"Politics!" This is the rallying cry of the defenders of Bill & Hillary Clinton in the myriad scandals swarming around them like yellowjackets on a campground dumpster. Given that they are, after all, politicians, and that their accusers are politicians, and that Whitewater is taking place in the political arena, this taunt carries much less ballast than one would think. The question to be asked is "Are they guilty as charged?"

"But," say their defenders, "they haven't been charged with anything!" Which is both true and false, depending on the local context. They have yet to be publically indicted, though a sealed indictment against Mrs. Clinton reputedly sits on Kenneth Starr's desk, waiting to be activated. But that doesn't seem to register with the Clintonoids; in fact, nothing does. The Whitewater trail, which would make breadcrumbs look like T-bone steaks if it led to a Republican's doorstep, makes rice cakes look appetizing as far as Friends of Bill are concerned. To this day, they still insist that "there's nothing there."

Despite all the denials and professions and demurrals, the suspicions persist. Why? Because Clinton and his wife seem to "know" all the wrong people.

Mrs. Clinton denied ordering the Travel Office firings, and Mr. Rodham denied even knowing about them. David Watkins - not coincidentally a leading figure in the Clinton-Gore '96 re-election campaign - tried manfully to take the rap. But the first couple is intimately acquainted with Hollywood producer and travel-company poobah Harry Thomason, who wanted the Travel Office business for himself, and who met twice with the President the week before the purge, and...well, you can fill in the rest.

The First Couple deny any involvement in the shady dealings surrounding Whitewater Development Co. (WDC) and the Castle Grande development. Yet they not only knew, but were bosom buddies with, all the other principle suspects and indictees in the affair. Both Clintons were equal partners with Jim & Susan McDougal in WDC, and profited when Mr. McDougal absorbed their share of the losses from the scam. Mrs. Clinton did interest-conflicting legal work for Mr. McDougal, including answering RTC interrogatories. Her husband talked Mr. McDougal into putting her on a $2,000 per month retainer, as well as soliciting campaign contributions from Madison Guaranty in exchange for gubernatorial "favors." The Arkansas Securities Commissioner to whom Hillary took her legal plan for recapitalizing the foundering thrift, Beverly Bassett, had been appointed by Bill only three months earlier. David Hale, the Arkansas judge who copped a plea in exchange for cooperation with Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr, was known by Clinton, who pressured him to make a "questionable" $300,000 loan to Madison, and thence to WDC.

Perhaps Mrs. Clinton did hit the jackpot in cattle futures, but she did receive "advice" from a friend, Tyson Foods Counsel Jim Blair, which proved to be almost "miraculous" in its precocity. Blair was clearly a man whose knack as a handicapper went beyond pork bellies.

But while the prosaica of Arkansas business and financial mores are getting a long-overdue national airing, the list of Clinton chums does not stop at the edges of the underworld. They also "know" a gentleman by the name of Arthur Coia, and know him very well.

Coia was all but born into organized crime. His father was regional boss of the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA), which the junior Coia joined at the tender age of fourteen, and a lifelong friend of New England mafia godfather Raymond Patriarca, a connection which, assert federal investigators, ensured the Coias' lifelong success.

When the elder Coia, then #2 official in LIUNA, was felled by a stroke in 1989, Arthur Coia bid to succeed him. He was given the post on the condition of his acquiescence to the Mafia's takeover of LIUNA's presidency. When the mob-picked president died in February 1993, Coia was named by the General Executive Board to the top spot.

A RICO investigation of LIUNA was initiated by the FBI clear back in 1988, and learned all kinds of things about how the union was being run:

--Rank & file members have no say in the internal election process. If reformers win control of a local, Coia can bury them under a mob-controlled district council.

--Local bosses, like Dominick Lopreato of Hartford, CT, regularly take bribes to mismanage union pension funds and invest them in [Does this sound familiar?] shady real estate deals. Such schemes have drained tens of millions of dollars from pension and benefit funds, leading to the discontinuance of medical payments for members, dependents, and widows.

--Reformers who challenge the ruling order are threatened, intimidated, fired, assaulted, and sometimes, outright murdered.

