The Latest in Second-Term Scandals - New York Times

The Latest in Second-Term Scandals - New York TimesOctober 30, 2005
History
The Latest in Second-Term Scandals
By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 - White House scandals in the second term of presidencies have become the rule.

Dwight D. Eisenhower's chief of staff was forced from office by accusations of corruption. Richard M. Nixon resigned over Watergate. Ronald Reagan's White House was embroiled in the Iran-contra scheme. Bill Clinton was impeached over his deceptions regarding an affair with a White House intern.

But President Bush's situation is different in several respects.

Most important, from Mr. Bush's perspective, he is the first second-term president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to have both houses of Congress controlled by his own party. The other scandals were driven, at least in part, by Congressional investigations. This Congress is unlikely to investigate this president.

On the other hand, except for Nixon, the other second-term presidents in the last half-century mostly maintained their popularity even as the scandals were unfolding.

At his low point, in the spring of 1958, Eisenhower's handling of the presidency was approved of by 48 percent of the public and disapproved of by 36 percent, a Gallup poll showed. At the end of his term, Eisenhower's approval rating had climbed to 59 percent.

In February 1987, as the Iran-contra scandal was breaking, 42 percent of those questioned in a New York Times/CBS News poll approved of Reagan's presidency, with 46 percent disapproving. It was the only month of his second term when a plurality was against him. By summer, his approval rate had climbed above 50 percent, and it was 60 percent when he left office.

Mr. Clinton's approval rating in his second term never fell below 55 percent, and it was 68 percent at the end of his presidency.

Mr. Bush is faring much worse. A Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll taken last weekend found Mr. Bush's approval rating to be 42 percent and his disapproval rating 55 percent.

Another difference is that I. Lewis Libby Jr. is the first high-ranking White House official in many decades to be indicted while still in office. Plenty of top White House staff members from other administrations have been indicted, including H. R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman from the Nixon White House and Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, who was Reagan's national security adviser, but they all resigned long before they were indicted.

The last sitting White House staff member to be indicted may have been Orville Babcock, Ulysses S. Grant's private secretary, who was charged in 1875 with a group of whiskey distillers in a conspiracy to defraud the government of taxes.

In 1973, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned as part of a plea bargain on accusations of corruption in which he avoided a felony indictment. And in 1984, Reagan's labor secretary, Raymond J. Donovan, was indicted on a grand larceny charge that involved the construction business he owned before entering the government. Mr. Donovan took an unpaid leave of absence and resigned the next year. Ultimately, he was acquitted.

Except for Nixon, the two-term presidents in the last 50 years took successful steps to get their presidencies back on track after the scandals broke.

In 1958, Eisenhower's seemingly indispensable chief of staff, Sherman Adams, was forced to resign after it was revealed that he had interceded with federal agencies on behalf of a businessman who had given him gifts. With the economy struggling to recover from a recession, Republicans lost 48 seats in the House and 15 in the Senate in the midterm elections. Eisenhower called the year, his sixth in office, the worst of his life.

But his wartime associate Maj. Gen. Wilton B. Persons, who was named to succeed Mr. Adams, proved to be a competent chief of staff. Eisenhower focused on foreign affairs and took several trips abroad. The Adams scandal was soon old news.

"The president was still Ike, and the presidency went on," said Stephen Hess, who was a young White House aide in Eisenhower's second term and is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

In the throes of the Iran-contra scandal, Reagan brought in a new top staff. He made Howard H. Baker Jr., the Senate Republican leader, his chief of staff and A. B. Culvahouse the White House counsel.

Mr. Baker demanded resignations of White House staff members and put trusted aides from his Senate staff in charge of operations.

Mr. Reagan gave a speech taking responsibility for the Iran-contra affair, and his popularity began to rise.

Then Mr. Reagan turned to foreign policy. He made his famous speech in Berlin demanding that the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev "tear down this wall," and presided over the beginning of the end of the cold war.

Mr. Clinton also turned to foreign policy after the Senate refused to convict him on impeachment charges. He traveled to China, negotiated a peace accord between Israelis and Palestinians and fought a successful war in Kosovo.

"The president proved that he clearly had the whip hand on foreign policy," said John D. Podesta, his last chief of staff.

In domestic policy, Mr. Clinton was strong enough to beat back Republican tax cuts and other policies advanced by Newt Gingrich, the Republican speaker of the House.

In the last 100 years, said Lewis L. Gould, author of "The Modern American Presidency," "there has not been one good second term."

But except for Nixon's, they did not end in disasters either.