It might have been a first-of-its-kind greeting at a U.S. Senate hearing.
“Welcome, venerables. It’s good that you’re here,” declared Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), whose alternately bubbly grin and vampire intensity suggest a man who might at any moment take out a machine gun and blow away half his subdivision (“Such a quiet man,” shocked neighbors would tell reporters).
The Senate investigation of 1996 campaign abuses had come to this: Republicans relying on three Buddhist nuns, who all take the title “venerable,” to sink the Clinton administration.
And paper-shredding Buddhists at that!
The three women, who wore wire-rimmed glasses, flowing robes and short-cropped hair suggesting treks to the Sinead O’Connor Hair Salon, are with the Los Angeles branch of the Taiwan-based Fo Kuang Shan Buddhist order.
They were there because of an unseemly April 29, 1996, gathering at the Hsi Lai Temple attended by Vice President Al Gore. Lots of money was raised before and after the visit, with the GOP now seeking to muddy Gore because campaign finance laws might have been violated.
Evidence about Gore’s knowledge is underwhelming but should not elicit substantial sympathy. At minimum, the nuns’ tale underscores Gore’s active involvement in a smelly system, which he and his boss, President Clinton, adroitly exploit.
According to an opening statement by the nuns, their order, which does not take a vow of poverty, believes that grasping and spreading the spirit of Buddhism is achieved by “supporting the elderly, orphanages, summer camps, charity homes and free medical clinics.”
They might have added “by supporting pillars of righteousness like Al Gore, the first politician, lest we forget, to smear Michael Dukakis with the race-laced Willie Horton business during the 1988 New York presidential primary.”
Senate hearings never leave much to chance. Most everything is scripted, even the questions yuppie aides give their bosses to read aloud.
It’s why the nuns were so refreshing in declaring that they had obstructed justice. It was a surprise to the same senators who granted them immunity in exchange for their taking part in this Kodak moment.
More Top Picks Best Night Lights For Kids
Sadly, the spirit of Buddhism did not prevent the nuns from either making out checks to “DNC” when they didn’t know what it stood for or junking germane records. Fiddling with files followed October 1996 news reports of a temple gathering Gore refuses to call a fundraiser but, rather, “donor maintenance,” which aimed to thank old friends and “cultivate” new ones.
If you don’t get the difference between “fundraiser” and “donor maintenance,” you’re an outside-the-Beltway rube who should get out another six-pack and turn on the World Wrestling Federation.
The first to fess up was the vulnerable Yi Chu, the temple treasurer whose actions suggested a Buddhist Fawn Hall, given their similarity to those of Oliver North’s document-ditching secretary.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.): If I may now, Venerable Yi Chu, I believe later this morning you also indicated that you destroyed some documents relating to the April 29th event at the temple. Could you just tell us briefly again what these documents were?
Yi Chu: Things like check applications that I receive.
Lieberman: Check applications? What does that mean?
Yi Chu: For monastics who would come to me to cut checks for them, they would have to fill out a form detailing their purpose of the expense and that kind of stuff. And I destroyed those forms.
Lieberman: And again, did you testify this morning that you took this action on your own without being advised to do so by anyone?
Yi Chu: Yes.
(Later)
Lieberman: OK. So let me just put it to you this way, and I do so respectfully–for someone who has testified here today that she did not have particular knowledge of the election laws or, understandably, are not a sophisticated student of the tax laws, this was a very informed and sophisticated response, in some sense an attempt to cover . . . or it appears to be an attempt to cover up a mistake, a wrongdoing, perhaps a crime.
Yi Chu: I really didn’t know what I, what I did would amount to. But at the time, I really didn’t know what to do. And I didn’t know how to do it in the right way.
– – –
Though she also was a paper-shredder, the vulnerable Man-Ho , the temple’s administrative officer, deserves kudos for her response to the brainy but long-winded and generally mean-spirited Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).
Specter launched into an approximately 1,100-word question to Man-Ho, showing early signs of threatening Fidel Castro’s (indoor) record for public rambling. Here’s how it mercifully came to a close.
Specter: But as Venerable Man Ya commented, that she had given the inaccurate version to the reporter who called, and has explained it as she has, not wanting to make the statement, the question that comes to my mind, and I’ve asked of you, Venerable Man-Ho, and not try to drag it out, is the suggestion or the inference that it was more than a casual matter that the list of devotees was thrown away or that the documents were destroyed or the checks were added, or that inaccurate statements were given.
And I’m just wondering whether the people who set up this event really used you very badly, putting you in the middle of a very unpleasant situation, whether there was some effort on their part to try to hide all of this, so that it couldn’t be found out at a later time, like the donation or the loan added to the check or the records being destroyed, that sort of thing.
Can you help us on that, Venerable Man-Ho?
Man-Ho: I’m sorry, would you please repeat your question again?
– – –
A reminder of the wondrous spontaneity of political life came during the next day’s session, via a document of “talking points” prepared by Gore’s staff for his address to the notorious temple luncheon. Here’s Point 1:
“Thank you. It’s always so nice to be in Los Angeles . . . where it’s warm. We had a tough winter back in the East. In fact, it was so cold that people who didn’t know me well thought I was frozen stiff.”
Stop it, Al, you’re killing me!
– – –
For those media bashers out there, this event provided further evidence of why you cannot trust the media. When it came to something as simple as the color of the nuns’ robes, here’s what you got:
“Light brown”–baiduhai, namely me.
“Mocha-colored” –Washington Times.
“Cinnamon” –Washington Post.
“Cinnamon” –New York Times.
More Top Picks Best Portable Saunas For Home Use
“Brown” –Los Angeles Times.
“Brown”–USA Today
– – –
OK, a serious summary for policy wonks:
Republicans offered no new evidence of foreign money coming into the campaign or of Clinton and Gore knowing of illegal contributions or money laundering.
Even so, it was a bad week for Gore, the Buddhists’ testimony combining with the Justice Department starting to look into his fundraising phone calls from the White House. A self-styled Mr. Clean is no longer positioned above the fray.
His defense on the temple event, which seems largely semantical, is too nuanced for its own good, as one was reminded by an internal Democratic National Committee document.
It was an audit of contributions returned as of Nov. 22, 1996. In a city of doublespeak, it charitably offered this simple explanation for why one $5,000 contribution from the temple was belatedly returned.
“It was a temple, you idiot!”