Coia's primary responsibility upon assuming LIUNA's presidency was to stonewall the Justice Department's investigation to the greatest extent humanly possible. For the next two years, according to federal investigators, he did nothing to disrupt Mafia control despite numerous prosecutions and media exposes of corruption. He refused to impose a trusteeship on New York City's Mason Tenders District Council, one of LIUNA's biggest mob cesspools. Rather, he reimposed a gangster-dominated district council on Local 435 in Rochester, NY, which had been freed of Mafia control in 1986 and had been prospering under the leadership of Bob Brown, an African-American who started as a ditchdigger and built his own construction business.

Arthur Coia's most powerful allies are not Mafia capos, killers, and enforcers, however. They are Sick Willie and Mrs. Clinton.

Coia, recognizing kindred spirits when he saw them, curried favor with the incoming Clinton Administration right away. LIUNA made a $100,000 loan to the President-Elect's inauguration committee. Coia was the only major union boss to defy the AFL-CIO and back passage of NAFTA. He enthusiastically supported Clintoncare. His PAC, the Laborers' Political League, poured $1.2 million into Democratic coffers for the 1994 election. In June 1994 he hosted a ritzy DNC fundraiser that lined Democrat pockets to the tune of $3.5 million more.

Rather than openly disavow this de facto bribery, or at least keep their distance, the Clintons reciprocated warmly. He is a White House regular these days. He has shared breakfast (and God knows what else) with Hillary, attended receptions with foreign dignitaries, ridden around on Air Force One, and was named to the committee to select the site for the 1996 Democratic National Convention. Coia even goes along on campaign trips.

Clinton-Coia correspondence is equally as obeisant. "Dear Arthur," Mr. Bill wrote on 4 November 1994, "I just heard you've become a grandfather - Congratulations! Thanks for the gorgeous driver - it's a work of art. Best, Bill." Another such note not long after thanked Mr. Coia for his support of Democratic candidates and actually promised to share his views on labor with Labor Secretary Robert Reich (which would be redundant).

The same day as the aforementioned "Dear Arthur" letter, the Justice Department delivered a 212-page RICO civil suit to Coia's D.C. headquarters. It charged him and co-conspirators with employing "actual and threatened force, violence, and fear of physical and economic injury to create a climate of intimidation and fear." Coia was accused of "systematic abuse" of Laborers' rights by "intimidating [them] into silence by violence, threats of violence, economic coercion, and by the known ties of local and international union officials with organized crime." LIUNA attempts to counter and settle the suit ran up against one non-negotiable demand: "Coia has to go."

LIUNA attorneys appealed this deadlock over the heads of the Justice Department's Organized Crime and Racketeering Section to Clinton-appointee Jo Ann Harris, assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division. The demand was dropped.

Still, such was the sheer weight of the government's case that Coia and LIUNA's Executive Board had to at least make the appearance of cleaning house. But, in a pattern strongly reminiscent of the Clintons' own stalling tactics, LIUNA's defense team adopted a strategy of delay. Mafia-controlled Chicago and New York regional VPs were suspended - temporarily. An "inspector-general" post was to be created, though it would not be independent, but answer to the Executive Board.

Despite all of this, Mrs. Clinton went to Miami Beach, FL in February 1995, gave a speech to top LIUNA officials, and posed for photographs with Coia. A week later, the Justice Department caved in to Coia completely, fully allowing him to "police" his own operation. Seven months passed with (surprise!) no changes, no reforms, just business-as-usual. Finally, last September, Acting Assistant Attorney General John Keeney, a non-Clintonoid, delivered an ultimatum to Coia: give members the right to elect their officers, or we'll take over. Coia lawyer Brendan Sullivan, Jr.'s smug retort? "The decision to implement the consent decree will be made by the [PERMANENT} Assistant Attorney General" - who has yet to be named.

People are known by the company they keep. From Arkansas con-artists to avowed Mafiosos, Bill & Hillary Clinton travel in less than reputable circles, and have been for years. If they can't get their protestations of innocence to be taken seriously, it's their own damn fault.

But the weight of evidence is squarely against them.