Nothing to Hide
Anyone who was paying attention knew that, for all the bipartisan praise of Henry Hyde for his integrity and fairness over the last several months, he would eventually become a target of the Clinton attack machine. That's the fate of anyone who tries to call this President to account for lawbreaking and sleaziness. The hit came today, in Bill Clinton's favorite magazine, Salon, which dredges up an affair Hyde had thirty years ago. Almost equally sleazy is the magazine's tortured four-and-a-half page defense of itself for doing so. Moral distinctions have never been the strong suit of Sidney Blumenthal and Co.: for them an affair is an affair is an affair. Getting oral sex at the office from a nameless intern while taking phone calls is just normal human weakness. And to have an affair is to lie about it, and lying is lying. A guilty lie to a spouse, a calculated lie to a grand jury, a lie in front of the American people during the biggest test of one's life: it's all the same. Attacks on people who have the temerity to tell the truth also go with the territory.

When Salon asked Hyde about his ancient mistake, he did not retreat to legalisms or lie or stonewall for seven months: he took responsibility for his actions. This smear will redound more to the discredit of the people spreading it than to Henry Hyde, and quite properly so.

Hatching a Plot
At first we couldn't believe the CBS report that Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) had told the White House that he would lead an effort to prevent any criminal prosecution if the President would just admit to perjury, but the story checks out. Are there any other prosecutions Sen. Hatch will intervene to stop? And just how, by the way, does the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman propose to do so? One would think Hatch would want to avoid giving the impression that law enforcement can be blocked by political pressure--let alone that it should be.

Some Defense
It's bad enough that Al Goldstein, publisher of Screw magazine, says he feels "humiliated" by the President (all quotes in this item courtesy of Hotline). It's even worse when people defend him. Juan Williams told Fox News viewers, "There has been so much talk around Washington about what that detail was going to be, that some of the excesses don't appear. For instance, there's no charge of any drug use , and that had been in the ether around town. There's no sense of the kind of dastardly sexual acts that were supposedly there." Rep. Barney Frank told the Boston Herald, "There was a lot more fear before the report came out than after. . . . There [had] been fear there were other things in there, Whitewater or him coercing her." Leave aside any questions about how Juan Williams defines "dastardly." The amazing thing is what the Clinton defense is now reduced to: hey, at least he's not a rapist! At least he's not doing drugs in the Oval Office! It's even worse than that, really, since Frank's colleagues didn't have the minimal confidence in Clinton's character necessary to rule these things out.

More Clinton Fallout
Hits to www.nationalreview.com went up 189 per cent in August. But it looks like we have some catching up to do: hits to the "Washington Bulletin" specifically were up only 50 per cent.

Introducing- The Goldberg File
National Review Online is proud to announce a new regular feature, "The Goldberg File": commentary and asides from new NR Contributing Editor Jonah Goldberg. Be sure to check out today's commentary at http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg.html