Passing through an airport last weekend with time on my hands, I was tempted into an unnatural act: purchasing the New York Times. My interest was piqued by a Page 1 story: "Under Attack, Clinton Gets No Cover From Party." Excerpts from heavyweight correspondent Adam Clymer's news story are truly ominous:

"Democrats in Congress are offering no defense of President Clinton as he struggles against one accusation of improper campaign fund raising after another. Because they think he never stuck up for them when they heeded him, financially or ideologically, or because they consider his fund-raising tactics `smelly' or `embarrassing' or `indefensible,' as three senior Democrats put it, or because they don't want to take chances, President Clinton's party isn't providing...verbal cover... .

"Democratic leaders like Sen. Tom Daschle...and Rep. Richard Gephardt...basically duck the question of why they and their colleagues don't defend Mr. Clinton... . Their silence about Mr. Clinton isn't a phenomenon they like to discuss for the record. ... But when 18 Democratic senators and House members of various regions, ideologies and seniority were offered the opportunity...without being quoted by name, they were much more forthcoming.

"`There is no personal desire of any member to help Clinton because he has never helped us,' said a veteran representative from the Middle Atlantic region. `He didn't lift a finger for us, didn't want us to win. I think he is a man without a party.' ...

"`I am not going to stick up for anyone who does what I wouldn't do,' one junior senator said.

"`It is obscene. It is embarrassing,' a veteran southern representative said.

"`The Lincoln bedroom -- that was lousy,' a veteran New England senator said."

Said New Jersey Sen. Robert Torricelli, "`I'm not going to be put in the position of defending the indefensible. And what is more, I don't believe it is appropriate for the president or vice president of the United States to directly solicit contributions through telephone calls.'

"...As a senior senator from the Middle Atlantic area said, there is `a reluctance of Democrats to be supportive, because we don't know what we're supporting.' The veteran New England senator said that Democrats feared that if they defended something today, new disclosures might embarrass them tomorrow. `If you're waiting for the next shoe to drop, the question is how many shoes a centipede has, he said. A veteran western representative said the fear was: `Make a defense today, you get burned tomorrow. They never quite get it all out. It's pretty smelly.' ..."

In 1990, President George Bush announced his intention to betray the defining promise of his successful 1988 campaign -- "Read my lips: No new taxes." This column anguished openly, observing that when the going got rough for our hero Ronald Reagan during Iran/Contra, we hitched up our ponies and galloped toward the sound of the guns. "When the going gets tough for Mr. Bush, who now is betraying his base," I observed, "who will ride to his defense?" Nobody, I opined, which is exactly what happened when the recession-whipped winds of November 1992 threatened the hapless Bush White House.

Now it is Mr. Clinton's turn. Winds whipping him bear crimes like "espionage, treason, corrupting intelligence, perjury, obstruction of justice, tampering with FBI files, conspiracy and millions in government resources for political campaigns." And as we approach our second constitutional crisis in a generation, you have it from the New York Times that his own party is headed for the tall grass.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.