National Journal articles from September 1998

National Journal archives from September 1998

AFTER RUSSIA, A GLOBAL DELUGE?
September 5, 1998... As recently as six weeks ago, this column criticized investors for failing to take the economic meltdown in Asia seriously and for ignoring the danger the turmoil posed to America. If, as a British prime minister once said, a week is a long...

JUSTICE POWELL: AMERICA AT ITS BEST.
September 5, 1998... Six days after his retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court on June 26, 1987, Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. looked back over the long journey from his roots in the Old South. He had come of age as a conservative, who was not "as eager for social...

Bosnia Forever.
September 5, 1998... THE AMERICAN PEACEKEEPERS IN BOSNIA WANT THE ETHNIC GROUPS THAT HATE ONE ANOTHER TO RETURN HOME AND LEARN TO LIVE TOGETHER. IT'S A RISKY MISSION THAT COULD TAKE A GENERATION. ZVORNIK, Bosnia-Herzegovina For Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. Steven...

Rough Riders.(Republicans' treatment of environmental laws)(includes related article about 17 amendments designed to help industry at the expense of the environment)
September 5, 1998... REPUBLICANS ARE QUIETLY ATTEMPTING TO USE MUST-PASS APPROPRIATIONS BILLS TO WEAKEN FEDERAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS. THEIR SUCCESS MAY DEPEND ON HOW LOUDLY VOTERS SQUAWK. There are gifts that come in big packages with pretty paper and shiny...

Jockeying for Space.(satellite broadcasting of sports)
September 5, 1998... RIVAL FIRMS IN EUROPE AND AMERICA ARE VYING FOR PRIME REAL ESTATE IN THE HEAVENS FOR THEIR COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITES. AN OBSCURE ARM OF THE U.N. WILL DECIDE WHO GETS TO REIGN OVERHEAD. At Mister Day's Sports Rock Cafe in Northwest...

ON THE STUMP AND UNDER THE GUN.(Richard A. Gephardt)
September 5, 1998... DUBUQUE, Iowa--Inside the Ecumenical Tower senior-citizens center here, more than 100 retirees and local Democratic activists cheered and held posters warning, "Hands Off My Social Security!'' With House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt,...

A BAILOUT AGENCY BAILOUT.
September 5, 1998... Russia's economic meltdown and the U.S. stock market's swings are bad news for most people, but there may be a silver lining for the business lobbyists who've been trying to prod Congress to replenish the International Monetary Fund's depleted...

LITTLE RESPITE ON AN ISLAND OF RAGE.(Ireland)
September 5, 1998... BELFAST, Northern Ireland--It rains once in a while in Ireland, as well as on Bill Clinton, but in the hours before the president landed here on Thursday, the rain briefly lifted, and a glorious rainbow emerged. It spanned this troubled city...

MONICA, BILL AND SUMMER JOBS.(Lewinsky, Clinton)(includes related article on Clinton administration legal fees)
September 5, 1998... In early August, President Clinton railed as congressional Republicans crafted the 13 annual appropriations bills that keep the government running. Chief among his complaints: the House Labor-HHS appropriations bill. He threatened a veto...

People.
September 5, 1998... Around the Agencies Kenneth G. Lieberthal has climbed down from his ivory tower for the White House. The 54-year-old China scholar has taken leave from the University of Michigan, where he taught political science and business...

ALL THIS AND LEONARDO, TOO.(tabloid coverage of political scandal)
September 5, 1998... If you believe the quality media and their polls, "most Americans" hold three opinions on President Clinton AND HIS CRISIS. tHEY APPROVE of the president as president, disapprove of the president as human being, and are sick to death of the...

STARS NIX PIX AS PRESS LOBS BRICKS.(Hollywood stars support privacy legislation)
September 5, 1998... Horror stories abound, as do enraged celebrities eager to tell their tales. Paul Reiser, star of television's Mad About You, complains that the premature birth of his son set off such a frenzy among the paparazzi that he couldn't accompany the...

