Editorial: Burton blunders are neverending

Friday, May 8, 1998 | 10:35 a.m.

When it comes from Rep. Dan Burton. The Indiana Republican is chairman of the House panel investigating 1996 campaign fund-raising practices who displayed his lack of leadership recently by calling President Clinton a "scumbag."

Burton got into even more hot water last week, releasing transcripts of jailhouse conversations involving Clinton's former associate attorney general, Webster Hubbell. At the time the transcripts were released, Burton failed to mention he omitted favorable material about Hubbell. In an effort at damage control, Burton sent House Republicans a letter Wednesday acknowledging he shouldn't have deleted material from the Hubbell transcripts. "I want to apologize to you if this matter has caused you any embarrassment," Burton wrote.

For most politicians, this would put an end to the controversy. But this is Dan Burton. According to the Associated Press, the Hubbell tapes came up at a closed door meeting of congressional Republicans on Wednesday. One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Gingrich told other legislators that everyone was embarrassed about the handling of the tapes. Burton, though, disagreed, chiming in that he wasn't embarrassed.

"Well, you should be embarrassed," Gingrich responded. When Gingrich is chastising others for bad judgment you can be assured that their conduct must be shameful. Although Gingrich scolds Burton in private, publicly he has stood by his man. If Gingrich himself was not playing partisan politics on this issue, Burton would have been removed from his chairmanship a long time ago. Considering Burton's inappropriate actions, he is hardly the man to conduct a fair and impartial investigation.

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