DATE: Friday, March 28, 1997                TAG: 9703280013

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: OPINION 

SOURCE: Keith Monroe
                                            LENGTH:   80 lines

CAMPAIGN-FINANCING WILL REFORM BE ENACTED AT LAST?

When it comes to the scandal of campaign finance, it is impossible to avoid the notion that the pots and kettles are furiously blackening each other's names. Among the more laughable cases is the now famous instance of Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind.

Burton is a zealot whose crusades are often off-kilter. He's among the leading purveyors of the discredited conspiracy theory that Vince Foster was murdered. For that reason many shuddered when the House of Representatives entrusted him with the investigation of President Clinton's campaign-finance irregularities.

It was widely feared that Burton would go off the deep end and obscure real issues with fantasies. Instead, Burton has highlighted the real issue even before his investigation has begun.

It turns out the congressman is a formidable fund-raiser and an unlikely enthusiast for the interests of Pakistan. Perhaps not so coincidentally, a quarter of all his campaign contributions have come from the Sikh and Kashmiri communities in the United States. Was a quid pro quo operating - clout in exchange for cash?

A couple of memos paint an ugly picture. Burton told a lobbyist employed by the government of Pakistan to raise $5,000 for his re-election - or else. When the lobbyist failed to deliver, Burton complained to the Pakistani ambassador and threatened to withhold his favors unless the cash was forthcoming. He said he was ``owed support.''

This shameless shakedown is as blatant an instance of putting the arm on contributors as anything Clinton and Gore are accused of. It even has the foreign element to add piquancy and illegality. That doesn't excuse the Democrats, of course, but it's one more evidence that campaign finance in Washington is out of control, particularly the near bribery of unregulated and nearly unlimited soft money.

What many in Congress feared has begun to happen. The investigation into Clinton finance practices is spreading to campaign finance in general. Too many rocks are being turned over. Or, to change metaphors, a can of worms has been opened and it turns out few of the worms - Democrat or Republican - are immune to criticism or free of taint.

House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., is forced to return more than $20,000 contributed by some of the same unsavories that populate the Clinton scandals - a Charlie Trie company, John Huang, various Lippo Group executives, wives and hangers-on.

Virginia Democarts are forced to return $100,000 from a Lebanese-American oil enterpreneur who tried to buy his way into the White House and who seeks to make big pipeline deals overseas - with the help of his paid friends.

It emerges that a member of the Senate panel set to investigate Clinton, U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., received $30,000 more in campaign contributions from his in-laws than is permitted by law. The money was laundered through several conservative political-action committees, apparently to disguise the source. Or the pattern of money in from in-laws, money out to Brownback was a stunning coincidence. Call Ripley.

As Republicans criticize Democrats for selling access via White House fund-raisers, they host a ``policy forum'' offering access to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and dozens of other GOP heavyweights for $5,000 a pop.

It's a disgusting display of greed and hypocrisy on all sides. Americans are wont to sneer at foreign political cultures where baksheesh is the rule and lawmakers are the best money can buy. Pathetic Banana Republics and corrupt East Asian oligopolies earn our contempt. But now it develops our lawmakers are for sale to their fat cats as well as our own.

When the coziness, corruption and collusion get really ripe, reform has been known to happen. On at least one occasion, a crusading member of the party of loot made a stab at cleaning things up. That was Teddy Roosevelt. Is there a contemporary TR anywhere on the horizon?

A couple, maybe. Bill Bradley among Democrats comes to mind, though he has proved to be a surprisingly reluctant dragon. And then there's the estimable John McCain on the Republican side. I'd be willing to put my money, if you'll pardon the expression, on the appeal of a couple of relative Mr. Cleans after the mudbath we've been enduring.

But there's an obvious Catch-22. A reformer needs the money he abjures in order to run a winning race. T'is a puzzlement, as the king of Siam said, when he wasn't making gifts of elephants to the president of the United States in simpler days. MEMO: Mr. Monroe is editor of the editorial page of The Virginian-Pilot.

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