Burton hunting.

THE clearest indication yet that Democrats hope to decapitate the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee came on Thursday, April 10, in the Wall Street Journal -- an Al Hunt column vilifying the committee's chairman, Dan Burton (Ind.). In the media food chain, Al Hunt is in the spot closest to Washington's Democratic apparatus, feasting on its handouts. The Democratic target du jour is Burton, and so Hunt hit him for his "fringe views and theories," called one of his staffers a "wacko," and warned that a campaign-finance allegation against Burton "could prove dreadfully serious." That allegation was lodged by Democratic activist Mark Siegel, who Hunt assures his readers is a credible source.

Hunt should know. As he says (but not in this column) he "has known Mark going back twenty years to the 1976 campaign." Hunt's name pops up from time to time in Mark Siegel's filings related to his work as a lobbyist for the government of Pakistan. In one March 1993 filing, Siegel reports talking with "Albert Hunt numerous times concerning Pakistan and the ongoing deteriorating political situation." Another stipulates that "Mark Siegel, through Al Hunt . . . assisted in the arrangement of an interview for the Wall Street Journal with Kamran Shafi, Secretary to the Prime Minister of Pakistan." Hunt calls his contacts with Siegel "routine," and explains that he can't disclose all his friendships in his column because "probably 90 per cent of the people I write about I know personally."

Which, no doubt, is true. It just happens that Dan Burton isn't one of them (although Hunt was kind enough to ask him to lunch after calling him in preparing the hit piece). The eight-term Indiana congressman is the latest Republican investigating Clinton scandals to get hurt by the double whammy. First, the White House and its defenders hit any high-profile GOP critics with ethics charges of their own. Then, Washington's clubby crew of leading journalists like Al Hunt ratify the attack. Sen. Al D'Amato (R., N.Y.) has been a victim, as has Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. Burton now joins their company.

Dan Burton has his rough edges and eccentricities (he famously re-enacted the Vince Foster suicide in his backyard). But so did former House Banking Chairman Henry Gonzalez, the irascible Texan who called on both Presidents Reagan and Bush to resign and later held Whitewater hearings generally considered a partisan whitewash -- but still managed to escape Al Hunt's wrath. The difference, of course, is that Burton is a threat to the Democratic White House. He has already issued 101 subpoenas related to White House fundraising. When Democrats on his committee recently tried to strip him of the power to issue subpoenas on his own, Burton simply stood his ground.

This fearlessness is an open invitation to trouble, and Burton has gotten it in the form of Mark Siegel, the Pakistani lobbyist. The Washington Post recently reported on a July 25, 1996, memo from Siegel alleging that Burton, a staunch friend of Pakistan, threatened him when he failed to raise $5,000 for Burton's re-election campaign. According to Siegel, Burton told him that if "I knew what was good for me I'd deliver the money," then told people that Siegel would be banned from his office. Burton denies it, saying only that he asked Siegel to raise the money and that, when Siegel didn't, he expressed his chagrin to the Pakistani ambassador. No one knows who is telling the truth. But on the strength of the Siegel allegation the Washington Post -- among others -- is already calling on Burton to step aside.

But there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of Siegel's account:

-- Siegel is a long-time Democratic activist who served as executive director of the Democratic National Committee in the mid 1970s and as liaison to the American Jewish community in the Carter White House. Since the early 1970s, he has been close personal friends with fellow Maryland Democratic activist Lanny Davis, who is now point-man of the White House's scandal defense team. As recently as late 1994 -- when Davis was still in private practice -- he worked closely with Siegel representing Pakistani interests.

-- Parts of Siegel's story don't make sense. At least one of Siegel's associates corroborates his story. But the Pakistanis say they never saw Siegel's most damning piece of evidence against Burton: the July 25, 1996, memo he allegedly sent detailing Burton's "shake-down." It's unclear why, if Siegel felt that Burton was threatening his livelihood, he didn't turn to law enforcement right away. Instead, Siegel's memo did not surface until seven months later, the day before a key House vote on Burton's budget.

-- It's not clear that Burton did anything illegal. Most insiders agree that for a lobbyist making nearly half a million a year -- as Siegel was from Pakistan -- to be asked by one of his client's surest friends to raise $5,000 is hardly extraordinary. For Siegel not to be able to raise such chicken feed would be devastating commentary on his effectiveness. And no laws prohibit getting mad at a lobbyist. Hunt and others suggest that Burton violated the Hobbs Act. That law makes it illegal to extort contributions from a lobbyist through official acts -- like promising to vote a certain way on legislation. No one accuses Burton of that.

But none of this matters -- it's the political hit that Burton has already taken that is important. As one Washington observer puts it, "The Democrats are trying to prevent a 1998 blow-out. They know if this scandal has legs they have no chance of re-taking Congress in the next decade." That's why, on the scandals, there have been no significant breaks in Democratic loyalty (the Siegel memo was leaked to the Post by a Democratic congressional office). Democrats are simply aping the formula the Clinton White House used so successfully in its first term: seek and destroy critics. In August 1995 the White House distributed 12 pages of talking points attacking Resolution Trust Corporation investigator Jean Lewis, who alleged Administration interference in her Whitewater work. (After being put through the wringer by Senate Democrats, she had to be taken to the hospital for dangerously high blood pressure.)

The bigger fish the White House fried in 1995 - 96 was Al D'Amato, whose political stock drastically diminished following his tangles with the White House over Whitewater. In the media, D'Amato has become an object lesson. Even though his hearings were productive --possible hush payments to Web Hubbell were first raised there --it has become common wisdom that they were too partisan. Republicans who internalize that view, like Sen. Fred Thompson, who heads the current Senate investigation, get a pass from the media (Al Hunt reserves a nice word for him in his Burton column). Those who don't, come in for the same pounding as Burton.

Rep. David McIntosh is the sophomore from Indiana investigating the White House database scandal. The staff of the McIntosh-led Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee often meets with representatives of business and other interests to hear complaints about regulation. Lists of these meetings are sent to the full committee each month. Committee Democrats recently leaked the list to reporters from the Wall Street Journal, who checked it against a list of McIntosh contributors and wrote a breathless story about how some contributions came within a month of subcommittee meetings. Never mind that some of the amounts involved were risible (e.g., $250 from W. R. Grace) and that subcommittee staff have no idea who is or is not a McIntosh contributor. In fact, a review by McIntosh's office revealed his staff met with 44 groups in 1995 - 6 that gave more than $2 million to the Democrats.

Democrats hope such stories, no matter how flimsy, will reinforce the perception that all of Washington -- not just the White House --is corrupt. The only way to avoid the taint, apparently, is to be friends with opinion-makers. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen dismisses the notion that Web Hubbell was paid hush money. Why? "I do know some of the others who supposedly arranged this hush money," he writes. "It's not conceivable they would knowingly participate in this kind of conspiracy." On the CNBC show Hardball, U.S. News publisher Mort Zuckerman recently agreed: "I think anybody who knows Erskine Bowles or Mack McLarty could not ascribe to them a criminal intent to try to obstruct justice." Accordingly, if Burton wants to call off the attack dogs, he need only do two things: 1) forget about all those White House subpoenas; 2) accept Al Hunt's invitation to lunch.