Molly Ivins February 5BERKELEY, Calif. — Watching the networks have nervous breakdowns Tuesday night over whether to go with the State of the Union address or the O.J. Simpson verdict was a lot of fun. Nerve-wracking suspense, high drama, stuck between Scylla and Charybdis — now, that's entertainment! On KPIX in San Francisco, the Leader of the Free World, addressing his nation, had to battle for air time with the verdict, so this surreal combination of second-charge-yes and patriotic oratory came on simultaneously. Watching two stories at once actually felt like normal media blat; if the networks did it all the time, we could halve the time we spend in front of our televisions. My favorite factoid from the O.J. Show is that ex-girlfriend and former Playboy model Paula Barbieri has sold her as-yet-unwritten memoir for $3 million. According to her agent, "Paula's story is a compelling one." Take that, Herman Melville. I could hold forth on the awful tackiness and tawdriness of everything connected with the Simpson case, but like everything else about the case, that's already been overdone. Much as we hate to leave the excruciating awfulness of the O.J. case, we might want to consider something that the old POTUS — "President of the United States," for you outside-the-Beltway types — had to say Tuesday. He announced that his No. 2 priority (not to be confused with his 10 education proposals) was campaign finance reform. Came right after balancing the budget. And none too soon at that. The media, dutifully following a phalanx of pious Republicans denouncing the selling of the presidency, have decided to have a snit because those who gave large sums of money to President Clinton's campaign got invited to coffee at the White House. They are shocked — shocked! — to find gambling on the premises. Holy cow, how much hypocrisy can a poor nation stand? Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee is going to lead a multimillion-dollar investigation into the fact that some banking regulator met with bankers at the White House. Personally, I find it less alarming that a banking regulator sipped coffee with bankers than that House Republicans let corporate lobbyists actually write the regulations that theoretically govern them. There must be something wrong with my indignation regulator; the Washington press corps has no trouble finding promiscuous coffeeing more alarming than letting lobbyists write laws. Coffee! Clinton invited his big donors to coffees! OK, I'm horrified.
"Campaign contributions don't buy favors — they just buy access" is one of the hoariest Great Lies of our time, right up there with "The check is in the mail." For a classic study of just what kind of favors big campaign contributions can buy, I'm afraid we have to pass over Clinton and go to BobDole. BobDole's career-long special-favor history, ranging from Archer Daniels Midland to the Gallo brothers, is a textbook example of what's wrong with the system. Special tax breaks, the ethanol subsidy, the sugar subsidy — forget coffee, now we're talking favors. Now we're talking millions of dollars of taxpayers' money in exchange for a piddly couple of grand in campaign contributions. That's a sweet deal. The McCain-Feingold bill sets out to remedy this mess by limiting campaign contributions. We already tried this once, after Watergate, but big money found a way around the limitations by giving "soft money" in huge chunks either directly to political parties or to sidebar entities created to support specific campaigns. These all have stirring names, like "The Group to Create a Better America," but they should be named "Not the Official Joe Doaks Campaign but the Semi-Official Campaign Set Up to Support Joe Doaks' Senate Bid." The problem here is not simple hypocrisy but real rot. Great huge piles of stinking political corruption. Decisions made to benefit the rich and big corporations at enormous cost to both the taxpayers and the environment. There is an even deeper betrayal here, more serious than tax loopholes and special favors. The people of this country know that our government is not working for them — not for the majority or for the average Joe. As a result, we are rapidly losing faith in our own country — in the very idea of democracy. Cynicism and disgust are rising like floodwaters. The McCain-Feingold bill doesn't go far enough. If we want our politicians to represent the people instead of the special interests, then the people should pay for their campaigns. The handy little box at the end of the income tax form that allows us to kick in a couple of our tax dollars to keep the presidential campaign semi-honest (until recently) should be broadened to cover all federal campaigns. That way, our elected representatives owe no one but the people. *** Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. COPYRIGHT 1997 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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