The following interview- conducted in another world and lifetime- pre 9-11- may answer SOME of the questions you have- all of which are reasonable to ask.
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Was Thompson, like most of his party, disappointed in the outcome of his Asia- gate probe? "Of course I was disappointed, on many levels. Mainly on the level of truth and justice." But "on the level of process and doing as well as we could with the opportunity we had, I'm satisfied"-though "you can't be completely satisfied when you know you got stiffed, in certain respects."
Thompson is referring chiefly to the behavior of his committee's Democrats, the memory of which visibly appalls him even today, a year and a half later. Republicans faulted him for bending over backwards to accommodate the minority; that minority-the Democrats-tarred him as a partisan witch-hunter anyway. Thompson says that he had Watergate in the back of his mind-"too much so, in some respects"-and tried to follow the Watergate model, which demands a certain broadness.
"A lot of my friends," he says, "thought that if we could just get something on the Democrats-and God knows there was a lot to get-we'd be in clover." But Thompson opted to tread lightly, recognizing that "today the accuser is almost as suspect as the accused. There's a good deal of skepticism about all of us in the political process"-which, he argues, happens to be "the major part of Clinton's success." Indeed, "that's why he survived." What Thompson had not sufficiently appreciated is the vitriol, coupled with a knack for sabotage, of the Democrats.
"There was nothing I could have done," he pleads, "to cause John Glenn [the senior Democrat on the committee] to try to have a fair, down-the-middle investigation." Could he hazard a guess as to why Glenn, in the waning days of a long and relatively dignified career, chose to play the part of White House protector? After a long pause, he answers, "I got some ideas, but I'd just rather not get into it. I can only say that it's one of the most disappointing things that I've ever encountered. I've been around hearings and practiced a lot of law and all, but I didn't expect that. I can't read his mind, but it was consistent, it was persistent, and there never was a moment when he deviated from what he had decided to do."
What about the suspicion that there was an exchange between Glenn and the president: obstruction for a valedictory space flight? "Well, that's between him and the good Lord," says Thompson. "I certainly don't know the answer and never will."
Thompson has concluded that traditional investigative hearings are a thing of the past. As it stands, "You have to find out all you're going to find out beforehand and use your hearings to demonstrate what you've already discovered." Why? Because "there's too much partisanship and too short an attention span among the media, especially television. We were deemed a failure literally the day after our hearings started." Most of the press considered the hearings too dull, too cautious, too fussy. Thompson held some off-the-record meetings with reporters, "and I said, 'Look, guys: Pay attention. I don't have John Dean and a taping system, but there's some very interesting stuff here. This was the most corrupt political campaign we've ever seen. You need to keep up with it, even if it doesn't seem blockbuster.' And they all nodded, said they understood. Bullsh**: They didn't. I should have saved my breath. The name of the game is the president: Are you going to get him or not?"
The Asia-gate investigation led by Rep. Chris Cox in the House, Thompson believes, shows that "you can still succeed." (The results of that inquiry are as yet unknown to the public.) "But they didn't have hearings. They did all their work behind closed doors, in secret, which doesn't necessarily portend good things."
Not only was "ol' Fred," as the senator calls himself, unable to destroy the president over China; many conservatives are miffed that he voted to acquit Clinton on one of the impeachment counts-that concerning perjury. (He voted to convict on obstruction of justice.) Thompson explains that he found himself "encumbered" by his legal education; the perjury charge was inconsistent with "the facts, the Constitution, and my perception of what the Founding Fathers had in mind."
As for Clinton himself, Thompson has given this extraordinary figure some thought: "He's a man of his times. He's forgiven for more than people have traditionally been forgiven. Less is expected of him. We're more into personal relations and everyone's motivations than we are what they stand for." Because of nonstop and pervasive media, "the president is there with you, lives with you, on a daily basis. And we're more comfortable with a buddy than we are with a father." The remarkable thing about Clinton is "his utter lack of shame. He literally-I mean this-has no shame. He's not affected the way normal people are by humiliation. For him, it's all a part of the game. It's a matter of maneuvering to the next point. And it serves him well in the kind of environment we have now."
Confronting further conservative criticisms, Thompson cheerfully acknowledges that he is "off the [Republican] reservation" on campaign-finance reform. He contends that "it's just not right to take large sums of money from people who have legislation before you. It's that basic. The idea of mixing policy and money in that way is just so obviously a problem . . . It's kind of like an elephant in a bathtub: If you don't see it at first glance, chances are you never will." The situation "may not be fixable," he says-but ought to be.
In answer to his critics on tort reform-one of them complains that he is "in the pocket" of his fellow trial lawyers-Thompson has a single word, which he freely expands on: federalism. The question, says Thompson, should not be, "Do we think people are being sued too much this week?" It should be, "Do we believe that certain decisions ought to be made at certain levels of government?" Moreover, "we're not supposed to legislate by anecdote." For every "coffee-in-the-lap" story, Thompson and others are happy to provide a tale of a litigant unjustly squashed
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http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_9_51/ai_54516234/pg_1
Thanks, I think I like the guy.