<p>Just who are these Clinton haters, and why do they loathe Bill
and Hillary with such passion?
</p>
<p>By Nina Burleigh/Washington--With reporting by Julie Grace/Chicago and David Seideman/New
York
</p>
<p> The tune over the radio in Chicago was familiar: the Doobie
Brothers' Black Water from back in 1975. The lyrics, however,
were a bit more current:
</p>
<p> Oh Whitewater,
</p>
<p> Keep stonewallin'
</p>
<p> Bill and Hillary
</p>
<p> Just keep on lyin' to me
</p>
<p> When talk-show host Don Wade played the song last week, congratulatory
calls flooded the station. Self-congratulatory calls, really.
The parody, a compilation of lyrics sent in by listeners from
38 states, is just the latest artifact in a "We loathe Bill
and Hill" movement that spews out everything from bumper stickers
to wait-till-'96 support groups. Whitewater has thrown plenty
of fuel onto this low-burning but widespread fire. The White
House's admission that Hillary made a profit of nearly $100,000
on a $1,000 investment only further stimulates the Clintonophobes'
bile. Indeed, in Wade's compilation:
</p>
<p> If they indict, we don't care
</p>
<p> Don't make no difference to us,
</p>
<p> Still got those sweet cattle futures back home.
</p>
<p> Yeah, we can make another hundred grand,
</p>
<p> With just a few bucks down...
</p>
<p> Just how many people don't like Clinton, no matter what he does?
Around 25% to 30% of the population, a range that has remained
steady since the beginning of his presidency in 1993. Pollsters
call those statistics "high negatives," and they appear to be
impossible to overcome. (Clinton's general approval ratings
have climbed recently, rising to 59%, according to the Los Angeles
Times.) Republicans, as expected, make up the bulk of Clinton
haters. But apart from obvious partisans, the group includes
the Christian right and apolitical citizens who just don't like
the cut of the President's jaw. In fact, say pollsters, some
of the most intensely negative reactions to Clinton come from
Americans who are his generational peers. According to Democratic
pollster Michael McKeon, these are struggling and rebellious
types who don't like what Clinton represents: high-achieving,
highly educated fellow boomers who got ahead in life and left
them behind. "They're guys who didn't like him way back when,
when he was in the honor society in high school and they were
working at McDonald's. He was part of everything they hated."
Says conservative pollster John McLaughlin (no relation to the
pundit): "He really polarizes baby boomers. If they don't like
him, they see him as a peer they never really liked. It's his
own generation that feels about him in personal terms."
</p>
<p> One of those peers is Bill Reishtein, 41, a Chicago ad executive,
who says Clinton is "betraying a generation." Adds Reishtein,
who opposed the Vietnam War: "I consider him a Richard Nixon
without perspiration. Clinton has such strong communications
skills, it's almost worse." Talk-show host Wade says he knows
what makes his listeners' blood boil. "Clinton has this inability
to tell the whole truth. He knows how to skate the issue--`I didn't break any laws, I didn't inhale'--through rhetoric."
</p>
<p> Meanwhile, to the religious right, Clinton is practically the
Anti-Christ. During the campaign, they waved placards warning
TO VOTE FOR BILL CLINTON IS TO SIN AGAINST GOD. More recently
the Virginia-based Christian Action Network called on Clinton
to "fire the four horsewomen of the apocalypse: Joycelyn Elders,
Kristine Gebbie, Roberta Achtenberg and Jane Alexander"--respectively,
the Surgeon General, who advocates condom distribution to high
school students; the National AIDS policy coordinator; the Assistant
Secretary in the Housing and Urban Development Department and
the first openly lesbian nominee to be confirmed by the Senate
for a high office; and the actress Clinton appointed to head
the National Endowment for the Arts.
</p>
<p> The First Lady draws her own share of fire. About 500 men, women
and children braved a wet, bitter wind to protest her visit
last month to Wausau, Wisconsin. BILL AND HILLARY, PREZ AND
CO-PREZ OF SLEAZE, read many of the placards. In the middle
of the crowd Constance Brockman, an apple-cheeked mother of
two, talked about why she came out in such foul weather. Brockman,
a 38-year-old homemaker, said she was worried about social ills--crime and the lack of sexual abstinence among teenagers--which she blames the Clinton Administration for exacerbating.
