GOP May Shut Down Its Golden Opportunity By Richard Craig October 10, 1998

Is it really possible that the Republicans might choose this moment to throw a life preserver to Bill Clinton?

No way, right? Surely the congressional GOP isn't dumb enough to step in and interrupt Clinton's spontaneous combustion. They're perfectly happy to spend their days drawing up impeachment resolutions and their nights partying to celebrate their luck. Aren't they?

Then why, pray tell, are we hearing rumblings from Capitol Hill about another government shutdown?

In their haste to tar and feather Clinton, the Republican leadership in Congress forgot about one pesky little item -- the U.S. budget for 1999. Somehow the beginning of the new fiscal year got lost amid the noisy spotlight-seeking. And now, 10 days past the deadline, it appears that the GOP leadership is so busy basking in its own reflected glory that it fails to recognize that it's about to hand Clinton his very own Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card.

Is it conceivable that Gingrich and friends have already forgotten 1995? The year that turned rising star Newt into "The Gingrinch That Stole Congress"? Almost unanimously, Americans blamed an obstructionist Congress for the 1995 shutdown that put thousands of government employees temporarily out of work. In case the Reps have blocked it out of their minds, this was the catalyst for Clinton's umpteenth political comeback and his 1996 re-election.

Of course, Republicans aren't the only ones failing to see reality clearly. Indeed, since his public mea culpa, Clinton has alternated between groveling and pretending that the whole mess never happened. Clinton's first appearances after his announcement were studies in contrition, but things have changed. With recent audiences cheering the president wildly in spite of everything, the White House might as well sell T-shirts sporting the phrase "CLINTON DENIAL TOUR '98."

While it is true that Clinton could ill afford the public blaming him for a government shutdown, history indicates that Congress has far more to fear than the president in such a situation. Congressional approval ratings generally run lower than those for the president, and Clinton's numbers remain higher than those for Congress in spite of the Lewinsky scandal. At this critical political moment, when Clinton is more vulnerable than ever, Congressional Republicans run the risk of blowing their last golden opportunity to deal him a political death blow.

There are lots of important issues that need to be considered within the budget. Bills involving billions of dollars in funding for health, education and labor programs remain unfinished, as does an important proposal to fund public land programs. On Thursday Clinton vetoed a $60 billion agriculture bill that contained little more than half of the funding Clinton insisted on to help farmers overcome falling crop prices. These are all measures involving huge amounts of money, and their merits should not be ignored in the haste to adjourn for the year.

But in terms of saving their political Hydes, so to speak, the most important task for the Republicans is simply getting the deal done, regardless of the details. The Lewinsky scandal is a large part of the reason that there is no new budget -- between legitimate debate of the facts and the obligatory political posturing, there's been precious little time left for legislators to actually do their jobs. So the GOP is once again facing the prospect of being cast as the villain in "Those Bastards Put Me Out of Work '98: The Sequel."

Maybe nobody else has thought of this, but in the middle of the budget battle, the Republicans need to ask themselves a very simple question. If the government is shut down, does that mean we can't have impeachment hearings?

©1998 Richard Craig. All rights reserved.

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