Let the globe have the Princess Diana and Mother Teresa stories. Inside the Beltway, the urgent issue was Gore’s nagging money troubles–and how they might complicate his long march to the Democratic nomination in the year 2000. Though no one accuses him of knowingly committing crimes, evidence keeps mounting that he skated close to the edge of the law, and that he has been doggedly avoiding telling the whole story about his fund-raising escapades.
First there is the matter of Gore’s cash calls from the White House. In the past, he insisted he made them on only a ““few occasions.’’ But last week, in advance of renewed Senate hearings, the Gore team conceded he’d made 86. And it turned out that $120,000 of the funds he raised by those calls had been funneled into the Democrats’ so-called ““hard money’’ account, rather than the unregulated ““soft money’’ cache. This seemingly arcane detail was crucial: the presence of ““hard money’’ in the mix forced Attorney General Janet Reno to do what Republicans had been demanding for months. She ordered a preliminary probe into whether Gore’s White House calls merited the appointment of a special prosecutor. Only in Washington do they investigate whether to investigate. But the very complexity of the process was bad news for Gore. It could easily drag on–and on.
Gore’s now famous visit to a Buddhist temple last year isn’t likely to cause him any legal trouble. But it’s the kind of colorful incident that can shake a career, because it contains the sort of images and footage coveted by the auteurs of attack ads. In this case, it’s three cinnamon-robed Buddhist nuns from the Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, Calif. In halting English–but always in the practiced language of those who’ve been granted immunity–they gave their account of an event Gore insists was not a formal fund-raiser, but which apparently was one in everything but name.
The scene on the Hill was part Watergate, part Monty Python. Courteous senators made sure to call the nuns ““venerable,’’ but these seemingly naive women from Taiwan spun a tale worthy of Tammany Hall. They told how they’d cooked the books, funneling temple funds through other nuns whose ““contributions’’ were then reimbursed. They told how Democratic fund raiser John Huang had been displeased with the take, demanding more checks to bring back to Washington. Senate investigators confronted the nuns with evidence that notations on the checks had been altered, and one of the nuns conceded that she’d destroyed a list of donors after the event became news–and a threat to the Clinton-Gore ticket.
Gore has assumed every position on the event except the full lotus. During the campaign, it was described as mere ““community outreach.’’ Then, last spring, the vice president conceded that it was ““finance-related.’’ Now his aides describe it as an exercise in ““donor maintenance.’’ They note–accurately–that no solicitation was made at the event, and that Gore kept his remarks on a high spiritual plane. They add that Gore was victimized by sloppy staff work–one of D.C.’s last-refuge excuses.
But Gore will have trouble claiming ignorance of the details. He’s a master of political specifics whose voluminous e-mails show he knew –or should have known–that the event wasn’t just about God. In fact, it was organized by a longtime friend, Maria Hsia, who was also his top fund raiser in the Asian-American community. At the temple, nuns recalled, Gore had paid respects to a regal image of the Buddha. He might have considered another of the Master’s sayings: ““Do not look for bad company.’’ Gore may not have been looking, but he found it anyway.
