WASHINGTON - - They are whooping it up at the White House. They are boogie-ing in the Blue Room. They are rollicking in the Rose Garden.
Bill Clinton and his friends haven't been this happy since Bob Dole got the Republican nomination.
Whitewater Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr will soon be gone. He soon will be history, vapor, smoke. Stick a fork in him, he's done!
He has decided he would rather be dean of Pepperdine University's law school than prosecute Bill and Hillary.
"My view is the investigation is going forward," Ken Starr said when the news broke. "We are continuing to get and assess facts."
Translation: I'm hitting the road. Let some other poor slob try to get a conviction.
A few weeks ago, a friend asked me if I thought Hillary Rodham Clinton was going to be indicted.
I said she would be only if Ken Starr thought he had a dead-bang winner of a case, a case he simply could not lose at trial.
Any prosecutor can get a grand jury indictment. The grand jury system, which centuries ago was invented as a way of protecting citizens from unjust prosecutions, has in modern times become a tool of the prosecution.
The old saying that a prosecutor can indict "a ham sandwich" is absolutely true.
So why wouldn't Starr indict Hillary Clinton? Because Starr is an extremely ambitious man.
He was the youngest judge ever named to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a bench considered second only to the Supreme Court in prestige. (Three of the current nine Justices of the Supreme Court served there first.) He became George Bush's solicitor general, arguing cases before the Supreme Court. And, he fully expected to be named to the Supreme Court.
When he wasn't, Starr went into private practice, earning a reported seven-figure salary. But he never lost his political ambitions. He considered running for the Senate from Virginia. He helped out Paula Jones in her sexual harassment suit against Bill Clinton. He represented large tobacco companies, who are generous political contributors (and no friend of Clinton's.)
Which is why the White House howled when Starr was named independent counsel to investigate Whitewater and related matters.
Why did Starr want the job? Because this looked like a good way of getting the attention and prestige necessary for him to get to the Supreme Court the next time the Republicans elected a president and there was an opening. (Starr is only 50.)
But he can't become a Supreme by losing. Yes, he has won a bunch of convictions so far (along with some losses), but they have barely made a dent in the public consciousness.
Basically, the public does not care about Whitewater unless it effects Bill or Hillary.
And, month after month, there have been rumors that Starr had assembled a massive body of evidence against Hillary Clinton for at least perjury, if not more serious offenses.
(Why not build a case against Bill, too? Starr may have, but during the Watergate era, legal and Constitutional scholars argued that a sitting president of the United States cannot be indicted. He must be impeached first and then indicted, they argued. This Constitutional theory has never been tested, but Starr probably would have been very satisfied with Hillary. Impeachment is something not even Starr had the stomach - - or probably the evidence - - for.)
But how good a case did Starr have to have before indicting Hillary?
A very good case. An extremely good case. And that is because you are not going to get a jury to convict Hillary Clinton easily.
Technically speaking, all people are equal under the law, but that is only technically. In real life, some people get much different treatment than others. (Ask O.J. Simpson.)
And so, I told my friend, you are not going to see any indictments of Hillary Clinton (let alone Bill) from Kenneth Starr unless he is sure of a conviction, a conviction that will lead him some day to the Supreme Court.
And now Kenneth Starr is stepping down.
Yes, I know he has told people not to read too much into this, that it is a personal decision, that the case still will go forward, blah, blah, blah.
But don't believe it. Kenneth Starr has examined the evidence and decided he doesn't enough of a case against Hillary to insure himself a win.
Some other special prosecutor wants to come along and take a crack at it? Fine with Ken Starr. But he is not going to wreck his career over this case.
He is heading for California where he can run a law school, write scholarly articles, still represent his rich private clients, and wait for some Republican president to call upon him some day.
Sure, he may be remembered as the guy who failed to win a case against Hillary Clinton.
But he is also going to be remembered as the guy who failed to lose one.
Which, Ken Starr figures, is good enough for his career.
WASHINGTON - - Does anyone besides me feel sorry for the former president of Ecuador?
OK. Let me rephrase that. Has anyone besides me paid the slightest attention whatsoever to what happened to the former president of Ecuador?
As a story, I know it does not have the interest of, say, whether Ross and Rachel break up on "Friends." And Ecuador, I admit, might not seem that important to us.
And, I will also admit that if blindfolded, I could probably not point to Ecuador on the map. (Or even without a blindfold.)
But there is an important lesson we can all draw from what recently happened in Ecuador: That nation has just removed its president merely because he turned out to be nuts.
Imagine what would happen if this trend caught on.
Abdala Bucaram was elected president of Ecuador six months ago and immediate dubbed himself "El Loco" or "the crazy one."
Why? Well, to tell you the truth, I am not sure. But the following may have something to do with it:
He did record a CD called "A Crazy Man in Love."
He did call the ex-president a "burro" only later to apologize for insulting burros.
He did invite Lorena Bobbitt to the national palace. (I am not making this up).
He did serenade the International Miss Banana contest winner.
He did, during his election campaign in August, sing, dance and tell bad jokes.
He did, when workers staged a paralyzing national strike last week protesting how crazy he was, came out in (ital) support (unital) of the strike.
