Well, yeah. Like I said before, though, that’s just politics. And when this sort of thing recedes into history, the Democrats (and also the Republicans) will face the same larger issues as before when they try to build their parties.
Yes, but:
-Who thinks Fitzgerald was impartial?
-Who thinks Ken Starr was impartial?
Whether you believe Clinton ought to have been impeached is beside the point right now. I doubt anyone would deny that Clinton’s legal troubles were precipitated in large part by partisan politics.
Are Libby’s troubles similarly precipitated? If so, how?
Daniel
I do jest.
But if thoughts don’t fall neatly on either side, what are the sides actually good for?
I don’t know if Fitzgerald is impartial or not. I was impressed with his press conference, and he didn’t “come across” as impartial. I guess we will see. Certainly some Republicans will spin the issue and characterize him as partisan whether he actually is or not. The Democrats certainly spun Ken Starr as partisan; indeed, he was characterized as “sex-starved” and “desparate”. Such is the ugly side of politics.
I didn’t view Ken Starr as partisan, but then I am a staunch Republican ideologue (and proud of it), and I highly agreed with what he was doing at the time. Only time will tell if Libby’s troubles are the result of a partisan smear, but I personally doubt it. My take is that he messed up, and he needs to be punished for it if this is truly the case. I just wish more Democrats had been as fair-minded when Clinton was being impeached under similar charges.
The problem was that the perjury was an engineered trap. He didn’t commit a crime prior to going to court. In the other two cases, there was a crime that brought them into court.
Erek
Here in lies the problem with partisanship. If you only have two parties in power, in opposition to one another, when a real crime is committed, it can be swept under the rug by charging the prosecutor with partisanship.
Erek
While I see your point, I can’t come to full agreement on this. Even conceding your point that no crime was committed, the perjury wasn’t a trap. Nobody forced Clinton to lie. He did that all by himself.
Now that I can agree with.
This is a typo, right? YOu mean that he didn’t come across as partial?
As I said, whether you agreed with what he was doing is immaterial: the question is whether anyone thinks he was impartial. To quote John Conyers:
(Note that Starr ended up not taking that university position after the uproar that erupted).
Again, I think that Fitzgerald is behaving scrupulously here; I don’t think the same could be said for Starr. If it comes out that Fitzgerald has worked for (I’m really struggling to think of a big business that Bush hasn’t supported) Penguin Books, or that he was contacting Valerie Wilson’s lawyers before being appointed investigator, or if he accepts a position from a George-Soros-affiliated university, then I’ll be very troubled.
Daniel
It may not have stopped Democrats from voting for Al Gore, but it did stop Al Gore from campaigning with Bill Clinton in 2000 (to distance himself). If Bill Clinton had not been “damaged goods”, Gore would have campaigned with him, and, given Clinton’s popularity and a prosperous 8 years, it would have been much more likely that Gore would have won the election.
September 11 would still have happened, and Gore would have responded in some way, and it is likely the electorate would not have wanted to change presidents mid-stream while in a war against terrorism (like what happened with Bush), and Gore might have won a second term.
So, eight years of a Democratic president vs a Republican president is quite a long-term difference, and would have framed the future discussion from “Why is the Democratic party in decline, since it controls none of the branches of Government?”, to, e.g., “How can the Democrats use their hold on the Presidency to win back Congress?”
The problem is that they took him to court over the Monica Lewinsky thing to begin with. They turned the courts into a tabloid. That’s the trap they lured him into, and it was cleverly sprung, because a refusal to answer would be taken as an admission of guilt, politically.
Erek
I think it was still an enduring issue in 1998 in Republican minds when they where trying to “get back” at the Democrats for Watergate by trying to impeach Clinton out of office.
What I really hope comes out of all this is that the Republicans stand up and take their party back from the wingnuts, just as the Democrats have been doing. The Green party was formed by the disenfranchised left wingnuts, and I feel that the Democratic party is better without them. Maybe if we peel off the greenshirts and the brownshirts, the country will be better off.
You have the facts a little skewed here. As of now, both what Clinton was accused of and what Libby has been charged with is perjury. While you may think it’s treason to uncover a CIA agent, the laws don’t state that and the grand jury did not think Libby broke the law by discussing Valerie Plame. He’s charged with lying, not uncovering a CIA agent.
It seems that both Clinton and Libby lied while under oath. Both those are crimes. Libby may very well serve time for his crime, as he should. Do you think Clinton should have served time, too? If not, why? Perjury is perjury, regardless of what the lie was about.
Because I think Libby should have been brought before a grand jury, and don’t think Clinton should have. I think the extenuating circumstances are important.
Erek
But I already hated Bush. I could switch to the Republicans, Libertarians, the Greens, whatever, and still despise teh Bush.
The problem is that they took him to court over the Monica Lewinsky thing to begin with. They turned the courts into a tabloid. That’s the trap they lured him into, and it was cleverly sprung, because a refusal to answer would be taken as an admission of guilt, politically.
Erek
Yes, that was a typo. I meant he didn’t come across as partial.
Well, he was already under investigation for several scandals (Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate). The Lewinsky scandal just became the focus after Lewinsky was caught lying, and was granted immunity for testifying before a grand jury about her sexual relationsip with Clinton. Naturally, since Clinton stated there was no sexual relationship with Lewinsky, he was brought before the grand jury as well. And he was found guilty of perjury.
Thank you for coming down off of the mountain with your helpful advice, Mr. Moto. I’m sure it was given with the best of intentions and no alterior motives. Frankly, after seeing the mess that your side has caused in the country, I’m becoming less and less interested in your advice as to what Democrats should and shouldn’t do. We’ll take care of the motes in our eyes ourselves, thank you very much.
So it’s OK to lie about some things but not others? Sounds like a pretty unstable foundation upon which to send people to jail. The law, however, says if you lie to a grand jury, you should to to jail. I think this is a better way of doing things than every person picking and choosing whether or not he or she thinks the grand jury is right in asking that question.
Actually, Clinton wasn’t brought into court solely to talk about the Monica Lewinsky thing. Starr was investigating the rash of scandals at the White House and this was one of the things he asked about.
Let me take an extended quote from Byron York’s article at National Review online (http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200510240847.asp)
Alright, perjury is perjury, I grant you, but this issue is far worse than anything that Clinton did, and it’s really unfortunate that partisan hacks have made it about partisan hackery rather than recognizing the extremely fucking dangerous precedent they are setting by allowing the president to get away with starting an unjust war based upon falsehoods.
George W. Bush thinks that this world is his own private playground and is increasingly being shown that he can act any way he wants, and that his name will get him out of any situation. He needs to be held accountable.
It breaks my heart to see it become an issue of partisanship, because it’s not a partisan issue.
Erek