George R. Packard
President, International University of Japan;
Director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, President, U.S.-Japan Foundation
George R. Packard was dean of SAIS from 1979 to 1993 and is now director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies as well as professor of East Asian studies at the school. He is also president of the International University of Japan. From 1965 to 1967, he was chief diplomatic correspondent for Newsweek. Prior to that, he served as special assistant to U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer. In March of 1998, he was appointed president of the U.S.-Japan Foundation.
Packard Report - Feb. 1998
The nation's capital has been plunged into a new and unexpected crisis with the revelations that President Clinton may have had an affair with a young intern and then asked her to lie about it under oath.
One week ago I would have given him a 50-50 chance to survive this crisis. Today (February 5) I give him no better than a 40-60 chance of survival. In other words, I do not believe that he will serve out his full four-year term, and I think Al Gore may succeed him sooner rather than later.
Critics of this view cite the public opinion polls which have shot upwards since his State of the Union address last week. Nearly 70% of the American people appear willing to forgive and forget, mainly because of the robust economy.
But I predict this will change dramatically when the public gets more information about the affair. There are too many questions to answer, too many witnesses ready to tell all, and too many hours of tape recorded conversations of Monica Lewinski. There is no way to plug up the holes which are rapidly spreading through the dike of silence erected by the White House.
What is truly devastating for the President, even more than the trickle of daily tidbits of salacious news, are the jokes circulating everywhere, from offices to homes to internet chat rooms. The President is being made to look ridiculous, and no American will tolerate for long a leader who has lost his dignity or besmirched the magnificent image we have of the White House and its majestic history.
So look for rapid developments in the next few weeks. Look for Monica Lewinski to tell all and eventually write a book. Look for Charlie Trie, Clinton's Chinese friend from Little Rock, Arkansas, to implicate higher officials of the Democratic Party and maybe Clinton himself in raising illegal campaign contributions from Chinese interests.
Of course the one trump card Clinton has is a protracted battle with Iraq, in which he can stand tall as Commander-in-Chief of U.S. military forces. And he will play this card, maybe even as soon as three weeks from now. This is a serious foreign policy problem, and almost any other president would probably bomb Iraq. But it is hard to see how this will do more than postpone the inevitable day when all the facts about his affair come pouring out, and the media will have a field day exposing all the sordid details.
Humor can be deadly in America, and it may well spell the end of the Clinton Administration.
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