And he did, as president, in order to promote this CD, dance on stage with a scantily clad woman while singing "Jail House Rock" in Spanish and then poured a bottle of mineral water over his head.
But does this mean he is crazy?
Does this mean he deserves to have been kicked out of his job just because people were rioting in the streets of Quito, the nation's capital, and shouting "Ole, ole, ole! Thief, thief, thief!"
Which reminds me: People also think that Bucaram has stolen a lot of money (although some think he just may have poured salsa on it and eaten it.)
To me, none of this to me sounds particularly crazy. And look at how our own politics might appear to people from other countries:
Didn't our vice president stand up on national TV and do the macarena?
Didn't we have another vice president stand up during one election and say, "Read my lips, no new taxes?" (And wasn't anyone who really believed that a little bit crazy, too?)
And didn't Richard Nixon once say, "I am not a crook?"
And were any of them crazy? Well, OK, maybe those are not the best examples.
But take a look at Ross Perot. He is definitely crazy and 20 million people voted for him in 1992 and 8 million people voted for him in 1996 and he probably will continue to get millions of votes every four years until he is transported back to Neptune.
But in Ecuador, Congress recently voted Bucaram out of office "for mental incompetence."
Three people immediately claimed the presidency of Ecuador even though some believe that claiming the presidency of Ecuador is an automatic sign of mental incompetence.
As I write this, Bucaram has retreated to his stronghold in Guayaquil, after being barricaded in the presidential palace behind barbed wire for three days.
"Remember me," he said. "In a short time these same people are going to beg me on their knees to come back."
Or at least they may beg him to pour another bottle of mineral water over his head.
Actually, people seem pretty pleased that he has gone, considering he raised rates on electricity, fuel and telephone service by 300 percent.
In America, we do not call such people crazy. In America, we call them businessmen.
Just what will happen to Bucaram is uncertain. Some people want to put him on trial and some want to deport him to Disneyland.
I tried to get a call through to Bucaram in Guayaquil to get his side of things, but I had no luck.
I think I know, however, what he would have said.
He would have said that he hopes Ross and Rachel don't break up.
WASHINGTON - - I am sure you remember my friend Jack, the man who knows a little about everything, though not a lot about any one thing.
This means that Jack is not an expert, but a human encyclopedia and an invaluable resource if you are on deadline, say, and can't remember the size of Finland (130,119 square miles) or where Herbert Hoover was born (West Branch, Iowa).
The only problem with Jack is that he likes to give answers to questions you never ask.
I called him the other day, for instance, to find out how old Robert Redford is and Jack replied: "Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon played the roles of Walter Burns and Hildy Johnson in the 1974 version of the 'Front Page' but who played the roles in the original 1930 film by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur?"
Uh, Robert Redford? I said.
"No, you dummy!" he yelled. "It was Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien. It was also remade in 1940 with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. Mae Clarke plays the prostitute in that version, but is more famous for taking a grapefruit in the face from James Cagney in the 1931 classic 'Public Enemy.' "
What does this have to do with Robert Redford? I asked.
"Hey," Jack said, "two Americans have been on the presidential ticket five times each. Both were victorious in four elections and lost one. Who were they?"
Harold Stassen and, uh, don't tell me, I said. Ross Perot!
"You are too dumb to breathe!" Jack screamed. "Franklin Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944 and was James Cox's running mate in 1920, when Republican Warren G. Harding was elected. Richard Nixon ran unsuccessfully for president in 1960, was victorious in 1968 and 1972 and was Dwight Eisenhower's running mate in 1952 and 1956. George Bush came close, but was on the national ticket only four times."
Jack, I said, this is all very fascinating, but I am on deadline and I need to know...
"You need to know in which film Greta Garbo first speaks and first laughs!" Jack said.
I do?
" 'Anna Christie' was Garbo's first talkie," Jacks said, "and her first line is: 'Gimme a whiskey. Ginger ale on the side. And don't be stingy, baby.' In 'Ninotchka' she laughs when Paris playboy Melvyn Douglas falls off his chair in a bistro."
Why does he fall of a chair in a bistro? I asked.
"That's the spirit!" Jack said. "How about this one: Who is the only Speaker of the House to be elected president of the United States?"
Newt Gingrich? I said. Or is he the first Speaker of the House to be voted Most Likely to Commit A Felony?
"Your humor escapes me," Jack said. "It was James K. Polk, though he was not the speaker when elected."
What a shame, I said.
"I don't suppose you would care to know the women in King Kong's paw?" Jack said.
Not unless they are planning to drop by tonight, because I don't have a thing in the house, I said.
"Fay Wray played Ann Darrow in the 1933 version and Jessica Lange in the 1976 version," Jack said. "In the re-make, at the end of the film Jessica Lange simply looks bewildered but in the original, Robert Armstrong concludes with the line, 'It was beauty killed the beast.' "
Fascinating, I yawned. Truly fascinating.
"Wait, wait," Jack said. "This is a good one: What two U.S. presidents made speeches about their dogs that became part of history?"
It's a trick question, I said. No U.S. president has ever been responsible enough to keep a dog.