FROM THE K STREET CORRIDOR.
September 5, 1998... API's Dry Hole As world oil prices plunge, the American Petroleum Institute is putting the finishing touches on a restructuring plan that's expected to slash its budget by about 15 percent. API President Red Cavaney, who succeeded Charles...

BRAINY, BRAZEN AND BLONDE IN NEW YORK.(New York lieutenant governor Betsy McCaughey Ross)
September 5, 1998... NEW YORK--It's a few minutes before a press conference is to begin in Hauppauge, Long Island, and Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey Ross is running late--again. Realizing this as she's awakening from a catnap in the backseat of her campaign vehicle--a...

GOODBYE TO OUR HO-HUM ELECTION.
September 5, 1998... Strategists from both parties agree that President Clinton's grand jury admission of an affair with Monica S. Lewinsky and his nationally televised faux apology may produce political fallout. The disagreement is over how severe the fallout will...

Hotline Extra.
September 5, 1998... Out of the Bushes Just as scandal threatens Bill Clinton's presidency, the man he first defeated for the White House is enjoying a comeback for himself and his sons. George Bush is showing up in television interviews and in public...

Views on the American Scene.(Statistical Data Included)
September 5, 1998... VIEWS ON THE AMERICAN SCENE The State of the Union Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time? (Gallup Organization Inc. for CNN-USA Today) ...

WANT `DISAPPOINTMENT'? WAIT UNTIL NOV. 4.
September 5, 1998... Early in 1974, George Bush, then the chairman of the Republican National Committee, kept arguing that Watergate was not "a Republican Party problem" but instead a White House problem alone. The argument didn't hold water, as the voters quickly...

THE CONFESSION DIDN'T WORK. SO WHAT?
September 5, 1998... President Clinton's four-minute speech on Aug. 17 was intended to defuse the Monica S. Lewinsky controversy. Instead, momentum started building against the president among the nation's opinion leaders.. It was nearly at the point of disabling...

WHY MONICA IS GOOD FOR AMERICA.
September 12, 1998... It is fashionable, among President Clinton's suddenly swelling ranks of critics (as well as among his last-ditch defenders), to bewail how awful this all is for the country, how degrading to us, to have such tawdry stuff cluttering the national...

Days of Reckoning.
September 12, 1998... On the afternoon of Sept. 9, a day that in Washington was perversely clean and crisp and full of the promise of fall's delights, everything changed, finally and utterly. The change came in two vans, carrying 36 cardboard boxes containing...

At Last, the Starr Report.(includes related article of the text of Starr's letter accompanying his report)
September 12, 1998... THE INDEPENDENT COUNSEL MAKES A CONSTITUTIONAL CONFRONTATION INEVITABLE. Forget the past eight months of floor speeches, committee markups and press conferences. The second session of the 105th Congress didn't really begin when lawmakers...

MORALITY PLAY: A DEMOCRATIC TRAGEDY?
September 12, 1998... Every once in a while, an event or sequence of events occurs during a campaign that fundamentally changes the nature of the election. In 1980, it was in the last presidential debate, when former California Gov. Ronald Reagan asked voters the...

A Superpower Distracted.
September 12, 1998... In Moscow, on Sept. 1, it was time for the president of the United States to perform one of the chores of office he does so well, the end-of-the-summit press conference. But Bill Clinton was nowhere to be found. Missing was the man with the...

UNCERTAINTY, SADNESS AND FEAR.
September 12, 1998... One television pundit last weekend likened Bill Clinton to a man on the way to his own execution-he called the president a "dead man walking." Even though the truth is supposed to set you free, it's been hard to detect in President Clinton...

The Next Special Counsel?
September 12, 1998... JANET RENO MAY SEEK AN INDEPENDENT COUNSEL TO INVESTIGATE CAMPAIGN FINANCE PRACTICES. DEMOCRATS ARE WORRIED, AND FOR GOOD REASON. Is this, finally, the point of no return for Attorney General Janet Reno? With three preliminary...

