May 8 - 10, 1998

Fool on the Hill
Dan Burton wants to bring down Bill Clinton in the worst way. That's exactly how he's going about it.

Dan Burton thinks the White House bugs his phone. Dan Burton is so convinced Vince Foster was murdered that he brought a pistol into the backyard of his Indiana home and reenacted the crime -- reportedly with a pumpkin standing in for Foster's head. Dan Burton is so afraid of catching AIDS that he brings his own scissors to the House barbershop and refuses to eat soup at public restaurants. But the man who will do or say anything to nail Bill Clinton suddenly has the worst problem a paranoiac can have: He keeps making more enemies. And they're not just Democrats anymore.

Dark Star: For Dan Burton, something always lurks in the shadows. KHUE BUI/AP

Burton, as the head of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight investigation into Clinton's 1996 fundraising practices, had always been an easy political target. Here was a man that the Justice Department was after for shaking down a lobbyist, a man who denounced Fidel Castro as a "tyrant" while receiving contributions from a lobbyist for African kleptocrat Mobutu Sese Seko. Burton's opponents called him partisan, hypocritical, corrupt, and just plain crazy. (The comedic highlight, however, would not come until the start of hearings months later, when a DNC staffer showed up at the House wearing a pumpkin suit and buttons that said "Don't shoot.") But Burton, faced with new responsibility, swore up and down that he'd behave.

Back in November, Newt Gingrich had tried his best to believe that. "He's not leading a vendetta," Gingrich said in his colleague's defense when the committee's hearings opened. "He's not trying to get anybody." But six months later, Burton told the editorial board of the Indianapolis Star: "If I could prove 10 percent of what I believe happened, (Clinton would) be gone. This guy's a scumbag. That's why I'm after him."

Burton followed that with a dreadful George Costanza-style stunt . . . (continued)