"Wrong!" Jack crowed. "Franklin Roosevelt loved his little Fala and when Republicans accused him of sending a Naval destroyer to pick Fala up when it had been left behind after a visit to the Aleutians, Roosevelt said, 'These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me or my wife or on my sons, no, not content with that. They now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks and my family doesn't resent attacks, but Fala does resent them.' "
They say if your brain gets overloaded, it can actually explode, I said. I think I read that in Parade magazine.
"And Richard Nixon used his family dog, Checkers, to save his career in 1952," Jack went on. "News reports charged that he kept a gift fund for political purposes and in a famous televised speech, he defended the fund and insisted there was one gift he was not returning: Checkers."
Gotta run, Jack, I said.
"One last one, one last one," he said. "Which of the following actresses never played in an Alfred Hitchcock film? Tippi Hedren, Kim Novak, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Fontaine or Marilyn Monroe."
Let's see, I said. Marilyn Monroe played Anthony Perkin's mother in "Psycho" and...
"Wrong!" Jack said. "Anthony Perkins played Anthony Perkin's mother in 'Psycho.' Marilyn Monroe never played in an Alfred Hitchcock movie! Tippi Hedren played in 'The Birds' and 'Marnie.' Kim Novak played in 'Vertigo.' Ingrid Bergman played in 'Notorious.' Joan Fontaine played in 'Rebecca' and 'Suspicion.' Tippi Hedren, by the way, is the mother of Melanie Griffith."
I think I knew that, I said.
"I doubt it," Jack said and he hung up.
Which is the way it is with human encyclopedias: They know a lot, but they are very, very touchy.
Oh, by the way, Robert Redford will be 60 on August 18 of this year. Just in case you want to send a card.
WASHINGTON - - I have a very thick plastic card that I must wear around my neck on a chain whenever I go to the White House.
This thick card has my picture on it and is the property of the Secret Service. I don't know why it is so thick, but I have always thought it must have some kind of computer chip or other secret gizmo inside.
Known in the business as a "hard pass", it must be renewed on a regular basis and this is done only after I give certain personal information to the Secret Service.
It can take from several weeks to several months to get a hard pass and the assumption is that the Secret Service checks all us journalists out very carefully.
This is understandable. It is also understandable why wearers of the hard pass still aren't allowed to just waltz into the White House.
Even though I have been thoroughly checked (or "vetted" as they like to say in Washington) and have a pass with my picture on it, I must still go through a metal detector and have my briefcase carefully searched each and every time I enter the White House grounds.
On the road, the security for the traveling White House press is even more strict. Even though we get to know the Secret Service agents and they get to know us, they still check us for bombs and guns several times a day as if we were potential terrorists. Dogs sniff our luggage for bombs and sometimes we have to stand with our arms stuck out while agents pass hand wands up and down our bodies.
All this, even though they know us, even though we are wearing security passes, even though we have been checked and found to be harmless by the Secret Service.
I am not complaining about any of this. The press didn't used to be checked in this manner, but that changed after the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan.
And so I understand why the background of each and every reporter who wants to enter the White House must be thoroughly checked.
What I don't understand is how hundreds of people got to waltz into the White House and meet with the president over the last two years without any such background check at all.
The White House now admits that hundreds of Democratic contributors and others were ushered into the presence of the president for "coffees" without having their backgrounds, including criminal records, checked out.
So your average ax murderer, to pick just one example, could have gotten in.
We know this, because The Washington Post disclosed last weekend that a twice-convicted felon did get into the White House to meet with the president.
He is Eric Wynn, a New Jersey stock-swindler, who had spent time in prison, and went to meet with the president on Dec. 21, 1995, a few months after his second conviction. Also, according to news accounts, he is said to have ties to the Bonanno organized crime family.
But who checked Wynn out before he entered the White House? Nobody.
"No vetting was ever done for these events, other than asking for Social Security numbers or dates of birth in order to verify the identity of the guest," Lanny Davis, White House special counsel, said Saturday.
On Sunday, Davis changed his story slightly. The guests were checked out to see if they were "a security risk to the President's safety." But no other background check was done.
I assume that everybody who entered the White House grounds had to pass through a metal detector, but the Secret Service did not use the government's computers to see if anybody was an actual criminal.
We do not know why. Nobody has an explanation.
We do know there were 103 of these coffees and they were held with the president and top government officials. But none of the guests' backgrounds were ever checked out. Which is how a Chinese arms dealer and a fugitive from Lebanon, actively being sought under an Interpol arrest warrant, also got in to see the president.
The New York Times did a simple Nexis data base check on the twice-convicted American felon, Eric Wynn, and found a 1989 article from Forbes magazine that said: "Federal documents say Bonanno family capo Frank Coppa, his associate Eric Wynn and other friends paid a visit" to a stock promoter and "bashed him on the side of the head with a telephone."
See my point? It doesn't matter if you send these guests through a metal detector if they can pick up a telephone once they are inside the White House and bash the president with it.
OK, I know what the president is going to say. He is going to say he is a big guy and can take care of himself. And I agree.
But I'm just worried that one of his coffee klatch pals is going to steal the silverware. And that belongs to the taxpayers.