"The country has no morals, and they are in charge," she said.
"I fear for the lost."
</p>
<p> Two men who have benefited as professional Clinton haters are
behind-the-scenes activist Floyd Brown and conservative celebrity
Rush Limbaugh. Both profess not to hate Clinton. "We like the
President," said Limbaugh's producer, Kit Carson. "We think
he's probably a lot of fun to go out with after work--have
a few beers and chase women." Brown said he has no personal
animosity toward Clinton and only "the greatest respect for
his raw political instinct and capabilities." He explained that
he and his associate David Bossie are merely "researchers."
</p>
<p> Brown's digging, however, can be dirty and deadly for his opponents.
Brown achieved fame as creator of the infamous Willie Horton
ads used in the Bush campaign against Michael Dukakis. Now head
of the conservative, Virginia-based group Citizens United, Brown
has become a major source of Whitewater information for reporters
and, he says, congressional investigators. His group's membership
has boomed under Clinton, Brown contends. Last summer, he started
a monthly newsletter called ClintonWatch (annual subscription:
$29), which contains items ranging from Whitewater rumors and
innuendo to right-wing critiques of Clinton's agenda. In his
quest for damaging material, Brown has spent hours in Little
Rock cultivating Clinton enemies and other sources.
</p>
<p> The Arkansas branch of Clinton haters is led by two attorneys:
Sheffield Nelson, who is a Republican candidate for Governor,
and the quixotic Cliff Jackson. Both seem to harbor personal
animosity toward the President. Nelson, who lost to Clinton
in a Governor's race in 1990, was responsible last year for
bringing damaging Whitewater-related allegations to national
media attention. He also taped a conversation in which Jim McDougal,
the Clintons' Whitewater partner, accuses the President of lying
about the business venture. Jackson, who was a schoolmate of
Clinton's at Oxford, represented the two Arkansas state troopers
who told tales about Clinton's use of state employees to procure
women. Jackson later arranged for a Washington press conference
by Paula Corbin Jones, a former Arkansas state employee who
says she was sexually harassed by Clinton while he was Governor.
Although Jackson says he has urged reporters to stay away from
allegations about Clinton's sexual escapades, Jones is expected
to file a formal sexual harassment suit against the President
sometime later this month--an event the media will probably
not ignore.
</p>
<p> Other Presidents have been vilified, says historian Alan Brinkley,
but new forces are shaping Clinton's situation. "Clinton is
the first President who has generated this kind of right-wing
hatred," Brinkley said, adding that the proliferation of radio
talk shows and direct mail--two methods of communication much
used by conservatives--have changed the political landscape.
According to mail wizard Richard Viguerie, he and his fellow
conservatives regard Clinton as a "serious threat" and thus
feel justified using any material at hand to bring him down.
"It's nothing personal. Just business," Viguerie said. "But
they have a lot more material to work with. What President since
Lyndon Johnson has been so open in his sexual promiscuity? He
brings this on himself. No one has given the country, the media,
his opponents as much personal material to work with."
</p>
<p> The White House is planning a counterattack against professional
Clintonophobes like Brown, the kind who feed "the slime funnel,"
as an Administration official calls it, of negative stories
in the media. "They are very good at shepherding people around,"
said the official. "We are worried to the extent they get their
poison message into the mainstream media because there's a very
low filter for it. The American people aren't aware of the extent
to which the President's political opponents have been able
to plant stories."
</p>
<p> Historian Brinkley says Clinton has his work cut out for him
because he is young, unlike previous Presidents who had "genial,
paternalistic qualities and sunny personalities.'' Brinkley
says Clinton is also a victim of a political fact of life: he's
on the wrong side of the tolerance fence. "Liberals tend to
value tolerance highly, so there's a greater reluctance to destroy
enemies than among the right," he said. "Democrats are historically
more likely to cooperate with Republican administrations than
Republicans with Democratic administrations." With Clinton's
foes growing fiercer by the day, his problem is that Democrats
have a lot more to contend with than just Republicans.
