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The Budget of Our Discontent

Bruce GottliebPosted Monday, Oct. 19, 1998, at 12:26 AM ET

Issue 1 is the budget fracas. Issue 2 is the midterm elections. Issue 3 is Paula Jones, the situation in Kosovo, or the Middle East peace talks, depending on the show.

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Who won the budget negotiations? "Clinton cleaned the Republicans' clock," says Jack Germond (Inside Washington) and a unanimous commentariat agrees. A Democratic victory is amazing, thinks Charles Krauthammer (Inside Washington) since "What we've gotten is an American first: A majority party in Congress capitulating to a political corpse."

How did Clinton pull it off? Because the GOP forgot that education is a sure winner for Democrats, says Eleanor Clift (The McLaughlin Group). Because the GOP pledged to avoid a government shutdown at the outset of negotiations, thereby losing any leverage, say Robert Novak (CNN's Capital Gang) and Gloria Borger (PBS's Washington Week In Review). Because Republicans were unwilling to push very hard in the negotiations, for fear of giving Democrats campaign issues, say Al Hunt (Capital Gang) and Susan Page (CNN's Late Edition). Because Democrats--better than Republicans--are able to persuade voters and journalists that they won what was, in fact, a draw, say Lawrence O' Donnell (The McLaughlin Group) and Mara Liasson (Washington Week In Review). (O' Donnell and Liasson think the Democratic "victories" on education and cancer, for instance, are illusory, since they involve relatively inconsequential sums.)

The budget deal helps Clinton because it turns the media spotlight from Flytrap onto a presidential victory, say all the pundits. Still, it won't have much effect on midterm elections, opines Hunt.

And what about those midterm elections? The GOP has lowered its expectations, say George Stephanopoulos (ABC's This Week) and Bob Schieffer (CBS's Face the Nation). Don't forget, caution several commentators, the GOP has a lot of money to spend on advertisements between now and election day (Mara Liasson and Brit Hume, Fox News Sunday; Borger; Tucker Carlson, CNN's Late Edition).

Hunt predicts big wins for the GOP in gubernatorial races. Gubernatorial races are particularly important this year, notes David Broder (Washington Week In Review) since a significant amount of power has been returned to the states.

All the opinion mafia agree that any step forward in the Middle East peace process would be a big victory for Clinton. By the same token, a failure in Kosovo would mean the opposite. Finally, most pundits seem convinced that Paula Jones will accept a settlement offer from Clinton

We Hadn't Even Heard Of That One: George Will offers his thoughts on the "2YK" problem. Relax, we know what you're talking about, Mr. Will! But stay away from the computers, okay, because they're a bit finicky about syntax sometimes.

Jews You Can Use: Minister Louis Farrakhan appears on Meet the Press bearing a predictably "controversial" account of current events: Monica Lewinsky and Lucianne Goldberg were dispatched by Israel to disgrace Clinton, thereby reducing pressure on Netanyahu in the peace process. Equally predictably, the Minister also speaks out against the enslavement of blacks by Jewish masters. (Farrakhan takes pains to point out that he doesn't dislike Jews for their Jewishness, it's just that ... well, Jews are the folks making a buck by exploiting blacks, right?) Less predictably, Farrakhan pronounces the Lewinsky affair a plot executed by ... God? That's right: God wants to usher in an age of atonement, and how better to do it than by forcing the President of the United States to cast the first atone?

--Bruce Gottlieb