THE SCRAPBOOK is no fan of the independent-counsel law. Among other dire effects, it has contributed almost as much as the O. J. trial to the alarming lawyer glut on television. Have you noticed that every network now has a seemingly endless supply of former independent counsels as commentators? Michael Zeldin -- who investigated alleged Bush administration tampering with Bill Clinton's passport files -- may be on air more than any of them. He's a producer's dream, a former independent counsel who's willing to criticize Ken Starr. A quick Nexis search shows that he's been on Today once, on Nightline at least twice, and on an array of CNN shows.
Zeldin has criticized Starr on multiple fronts. He doesn't like that Starr offered Linda Tripp immunity; he thinks Starr should have directed Tripp to the FBI; he is even bothered that Starr released a milquetoast statement responding to Hillary Clinton's claims of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."
Zeldin also seems to have more than the usual access to the inner Ken Starr. On CNN, he confidently asserted that Starr doesn't believe Clinton is " morally suitable to be president." Added Zeldin: "This is a challenge to him to essentially expose their moral deficiencies."
No doubt Zeldin's a better than average talking head. But that's not all he is. In 1995, he was a consultant to Bruce Lindsey, the White House's deputy counsel and one of Clinton's closest aides. Indeed, in July 1996 Zeldin published an op-ed piece in the New York Times defending Lindsey, who had recently been named by Starr as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Whitewater trial. Starr's decision to name Lindsey, wrote Zeldin, "smacks of politics."
We don't doubt that Zeldin's bookers are aware of this -- it's his very willingness to go after Starr that makes him a valued commentator in the Manichaean world of television punditry. Still, you'd think the connection worth noting at a time when everyone's motives are the subject of scrutiny. So far, though, none of his interviewers seems to have deemed it worthy of mention. A vast left-wing conspiracy of silence?