LATIN LOVERS.
September 12, 1998... ON K STREET, THE TANGO HAS BECOME THE LATEST RAGE. DESPITE THE RECENT TURMOIL IN EMERGING MARKETS, MANY WASHINGTON LUMINARIES REMAIN BULLISH ON LATIN AMERICA. No road map shows the intersection of K Street and the Pan-American Highway, but...

Shell Game.
September 12, 1998... OTHER NATIONS BALKED WHEN THE UNITED STATES TRIED TO FORCE THEM TO TAKE STEPS TO PROTECT ENDANGERED SEA TURTLES. HOW THE DISPUTE IS RESOLVED COULD HAVE MAJOR IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. TRADE POLICY. The turtle excluder device is a relatively...

A VOTE THAT DEMS WOULD LIKE TO TRADE IN.
September 12, 1998... It may be considered bad form in the etiquette books to force a gift on someone who doesn't want it. But that hasn't deterred congressional Republican leaders from promising votes within the next two weeks on legislation to give President...

OVAL OFFICE MATERIAL OR OFFENSIVE?
September 12, 1998... On Sept. 2, Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., was engaged in another of his typically quixotic battles. He wanted to derail a bipartisan agreement allowing Maine and Vermont to dispose of their low-level radioactive waste in Sierra Blanca, a small...

THE PENTAGON'S ALPHABET WARFARE.
September 12, 1998... At first glance, the latest reform project at the Department of Defense resembles some unpronounceable game of Scrabble: Offices known arcanely as DSWA, OSIA, and DTSA will merge into the equally opaque DTRA. But as House and Senate conferees...

People.
September 12, 1998... Hill Dwellers Rake in the big bucks as a K Street lobbyist? Just sit back and take it easy? Neither apparently appealed to 17-term Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, D-Ind., who's retiring from Congress at year's end. Instead, Hamilton, 67, has lined...

A MEDAL OF HONOR WINNER'S NEW MISSION.
September 12, 1998... When the pieces come together on Sept. 22, the Class Act Group, a Florida-based veterans' organization, hopes to present a perfect picture for the cameras. On the steps of the U.S. Capitol, veterans of the Vietnam, Korean and World War II...

BENCH STRENGTH.
September 12, 1998... The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has hired a quartet of Capitol Hill and K Street veterans and shifted a policy aide to its lobbying shop. The move brings the business group's lobbying staff to 15, triple what it was a year ago, just before chamber...

A GREEN CITY GETS A COMEUPPANCE.
September 12, 1998... PORTLAND, Ore.--A few months ago, Erik Sten, one of Portland's four elected city commissioners, agreed to join a panel at a Pacific Northwest timber-industry conference. For Sten, it was an invitation to cross political and cultural divides:...

HOW BUSH IS WOOING, HISPANICS.
September 12, 1998... AUSTIN, Texas--It didn't take long for aides to Gov. George W. Bush to contact organizers of San Antonio's Diez y Seis parade when they heard last month that the parade needed a new grand marshal to replace Flaco Jimenez, a popular...

Hotline Extra.
September 12, 1998... Year of Women in Danger? Headlines called 1992 "The Year of the Woman but some of those elected in those heady days are in trouble this year. Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, D-Ill., is perhaps the most endangered of the women elected to the...

DAMAGE CONTROL, DEMOCRATIC STYLE.
September 12, 1998... It should have come as no surprise to anyone that President Clinton's lawyers wanted an advance copy of the Sept. 9 report that Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr sent to Congress on the Monica Lewinsky affair. No one likes to be blindsided with...

Views on the Economy.(Brief Article)(Polling Data)(Statistical Data Included)
September 12, 1998... VIEWS ON THE ECONOMY Generally Speaking How would you rate economic conditions in the country today:excellent, good, only fair or poor? (Gallup Organization Inc. for CNN-USA Today) 9/98 EXCELLENT 11% ...

