[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 102 (Thursday, July 11, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1255-E1256]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST THY NEIGHBOR

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. ANDREW JACOBS, JR.

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 11, 1996

  Mr. JACOBS. Mr. Speaker, I insert a July 29, 1966, letter to the 
editor of the Indianapolis Star and a July 1, 1996, article from the 
Indianapolis News.
  Among the Ten Commandments of God Almighty is this: ``Thou shalt not 
bear false witness against thy neighbor.''
  Of course the repulsive concept has garnered different terms through 
the years--slander, libel, perjury, smear, vicious gossip, mudslinging, 
character assassination, gutter tactics, McCarthyism, the politics of 
personal attack, uncivilized, and indecent. How about primitive? In the 
81st Congress my father said, ``The extremists thought they had 
President Truman in '48 and ever since they have been going around like 
a mad dog whose victim escaped.''
  And in defining the difference between the two major political 
parties, President Lyndon Johnson said, ``We don't hate their 
Presidents.'' Perhaps a paraphrase is in order, to wit: We don't hate 
their Presidents' wives.

[[Page E1256]]

  Faults are things which describe our friends and disqualify our 
adversaries. My mother's favorite quotation is, ``There is so much good 
in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us that it hardly 
becomes any of us to say very much about the rest of us.''
  P.S. Just in case the mud slingers run short of wild charges against 
the President, they should try this one: A few days ago one of our 
little boys came home and said a chum of his solemnly insisted that 
there are Nazis in the White House.

              [From the Indianapolis Star, June 29, 1996]

                            The Right Stuff

                             (By Ron Byers)

       In The Star's June 25 search for an explanation of 
     President Clinton's commanding lead in the polls, you may 
     have overlooked a minor detail: four years of steady economic 
     growth, reduced inflation and declining deficits.
       It's not the stuff the Republican right claims he has done 
     wrong. It's the stuff the public knows he has done right.
                                                                    ____


               [From the Indianapolis News, July 1, 1996]

          Critics Attack Agent's Book About Inside White House

       Washington.--The former FBI agent who wrote an insider's 
     book on White House security is being attacked from all sides 
     for what critics say is a pack of unbelievable tales and 
     ``wild speculation.''
       First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton today blasted the book 
     during a visit to Bucharest, Romania.
       ``I see it as a politically inspired fabrication and I 
     don't think anybody should take it seriously,'' she said.
       She also denied suggestions that she played a role in the 
     hiring of the White House security chief who collected 
     private FBI files on more than 400 people. ``There is no 
     connection,'' she said.
       A top White House aide denounced author Gary Aldrich as a 
     person of no credibility whose book is part of conservative 
     Republicans' efforts to ``destroy the president.''
       And White House spokesman Mike McCurry today called on 
     Republican candidate Bob Dole to separate himself from a one-
     time volunteer adviser to Dole's campaign who is promoting 
     Aldrich's book.
       ``It would be a surprise to us if Senator Dole didn't 
     indicate that the activity of one of his paid advisers with 
     respect to this book is unacceptable,'' McCurry said. ``I 
     assume he'll do that and do it promptly.''
       Even leading conservative journalists are denouncing 
     Aldrich, including the apparent source of his book's wildest 
     allegation--that President Clinton sneaks out of the White 
     House without his guards for romantic hotel trysts.
       ``I never knew I would be used as a source,'' David Brock, 
     a writer for the American Spectator, told Newsweek magazine. 
     He said he never thought Aldrich would use the ``wild 
     speculation'' he traded about the alleged presidential 
     outings to a Washington hotel, which the Secret Service says 
     would be impossible.
       Conservative columnist George Will, who quizzed Aldrich 
     Sunday on ABC, said Brock told him he was appalled to see the 
     unverified story published.
       ``Can't someone say that, in fact, your book is a raw file 
     and that you have gone into print with the kind of evidence 
     that no prosecutor would ever go into court with?'' Will 
     asked Aldrich.
       ``This is not a case presented to a grand jury,'' Aldrich 
     replied, saying he had relied on his observations and untaped 
     interviews for his book.
       ``I conducted investigations and talked to many sources, 
     trying to knock this particular issue down as to whether the 
     president could in fact travel without a Secret Service 
     complement. I was unable to knock down that possibility,'' 
     Aldrich said.
       He acknowledged that much of the material came from second 
     and third-hand source, some of whom have publicly disputed 
     his account.
       Still, Aldrich, who retired from the FBI in 1994 after 30 
     years as an agent, said he would be willing to go before 
     Congress to reveal his sources and back up his insider tales 
     of sloppy White House security and alleged former drug use by 
     some officials, including a senior staffer.
       ``I'm willing to swear under oath to anything that I have 
     in this book,'' Aldrich said on ABC's This Week With David 
     Brinkley.
       Senior Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos, who had urged 
     ABC to cancel Aldrich's appearance, said, ``His story 
     couldn't get past the fact checker at the National 
     Enquirer.''
        Stephanopoulos said Aldrich's book was being promoted by 
     people with Republican connections. He said several ``GOP 
     operatives'' were present for the ABC show's taping, 
     including those with ties to Republican president candidates 
     Bob Dole and Pat Buchanan.
       He named Craig Shirley, a paid adviser to Dole in his 1988 
     presidential campaign. His company, Craig Shirley & 
     Associates Inc., is promoting the book, published by the 
     conservative Regnery Publishing Inc.
       ``If you look at the people behind him, they're right-wing 
     Republican political operatives who are determined to destroy 
     the president,'' Stephanopoulos said. ``They're trying to 
     tear him down.''

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