Dan Burton, Right Again - The congressman who does the job.

Maureen Dowd called him a "looney tune." Al Hunt called him a "buffoon." James Carville called him a "kook." And the late Lars-Erik Nelson called him a "wacko."

"Obviously it hurt," says Dan Burton, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee and the target of those jabs-and many more-during the years he spent investigating the campaign-finance scandal. "But I've become impervious to pain. Every time that happened, I became more determined to press ahead and get the facts."

These days Burton is once again pressing ahead as his committee investigates the Clinton pardons scandal. But this go-round is different from years past. While some of the most avid Burton-haters are still around-just the other day Hunt called him "crazy" and "loopy"-Burton is enjoying, in many quarters, a newfound respect. Politicians who once laughed at him now anxiously watch his committee to learn the latest about Pardongate. So do some reporters who never had much use for Burton's findings. And the public seems far more concerned about Bill Clinton's misconduct than the reaction of his critics.

The result is that Burton is able to conduct his investigation without having to fend off personal attacks. For example, when Burton appeared on ABC's This Week in late February, host Sam Donaldson asked him 14 detailed questions about the pardon scandal-and not one about Dan Burton personally. The same thing happened on Meet the Press. And the New York Times editorial page, demanding an extensive congressional investigation into the pardons, wrote, "As Republican Representative Dan Burton, a man for whom this page has had scant praise, said . . . 'We think the American people would like to know how it happened.'"

That's an extraordinary change. In 1997, as Burton began to bear down on the campaign-finance issue, he faced a White House eager to use all its intimidating strength against him. When he tried to prod attorney general Janet Reno into mounting a real investigation, the Justice Department instead announced that it was investigating Burton. A Democrat who worked as a lobbyist for the government of Pakistan accused Burton of trying to shake him down for campaign contributions, and even though there was nothing to support the charge, the Justice Department launched a formal probe.

The news gave White House spinners the opportunity to denounce the Burton investigation as tainted. Press coverage followed-the investigator himself was under investigation. And that is where Burton remained until the administration's final week in office, when he received a letter saying the case had been closed for lack of evidence. "They waited until the last breath of Janet Reno before they sent it over," he says.

It was in 1998 that Burton made real breakthroughs. After months of painstaking effort, his staff pieced together the story of the now- infamous 1992 limousine ride in which Indonesian moneyman James Riady pledged $1 million to then-candidate Bill Clinton. Burton's investigators followed the complex series of contributions that ensued as Riady made good on his pledge by laundering payments to the Democratic party through a long list of straw donors.

Burton's progress came without the cooperation of the White House or any key witnesses. "The investigation was mostly subpoenaing records and tracking information," recalls Barbara Comstock, chief counsel for the committee in 1998 and 1999. "That was the only solid evidence that wouldn't lie to us or take the Fifth." In the end, the FBI and the Justice Department's campaign-finance task force used a lot of evidence first uncovered by Burton's team, and Riady, along with John Huang, Charlie Trie, Johnny Chung, and several others, pleaded guilty to various campaign-finance violations.

But Burton faced tremendous opposition. His progress-quiet and mostly unreported in the press-came as the Monica Lewinsky scandal consumed Washington. And even though Burton didn't lead the charge on the Lewinsky issue-he mostly stayed away from it-he was targeted by a White House desperate to discredit any and all Clinton critics. In early September 1998, after a writer for Vanity Fair spent months investigating his life, Burton was forced to acknowledge that he had fathered a child with a woman with whom he had an extramarital affair in the early 1980s. Burton, who had long since told his wife, decided to make the news public himself rather than let the damaging revelation come out in the magazine.

The congressman was, by all accounts, anguished and embarrassed-and determined to go on. But the damage to his investigation was real: Dan Burton, who once famously called Bill Clinton a "scumbag," was just another Republican hypocrite.

When he wasn't dealing with the White House and the Justice Department, Burton had to contend with the man who sat next to him on the Government Reform Committee, ranking Democrat Henry Waxman. "This committee has been discredited by a series of mistakes, bad judgment, partisan overreaching, and extremism," Waxman said at one campaign- finance hearing. "Someone told me our committee has become the congressional equivalent of the crazy aunt in the attic."

"Waxman would do everything in his power to undermine and stonewall the investigation," says David Bossie, the tough investigator who played a key role in the campaign-finance probe. "There's probably no worse relationship in Congress than the one between Waxman and Burton"- something that was clear to anyone who spent even a half-hour at the committee's hearings.

Now things are different. At the first hearing into the pardon of Marc Rich, Waxman offered just a few anemic criticisms of Clinton's enemies and then joined Burton in blasting the former president's decision. "Think about it for a minute," Waxman said. "One week Marc Rich is on the Justice Department's list of the ten most wanted, and the next week, he's given a presidential pardon. This makes no sense." Dan Burton couldn't have said it any better.

Why the change? Certainly Burton has the facts on his side in the pardons probe; the clemency given to Marc Rich, Glenn Braswell, Carlos Vignali, and others is nearly impossible to defend. But Burton had the facts on his side in the campaign-finance scandal, too, and faced unremitting hostility.

What has changed is that the pardons investigation is the first in which Burton has been able to investigate Bill Clinton without having to do battle with the Clinton White House. A Justice Department probe, like the one Reno conducted against Burton based on the lobbyist's allegations, is a powerful weapon against political adversaries. On top of that, Clinton no longer has his fabled war room. "They had some very, very effective ways of discrediting anybody who was investigating them," Burton says. "It made it look like we were on witch hunts when we weren't."

But there are already signs that Democrats are regrouping. Rather than attack him directly, some of Burton's opponents are trying to dilute his control over the investigation by suggesting a joint House/Senate probe. And the old Burton enemies are still around. After the first pardon hearing, Maureen Dowd called Burton a "nutbag" known for his "virulent partisanship and wacko behavior." Some things don't change.

But Burton doesn't care. He'll go on investigating the pardons and let history judge his actions against those of the Clintons. "He always said that in the end, we will be seen as having done a good job," remembers one aide. "And they will be seen for what they are."