McDougal’s omerta

Shady deals, laundered money, indictments, memory lapses, rewards and payback — when the definitive history of Bill Clinton’s political life is written, even the most sympathetic author will find it difficult to whitewash those aspects of his rise from backwoods attorney general to president that resemble not so much a record of public service as a tale of ongoing criminal enterprise; the mob sans pin-stripe suits and violin cases.

But from this cheesy gangster story will emerge one character with character, one person of conviction (recently acquited), one who kept her own counsel when others were caving in to the independent counsel. Susan McDougal — a stand-up gal in a world of rat finks.

Mrs. McDougal may not be the sharpest businesswoman ever to come down the pike — it takes a special ineptitude for someone with her connections to get jailed for bank fraud. She certainly isn’t the savviest political insider — writing “payoff Clinton” on the memo line of a $5081.82 check just isn’t done. But she said she’d sooner rot in the slammer than talk to Kenneth Starr’s grand jury and she meant it. She rotted for nearly two years to prove it.

Susan McDougal, who stuck to her story and who kept her mouth shut (spitting in Mr. Starr’s eye at the same time), was acquited of obstruction of justice Monday; a mistrial was declared on two charges of contempt. On the same day, in a different Arkansas courtroom, Bill Clinton, who views truth as a moving target and who just won’t shut up, was cited for civil contempt for fudging in his Paula Jones testimony. Tells you something right there.

It certainly ought to tell something to Mr. Starr: It’s over. After spending more than $50 million of the taxpayers’ money sifting through 20 years of Clinton receipts, phone bills and other minutae, here’s what the independent counsel produced: a blemish on an already tarnished president, a handful of minor fraud convictions, an “ex” in front of Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker’s job title. Now Mr. Starr’s prosecutors hint they may re-try Mrs. McDougal on the contempt charges. Don’t do it fellows: you’ll only end up sleeping with the fishes.

The sad irony is that the landscape is fast becoming littered with former Clinton aides who now say, OK, they carried the First Couple’s bags for years but they held their noses the entire time. George Stephanopoulos would be the latest such blight on bookstore shelves and TV talk shows; the Boy Wonder is everywhere and he just won’t go away. Meanwhile, there’s one person with something worthwhile to say and she’s not talking. That’s class.