When first approached about writing a column for the Democrat-Gazette expected to be generally
favorable to the Clinton administration some years ago, your humble, obedient servant declined.

    Professional considerations aside, I'd never been what you'd call a Clintonite. Voted for him, yes.
Generally agreed with his views, yes. Thought him highly intelligent, capable and about as honorable
as an ambitous politican could afford to be. Glad to have an Arkansas president, but didn't even know
if I liked the man personally or not. Didn't much care is the truth.

    Politicians and writers share one big motive: They both like attention. Otherwise, a politician's life is almost
incomprehensible to me. A man like Bill Clinton spends his days glad-handing fools, begging rich people for money,
and racing to parties and public events I'd pay to avoid.

    By mid-1994, however, things had gotten out of hand. The Whitewater delusion had led to Kenneth Starr's
invasion of Arkansas, the entire Washington press corps appeared to be taking dictation from local crackpots,
and what I call the "Clinton rules" were already in place: Almost no source was too crazy to credit, no error so
gross as to require correction and no accusation so lurid or unfounded as to need debunking. Exculpatory facts
were suppressed, even--nay, especially--when clearly dispositive. Something new and scary was happening to
American journalism, hence to democracy itself. I decided I could be a "pro-Clinton" columnist after all.

    Since then, things have gotten steadily worse. In hindsight, the nadir may have been reached in 1995 when
the Washington press decided to ignore and suppress the Resolution Trust Corp.'s Pillsbury Report. Clinton's
subsequent folly in the Monica Lewinsky affair notwithstanding, here was comprehensive proof in exhaustive
detail that Whitewater was bunk. Not only had the Clintons lost money, but they'd been cheated by Jim McDougal,
who along with convicted con man David Hale had started the whole thing. Had its findings been heeded,
the morphing of Starr's investigation and the Paula Jones lawsuit into a federal sex probe might never have happened.

    Something remarkably like the suppression of the Pillsbury Report happened again last week in the ballyhooed
Marc Rich pardon probe. Now the appearances of Clinton's pardon of the billionaire financier could hardly be worse.
And even if Republican presidents have given pardons in even more suspect circumstances, those aren't practices
Democrats should emulate.

    Yes, then-President George Bush pardoned GOP sugar daddy Armand Hammer just after he'd given $100,000
apiece to the Republican Party and the Bush-Quayle

    Inaugural Committee. Yes, he freed a Pakistani heroin smuggler named Aslam Hassam from a 55-year prison term.
That was Sen. Jesse Helms' idea.
 
 And yes, Bush also turned loose a Cuban "patriot" named Orlando Bosch, suspected in terrorist bombings involving
many fatalities. That was son Jeb's idea, the same Jeb Bush who made millions in Miami real estate, then became
governor of Florida. The last two were probably CIA "assets," so nobody said boo.

    But what about the substance of the Rich pardon? It did pique my curiosity when
    Len Garment, former White House counsel under Richard Nixon, told New Yorker that "I don't know why he did it,
but I think Clinton did the right thing." A former attorney for Rich, Garment was, of course, paid to have that opinion.
So was Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Richard Cheney's chief of staff, whose law firm was paid more than
$2 million to represent Rich between 1987 and 2000. Libby hasn't been taking calls from reporters, but at the
insistence of Democrats he did testify last week before the House committee probing the Rich pardon.

    I'd like to think that the reason you read nothing about Libby's testimony in the Democrat-Gazette and precious
little anywhere else is that Republicans kept him on ice until almost 9 p.m., after TV evening news broadcasts
and print reporters' deadlines.

    Even so, Libby's appearance was covered live on C-SPAN. A transcript is available on The Washington Post
Web site. But in a climate in which overheated pundits have denounced Clinton's action as a "sacrilege"
(Charles Krauthammer) or a sign of mental illness (Andrew Sullivan), you'd think you wouldn't have to search
for the sworn testimony of a high-ranking member of the Bush administration.

    Particularly not in light of what Libby said. U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., led him systematically through
a widely mocked New York Times article Clinton wrote explaining the pardon. Was Clinton right that other oil
company executives who structured transactions like Rich did hadn't been charged with crimes?

    "[T]o the best of my knowledge," Libby said, "those were generally handled civilly."
    Had the Energy Department found similar transactions proper? Libby confirmed that Clinton was right about that, too.
Had tax experts from Harvard and Georgetown concluded that Rich's companies hadn't cheated on their taxes and
owed the government nothing? They had. Had Rich settled with the IRS for $200 million anyway? Libby confirmed it.
And had the Justice Department since rejected using RICO laws in corporate tax cases?

    "That's my understanding of the Justice Department manual," Libby said.
    So was Clinton right when he concluded that Rich had committed no crimes?
    "[B]ased on the evidence available to the defense," Libby said, "that would be correct, sir."
    Uncomfortable in the spotlight, Libby did call his former client a traitor for dealing with Iran, although not in any
legal sense, he made clear.

    Turns out he'd phoned Rich on Jan. 22 to congratulate him on the pardon.
    A dogged and resourceful attorney, Libby bobbed and weaved for quite awhile until a Democratic staff lawyer
finally backed him into a corner.
    "[B]ased on everything you know . . . [do] you think you could have put together a good strong case for a pardon
and a defensible case if the president so issued, based on what you know?"
    "Yes," Libby answered.

    And how come you're reading it here first? Clinton rules.
 

    Gene Lyons is a Little Rock author and recipient of the National Magazine Award.
His column appears on Wednesdays.