[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 52 (Monday, April 22, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3786-S3787]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  THE VOID IN MORAL LEADERSHIP--PART 5

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, on March 19, I began a series of 
speeches on this floor. The subject--the common thread in these 
speeches--has been the void in moral leadership at the White House. 
What this means is simply this: The President and the First Lady are 
failing to set a good example for the American people.
  These are failures of the most basic principles that Americans expect 
from their leaders: Failures like accountability; taking responsibility 
for one's actions; straightforwardness and candor; the public trust. 
The breakdown of these principles has eroded the President's ability to 
show strong leadership. It has undercut his moral authority to lead. 
The best way to lead is by example. If this is true, then White House 
leadership is truly lacking.
  In my previous speeches, I gave illustrations of my observations. I 
identified specific actions from each of Whitewatergate, Travelgate, 
and Cattlegate. And I showed how these illustrations are of great 
significance to the average citizen.
  In my March 22 speech, I referred to a familiar quote from John 
Mitchell. He was an Attorney General in the Nixon administration. He's 
remembered as saying, ``You will be better advised to watch what we do 
instead of what we say.''
  People all across America now are discovering the secret of 
politicians who give the profession a bad name. People in this town 
have known this little secret for a long time. The secret is this: Say 
what the public wants to hear, but then do whatever you want. By the 
time they figure out what you did, you can point the finger at someone 
else.
  The governing-industry in Washington has mastered this game.
  It has created a process designed to avoid accountability. It is 
designed to avoid taking responsibility for one's actions. Most data 
are presented in a way that avoids measuring performance. They are 
designed to show that everything is always rosy under their watch.
  Think of how a used car dealer often buffs up a lemon of a car until 
it gleams--to gloss over all the defects. Unless you know about cars 
and what to look for, you might be tempted to buy that pile of junk 
because it looks so pretty. A few months later, you suddenly discover 
that the parts are falling off right there on the highway.
  This is what our Government is like. They tell the taxpayers all the 
great things they are getting in this budget, or that bill. What a 
deal. And the people buy it. But after a while, all they see are piles 
of debt, a rising tax burden, growing job insecurity, serious social 
pathologies, and rampant crime and drug use. Do you see the analogy, 
Mr. President?
  The question is, How can we be told everything is going to be rosy, 
and yet it turns out so bad? The answer is, We listened to what they 
said, not what they did. We made the mistake of falling for the ol' 
political soft shoe routine, the ol' used car pitch. They did a bait 
and switch on us, and we took the bait. Many of us here in Congress 
have worked hard to shine a big spotlight on this racket. We have tried 
to expose some of the games played that create the illusions--just like 
Dorothy exposed the Wizard of Oz.
  For instance, by showing systematic bias in budget estimating, we 
were able to cause the Congressional Budget Office to produce more 
realistic estimates of Congress' budget decisions. For the lay person, 
all this means is, we can now better estimate how much our income and 
outgo will be. Before that, we were always unjustifiably optimistic. We 
always assumed we would have a flood of revenues pouring into the 
Treasury.
  Why? Because that way we could keep the spending faucets on full 
blast.

[[Page S3787]]