CORRECTION.
September 12, 1998... A caption in a recent story on communication satellites (9/5/98, p. 2029) misidentified Philip Spector and Daniel Goldberg. Their identifications were reversed.

CLINTON'S WOES RESONATE IN ISRAEL.
September 12, 1998... JERUSALEM--It's not only American Democrats who feel betrayed by Bill Clinton. It's also those outside the United States who relied on the president to exert his influence in the world. Nowhere is that truer than in the Middle East, where the...

THE PRESIDENT AND EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW.(President Bill Clinton)
September 19, 1998... Perhaps the greatest danger presented by the apparent willingness of so much of the public (up to now) to let President Clinton escape impeachment and trial for his credibly alleged felonies is that this would tear at the already-frayed bonds...

Tunnel Vision.
September 19, 1998... THESE DAYS, GOVERNMENT REGULATES WHOM YOU CAN DATE AT WORK, WHAT JOKES YOU CAN TELL, EVEN THE RULES OF PROFESSIONAL GOLF. MEET MICRO-GOVERNMENT, THE NEW WAVE OF SOCIAL REGULATION THAT KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES AND MAKES RED TAPE LOOK GOOD. On...

No Easy Way Out.
September 19, 1998... WITH CLINTON DISMISSING TALK OF RESIGNATION, LAWMAKERS SPAR OVER HOW TO PROCEED, AND STRUGGLE TO AVOID FALLOUT FROM THE LEWINSKY AFFAIR. The story line in Week 2 of life after the publication of history's most unlikely government report was...

One-Stop Jobbing.
September 19, 1998... THE NEW JOB-TRAINING LAW ENACTED IN AUGUST MAY SUCCEED IN HELPING PEOPLE MOVE OFF THE DOLE AND INTO GOOD JOBS. BUT IT WON'T BE EASY. Baltimore--Standing at the blackboard in a pleasant, carpeted classroom at the East Side Career Center in...

A WAR OF WORDS OVER ABORTION.
September 19, 1998... When Senate Republicans scheduled this week's vote on overriding President Clinton's veto of a bill to ban "partial-birth" abortions, supporters of the measure held out little hope that they'd actually gain the three previously elusive votes...

DUTY, PERCEPTIONS AND MILITARY JUSTICE.
September 19, 1998... This past Feb. 3, U.S. Marine Corps pilot Richard J. Ashby flew into a ski lift over an Italian valley, snapping a cable and sending 20 skiers to their deaths. After Capt. Ashby's Prowler aircraft limped back to the NATO base at Aviano, a...

LOW PAY AND LOOSE NUKES.
September 19, 1998... A mid all the disturbing news out of Russia recently was this little-reported, but ominous, item: Russian scientists staged a one-hour walkout last week at the closed nuclear cities of Arzamas-16 and Chelyabinsk-70. The demonstrations...

People.(government jobs)
September 19, 1998... At the White House Longtime Friend of Bill Daniel Wexler may have left the White House Office of Public Liaison for a private-sector lobbying job, but rhetorically, at least, he's sticking by the president. Bill Clinton, said Wexler, is...

THE TOUGHEST SELL IN TOWN.(Coalition for Affordable Quality Healthcare )
September 19, 1998... In the middle of a major legislative battle over managed care regulation, the nation's largest insurers have formed the Coalition for Affordable Quality Healthcare and have launched a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to boost the...

BANKING ON CHANGES IN THE SENATE BILL.(banking reform )
September 19, 1998... The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee's recent approval of a banking reform bill has rejiggered the lobbying efforts on legislation that would lower the barriers separating the banking, securities and insurance industries. ...

K STREET, THAT GOP STREET?
September 19, 1998... In their increasingly cocky, best-case scenarios, some Republicans predict a post-November nirvana: a gain of some 30 House seats and a Senate with only 40 Democrats. If those scenarios play out, Republicans may win something else besides...

