appalling.” O’Sullivan was particularly aghast that Starr’s office