Things did not look so expensive as long as we could cook the books and 
show a rising tide of revenues. The shell game was on, Mr. President. 
It got us all re-elected, but it also got us in a ton of debt. I call 
this problem the Narcotic of Optimism.
  There are other examples of attempts by some of us to expose 
Government by illusion. Let me just describe some that I have taken the 
lead on, just to illustrate what I am saying:
  First, most recently, I and my colleagues in both the House and 
Senate forced the President's AmeriCorps Program to clean up its act. 
It is a program that was paying $29,000 per volunteer. Imagine the 
taxpayers paying $29,000 per volunteer. This gave boondoggles at the 
Pentagon a real run for their money.
  We poured through AmeriCorps' documents during a 2-year battle. We 
shined a big spotlight on the program's activities and costs. We showed 
where the bulk of the money was going--overhead and bureaucracy. We 
have now reinvented the program.
  Before this, the program never lived up to the President's lofty 
rhetoric. Now, it has a chance to do what the President says it will 
do.
  Second, I worked hard, with the help of many of my colleagues, on 
protecting whistleblowers, who are the footsoldiers of the war to 
expose Government illusions. Every administration waxes poetic about 
how much they honor whistleblowers. But as soon as our backs are 
turned, Government managers search them out like a heat-seeking 
missile.
  That is because whistleblowers, want the truth out; Government does 
not. Congress has toughened up the laws protecting whistleblowers. And 
we are always on the vigil.
  Third, I have worked to pass or bolster initiatives that detect and 
measure bureaucratic sleight of hand at the Pentagon. We created an 
independent office of testing to make sure our troops have fully and 
effectively tested equipment. We were not getting that before.
  We have also worked on numerous financial reforms that expose cost 
and budget problems. All of these are designed to make it easier for us 
to see what the Pentagon is actually doing, as opposed to what they say 
they are doing.
  I have been at this kind of reform since I first joined the Senate in 
1981. Sometimes it is a lonely battle. I often think I can live to be 
100 years old and work on reforms non-stop, but I will still only make 
a dent because the problem is so big.
  That is what Presidents are for. Presidential leadership can make the 
biggest difference in the world. The credibility of the presidency, as 
leader of the executive branch, can bring leadership to bear on the 
system and really shake things up. The President has not just the 
ability to do this, but the responsibility to do it as well.
  In fact, Mr. President, these were the types of things that Bill 
Clinton pledged to do as a Presidential candidate in 1992. He would 
expose and put an end to the illusions game in Washington. That is what 
he promised. And that would help put on an equal footing those who had 
played by the rules, yet had failed to get ahead. And so the American 
people put their thrust and faith in Bill Clinton to lead the way.
  After 4 years, however, a different picture has emerged. As I have 
specifically laid out in my previous speeches, the President has failed 
in such leadership, because he has failed to set the proper example.
  For instance: How can this President end cronyism and favoritism? He 
fired innocent, low-level public servants in the White House Travel 
Office, and gave the travel business to a family member and a slick 
Hollywood buddy. What kind of example is that for equal treatment and 
fairness?
  How can this President end the failure in this town to take 
responsibility for one's actions? When the Travelgate Seven were fired, 
fingers were pointed at others for having made the decision to fire 
them. What kind of leadership is that? What kind of example is that? 
How can this White House end the enormous problem in this town of 
cover-up, and lack of candor and straight shooting?
  The mysterious appearance of the Whitewater documents in the White 
House reading room were blamed on the Document Fairy. Whenever the 
First Lady or her staff are questioned in either the Whitewatergate or 
Travelgate affairs, no one can recall a thing.
  In my speech of March 28, I gave an example of this. On March 21, the 
First Lady responded to questions from Chairman Clinger of the House 
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. The subject matter was, 
who knew what, when, about the firing of the Travelgate Seven. In 16 
pages of responses, I counted 54 instances of ``I cannot recall;'' 
``vague recollection;'' ``it's hard to remember;'' and so on. Anything 
but candid, Mr. President. And this from people who are at the very top 
of their profession--the legal profession--in terms of intelligence and 
competence. That is kind of hard to swallow.
  Moral leadership means leading by example. If you are a leader, that 
means the people expect you always to be candid in what you say; they 
expect you to treat everyone fairly and equally; they expect you to be 
accountable and take responsibility for what you do, both good and bad. 
That is what people expect in their leaders.
  The American people are not getting that kind of leadership from this 
White House, Mr. President. Instead, they are seeing their leaders 
commit acts of favoritism, cronyism, avoiding responsibility, cover up. 
When people who work for such leadership see this, they follow the 
leader. People tend to do what their leaders do. Could this be why 
there are an unprecedented four independent counsels looking into 
questionable actions of Clinton cabinet secretaries?
  We certainly should not be surprised at this record-setting pace for 
investigating high-level government officials.
  I have been searching for an explanation for why an administration 
that promised to change all this is instead caught up in it, at record 
levels. I think I may have found a clue. It is a quote from this week's 
Time magazine. The article is called ``Clinton's Stealth Campaign.'' It 
is written by Eric Pooley.
  Here is what it says:

       Since the Republicans control Congress, he [meaning, 
     President Clinton] opted for an illusion of control, which 
     suits him just fine. In this almost holographic approach, 
     speeches are as important as substance and rhetoric becomes 
     its own reality. For this President, says senior adviser 
     George Stephanopoulos, ``words are actions.''

  Do you see, Mr. President? Here is a senior adviser to the President 
saying ``words are actions.'' There is no distinction. Either this 
shows a breakdown of leadership, or it reflects very questionable 
leadership from the top down--remember I mentioned that workers tend to 
do what their leaders do. This practice--as articulated by a White 
House senior adviser--turns John Mitchell's adage into something you 
would read in Kafka, or Orwell. It turns Mitchell's statement on its 
head. In effect, it is a sly, Washington way of saying ``watch what we 
say, not what we do.'' It says ``watching what we do is irrelevant; 
only words are relevant.''
  This clarifies a lot for me, Mr. President. It reinforces my 
perception of the void in moral leadership in this White House. But it 
also gives us a glimpse into how the continuing charade of illusions is 
being conducted and perpetrated by this White House. It does so 
precisely because of an absence of leadership.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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