EVERYONE'S FOUL GAME NOW.
September 19, 1998... The rules--the unspoken code by which political journalists used to decide which secrets in a politician's private life are germane to his public life--died this week. They died when Salon magazine, an online publication, ran a story under...

ALL IN THE SO-CALLED FAMILY.
September 19, 1998... The spreading debate over offering employee benefits to unmarried couples has taken an interesting turn, pulled both by the drive for gay rights and by the growing political pressures to bolster the traditional family. Last month,...

CLINTON HAS BOTH PARTIES IN A JAM.
September 19, 1998... When Alice, in Lewis Carroll's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, said that things were getting "curiouser and curiouser," she could just as easily have been talking about President Clinton's recent problems. Just a week ago, it seemed...

Hotline Extra.
September 19, 1998... Calls for President Clinton's resignation are mounting. Here's a roster of who's joined the chorus, according to a list updated daily by The Hotline. POSSIBLE WHITE HOUSE 2000 CANDIDATES Lamar Alexander, '96 GOP candidate Sen. John D....

BOBBING, WEAVING AND LUDICROUS SEMANTICS.
September 19, 1998... Hours before the release of Kenneth W. Staff's report charging President Clinton with impeachable offenses in the Monica S. Lewinsky affair, the president addressed a group of mostly sympathetic clergymen at a White House prayer breakfast. He...

DEPLORABLE? YES. IMPEACHABLE? NO.
September 19, 1998... The stakes in the Lewinsky controversy are rising fast. President Clinton made a particularly emotional confession at the White House prayer breakfast last week. "I was not contrite enough," he confessed. "I don't think there is a fancy way to...

THE PEOPLE ARE RIGHT: KEEP HIM.
September 26, 1998... Having promised to make his government "look like America," President Clinton in January of 1993 promptly produced a Cabinet whose 18 members included 14 lawyers. All four of the top economic officials were lawyers. Clinton's peculiar...

DECADENCE: THE PRESIDENT AND THE PRESS.(President Bill Clinton)
September 26, 1998... A woman asked Benjamin Franklin in 1787 what the Framers had created at the Constitutional Convention. His reply: "A republic--if you can keep it." Franklin's words resonate today. Two extraordinary events occurred this week. Both shed...

FORGET THE FARCE IN WASHINGTON. IT'S THE TOKYO COMEDY THAT COUNTS.(Japanese economic conditions)
September 26, 1998... The performance in Washington is not the only major work of absurdist political theater going on in the world at present. Tokyo is putting on a fine production too. The show in Japan appeals to a narrower audience, of course: a lot less sex,...

Where's the Trap Door?(President Bill Clinton's impeachment inquiry)
September 26, 1998... IMPEACHMENT MAY BE TOO HARSH, CENSURE TOO MILD AND RESIGNATION A COP-OUT. THERE APPEAR TO BE NO GOOD CHOICES FOR PUNISHING PRESIDENT CLINTON. PERHAPS DAYTIME TV OFFERS A WAY OUT. For two years, President Clinton and his lawyers have...

DAZED AND CONFUSED IN THE HOUSE.(President Bill Clinton's impeachment inquiry)
September 26, 1998... House members have been known to behave eccentrically under even the most routine of legislative circumstances, at least from time to time. So it's not surprising that when they are confronted with the momentous task of potentially removing a...

WILD WOMEN, WEAK EXCUSES AND SO MUCH MORE.
September 26, 1998... Must Reads The appendices released on Sept. 21 include a catalog of books found in President Clinton's West Wing study, and some interesting reading there was. A sampling of the works that pique the presidential interest: * Words That...

