In the immediate wake of Watergate, political analysts and commentators were convinced that political life would never be the same. No president had ever resigned under threat of impeachment before. Surely, public trust would be irrevocably broached. Legal reforms were expected to shortcircuit future political scandal or at least make them easier to regulate.
In July, 1995, more than 20 years later, one of many hearings based on those reforms was in full swing. A special Senate Whitewater Committee was making modest headlines with efforts to connect the suicide of President Bill Clinton's childhood friend and legal counsel, Vince Foster, with irregularities in the president and First Lady's business dealings back in Arkansas. Vince Foster's death was undoubtedly a tragedy. Questions raised by the Whitewater investigation are another chapter in continuing questions about Bill Clinton's character that have been current since before he was elected president. But, in the two years that Whitewater has been a legal issue, while it does not exactly go away, it has hardly caught fire. As political theater, the Whitewater hearings were something of a yawn. They lacked the compelling drama that kept the nation tuned to the Watergate investigation a generation ago.
Perceived as a Constitutional crisis as the O.J. Simpson trial was perceived as a crisis in racism, the televised hearings created their own folk heros. From the homespun humor of its chairman, Sen. Sam Ervin of North Carolina, to the incisive comments of Tennessee's Howard Baker, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities provided another window on government, this time a positive one. For once, the legislative branch restored faith in the government that the executive branch had tarnished.
The committee met from May 17 to August 7. In the words of The New York Times staff, "that was enough." Committe revelations effectively ended the White Ho...