The "Unofficial" Bill Clinton Home Page:
Contains links to various Whitewater resources, spoofs and other links.

Whitewater Witch-hunt:
Clinton sympathizers can add to their defensive arsenals at the Witch-hunt page. Whitewater is compared to the Salem Witch trials and other historical atrocities.

Whitewater: The Mini-series:
Rush Limbaugh groupies gather to fantasy-cast an imaginary Whitewater mini-series. If you're a fan of the fat man, you'll probably enjoy this site.

Discuss the latest Whitewater scuttlebutt with your Usenet friends at:
alt.current-events.
clinton.whitewater

It is a powerful reminder of our fascination with sinister behavior in government that millions of Americans are sitting through "Nixon," Oliver Stone's three-hour epic about a scandalized president. That fascination translates into reality as well. To the dismay of President Clinton, continuing revelations in the Whitewater affair suggesting a possible coverup have drawn comparisons between his administration and Nixon's criminal White House.

Those comparisons are exaggerated. But after documents that had been under subpeona for two years mysteriously surfaced last week -- documents which seemed to contradict public statements of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton -- Whitewater crashed on to the public stage again just as Clinton is beginning his re-election campaign. Tensions are so high that Clinton suggested he might slug New York Times columnist William Safire for calling his wife a "congenital liar."

The term "Whitewater" refers to an Arkansas real estate investment made by the Clintons while Bill Clinton was Arkansas governor in the 1980s. Congress and a special prosecutor are investigating links between the investment and Madison Guaranty, an Arkanasas Savings & Loan which failed in 1989 at an estimated cost of $60 million to taxpayers. A tangled web of Clinton friendships and political appointments in Arkansas has fueled charges that the first couple received preferential treatment in their investments, and that Clinton benefited from improper campaign contributions from Madison.

More generally, Whitewater, like Watergate, has come to describe a range of Clinton controversies, including the 1993 suicide of Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster, which has spawned a cottage industry of conspiracy theorizing; and the "Travelgate" affair, in which members of the White House Travel Office were harshly fired, possibly under orders from Hillary Clinton.

All told, a swamp of questions, accusations, and possible misdeeds now surround the Clintons and their associates. Whether they are guilty of abuses of power or of any crime is not clear. At the least, they probably are guilty of being defensive and overprotective, behavior that reliably raises suspicions. But with the 1996 election drawing near, Whitewater has inevitably become a political football, and an all-out fight is underway to define its ambiguities. Here's a roundup of some of the principals involved in the hunt for Clinton wrongdoing.

SENATE REPUBLICANS: The Senate has charged its Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs committee with conducting a Whitewater investigation. The committee's hearings have covered Clinton ties to Madison Guaranty, the death of Vincent Foster and possible White House attempts at blocking investigations. The committee's ongoing hearings, which are currently at the center of the Whitewater affair, have succeeded in unearthing some important evidence and testimony, although they are largely a display for the TV cameras.

As chairman of both the Senate special committee investigating Whitewater and Bob Dole's presidential campaign, New York Senator Alfonse D'Amato is in the not-so-objective position of heading an inquisition of his mentor's likely opponent in the presidential election. D'Amato's leading position in the investigation is particularly ironic because of his own legacy of ethical problems, and unbecoming conduct like using a crude Japanese accent to mock Judge Lance Ito and singing a political version of "Old MacDonald's Farm" on the Senate floor. D'Amato has avoided his past theatrics and maintained decorum during intense hearings. However, as a faithful Dole ally, D'Amato may well turn up the heat as election day approaches, perhaps even calling Hillary Clinton to testify.

Joining D'Amato on the GOP side of the committee table are Republicans Lauch Faircloth of North Carolina, and Robert Bennett of Utah. Faircloth in particular has long been a severe critic of the Clintons, and habitually refers to them on the Senate floor as "Bill" and "Hillary." A classic example of a hard-core, drawling Southern conservative, Faircloth has been more hostile to Clinton friends and associates during the hearings than any other Senator.

SENATE DEMOCRATS: As the senior Democrat on the Senate Whitewater Committee, Paul Sarbanes of Maryland has tried his best to act as a counterbalance to the majority-Republican committee. He heads up a group of fairly liberal Democrats, including Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Barbara Boxer of California, who often jump in if they feel witnesses are being treated unfairly. But even these Clinton defenders have fallen conspicuously silent recently as Maggie Williams, Hillary Clinton's chief of staff, and Susan Thomases, a New York lawyer and close friend of the First Lady, have testified to improbably huge gaps in their memory about Whitewater issues.

THE HOUSE: Like the Senate, the House's banking committee (Committee on Banking and Financial Services) has taken up a Whitewater investigation, although as the action has shifted to the Senate, its hearings are on hold for now. Before the 1994 election, the committee's Democratic chairman (and now senior Democrat) Henry Gonzales of Texas thwarted Republican attempts to conduct serious hearings. Now the chairman is Jim Leach, a well-respected Iowan with a reputation for bipartisanship who is considered to have much more credibility than D'Amato. But he has continually expressed deep suspicions about the Whitewater affair, although he has made predictions about uncovering bombshells that never materialized.

STARR: As members of Congress posture before the cameras in committee rooms and shout at one another on "Crossfire," an independent counsel has been quietly conducting his investigation behind the scenes, largely outside of the public eye. The current counsel is Kenneth Starr, a former solicitor general in the Bush administration. A panel of judges chose Starr to replace Robert Fiske Jr., who was originally appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno. The judges said that since Fiske was named by a Clinton official, his objectivity might appear suspect. But their choice of Starr, a staunch conservative, hardly settled questions of impartiality. Before his appointment Starr considered filing a court brief on behalf of Paula Corbin Jones, who is suing Clinton for sexual harassment.

While Fiske concluded from his investigation that the Clintons had done no wrong, Starr has pursued Whitewater forcefully. He recently handed down an indictment against Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker, who was Clinton's lieutenant governor. While the spotlight is now on the Senate, Starr's less-politicized investigation ultimately poses a much greater threat to the Clintons.