Moynihan

Looking over excerpts from some new Hillary-bashing book, Matt posts up a purported conversation between Mrs. Clinton and Sen. Moynihan where Hillary forgets to credit Moynihan on a bill and so the aged senator, acting like the dignified legislative leader he was, bowed out of the meeting under false pretenses and hid in an adjoining room until Hillary left the building. Matt rightly notes how bad this makes Moynihan look, but the truth is really worse. If you had to pick the Senator who did the most to kill Clinton's bill, it wasn't Dole, it was Moynihan.

During the Health Care fight, Moynihan played Lieberman on Social Security, but to a much greater degree. He called Clinton's numbers "fantasy numbers", he told the press that the Senate had no majority for reform, he opined that there "was no health care crisis". When, directly in the middle of the health care fight Whitewater began to pick up steam, Moynihan was the first Democrat to urge the appointment of special prosecutor, so he gets partial credit for giving the country Ken Starr. What lay at the heart of all this was that Moynihan didn't want to do health care reform, and given his own self regard, he figured he shouldn't have to. Moynihan instead wanted to do welfare reform first -- a judgment he was right about, but partially because his own intransigence rendered it correct.

His committee eventually produced a mockery of a health care bill that was neither universal nor concerned with cost controls and, when that proved itself clearly flawed, he fell back on his fetishization of bipartisanship and mused about a joint Dole-Moynihan bill. Of course, Dole was running for president, everyone knew the right had sworn to end his candidacy if health care reform passed, and no one was under any illusions that the majority leader was going to hand Clinton a legislative of victory right before he challenged him for the White House. But Moynihan held out some hope, didn't push hard for any other plans because of it, and was predictably disappointed when Dole ignored the whole thing so he could knife Clinton. Given all that, Hillary's offense was a piddling misstep, it was Moynihan who poisoned the well.