Changing Fortunes.(Democratic Party's fears in 1998 elections )
September 26, 1998... THE CLINTON SCANDAL HAS RE-IGNITED BICKERING AMONG DEMOCRATS AND RAISED THE SPECTER OF A GOP SWEEP. On a recent steamy summer afternoon, Sen. Ernest F. Hollings was laying it on thick to about 75 party activists gathered for a luncheon/pep...

GOP Wins! So What?(1998 elections)
September 26, 1998... GIVEN THEIR DIVISIONS AND LACK OF AN AGENDA, DON'T EXPECT MUCH FROM THE REPUBLICANS IN THE 106TH CONGRESS. For the past eight years, the Christian Coalition's fall meeting has been called "Road to Victory," a name closely identified with...

Campaign 2000.
September 26, 1998... AL GORE HAS THE MOST TO LOSE FROM CLINTON'S TROUBLES. BUT GEORGE W. BUSH AND OTHER REPUBLICANS ALSO FACE CHALLENGES. Perhaps it's too early to mean a thing, but: In February, when New Hampshire Democrats were asked to pick their favorite...

HOW BIG WILL THE REPUBLICAN GAINS BE?(1998 elections)
September 26, 1998... The 1998 election campaign, which once seemed to be a boring validation of the status quo, now is extraordinarily complicated and surprisingly volatile. On the surface, Republicans are poised to make big gains in the Senate, small gains in the...

Ballot Initiatives: From Pigs to Pot.(1998 elections)
September 26, 1998... Voters this fall will face fewer citizen-initiated ballot measures than in the past two elections, but a flurry of issues referred by state legislatures and constitutional conventions will keep them busy. Here's a look at some key ballot...

11TH-HOUR UNEASE.
September 26, 1998... With time running out, House and Senate Republican leaders face a formidable task: They've got to settle a variety of problems in Congress that until now have held up the enactment of 12 of the 13 annual appropriations bills that fund the...

People.
September 26, 1998... Consulting Game In one fell swoop, former Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole of Kansas is getting a new mouthpiece, and his firm, Washington's Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand, is building up its Republican lobbying staff...

ANOTHER IDENTITY CRISIS.
September 26, 1998... A diverse coalition that includes the American Civil Liberties Union, the Eagle Forum and other conservative groups, the National Conference of State Legislatures and a number of Hispanic organizations is lobbying against a new National Highway...

From the K Street Corridor.(Republican fundraising)
September 26, 1998... Lobbyists Lend a Right Hand An elite group of Washington lobbyists has been tapped by the National Republican Congressional Committee to help raise money for its $37 million issue-advertising campaign to aid House members and GOP...

BLACK FARMERS AND THEIR TROUBLES.(discrimination)
September 26, 1998... AGRICULTURE GARFIELD, Ga.--John C. Newkirt walks back to the sun-beaten, double-wide trailer and disappears for five minutes, returning with a faded, hand-drawn map that outlines every division within his own 147-acre farm and the land he...

EENIE, MEENIE, MINIE, MOE.(proportional representation)
September 26, 1998... Abortion-rights supporters breathed a collective sigh of relief on Sept. 15 when former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, who opposes abortion, lost in the 10-person race for the Democratic nomination in Massachusetts' 8th Congressional District....

Hotline Extra.(feminist leaders reluctance to condemn President Bill Clinton)
September 26, 1998... Feminists in Angst As the nation learns more details about President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, feminist leaders are under pressure to part ways with him. Maverick academic and feminist-basher Camille Paglia told CNN that...

UNDER PRESSURE, CLINTON'S NO NIXON.
September 26, 1998... In Boston, they have an expression to describe a glib political operator: "He could talk a dog off a meat wagon." That's Bill Clinton, as he demonstrated once again in his videotaped grand jury testimony. Republicans who insisted that the...

WHY DEMOCRATS ARE QUAKING.(1998 elections)
September 26, 1998... Democrats fear the worst. Is that a rational anxiety? The polls do not reveal any great hemorrhaging of support for President Clinton, or for his party. At most, there's a scattering of evidence that things could get tough for Democrats. ...