Bushwater

Great Debates
1

I personally wasn’t thrilled with the media circus fashion in which the Clinton Whitewater scandal was handled. I even think the Republicans blew themselves up. I think there was something worth investigating, indictable crimes. The Republicans should have played it down. dropped the rhetoric and let a quiet investigation determine the next move.

There were some pretty strong cries of outrage from Clinton supporters, decrying the media circus, and kangaroo court atmosphere of what seemed a trial of public sentiment. It was hard to ignore the legitimacy in those cries of foul. Personally, I think Clinton made his own bed as far as Lewinsky was concerned, but Whitewater was another matter.

So, here we are with a Republican President in office, and it seems to me that with the harken scenario many are trying to manufacture a Whitewater scenario against Bush basically out of whole cloth.

I suppose the beleif is that turnabout is fair play.

I disagree:

Whitewater at least had the possibility of producing indictable cases against Clinton and others. The Harken scenario does not.

Bush’s insider trade of Harkens shares stocks was thoroughly investigated by the SEC which concluded that they did not believe there was a case against Bush as the information in question was not material, Bush had sought counsel and advice before his sale to make sure it was legal and ethical, and been informed that it was, the sale was part of a preexisting plan, and that the information in question could not have been in Bush’s posession at the time of the sale simply because it hadn’t come into existance yet.

To engage in an illegal insider trade one must posess material nonpublic information and act on it.

Bush did not posess the information. It was not material, and his preexisting plan means it would be difficult to argue that he was acting on it.

That’s the substance of the SECs conclusions, and in all the hype and rhetoric and attacking that’s going on nobody has addressed the fact that there is no case against Bush, and, if there were, the statute of limitations is long expired.

My conclusion for this daft ignorance of fact is that Bush’s attackers don’t really care about the substance of the allegation. It’s the allegation itself that matters, and what they can do with it.

It’s not what you can prove, it’s what you can make the other person deny.

If you say something loudly and often enough, it starts not to matter if it’s true. It gains credence by its longevity.

With Whitewater, the Republicans had a thin veneer of righteoussness on their investigation. They were investigating claims into indictable crimes.

With Bush, there can be no indictments, and there has already been a thorough investigation. If one took sincere issue with it, one would have to address the SECs conclusions and make an attempt to show why they are wrong.

And yet no one has even attempted to do this.

So, I feel pretty confident that this attack on Bush is founded on political gain, and payback and is in and of itself without substance.

But, it’s dangerous to ignore the forces of political gain and payback. They’re often stronger than the truth itself.

On the face of it, the attack seems an incredibly stupid thing to do. One day there will be another Democrat in the White House. Payback too can get paid back.

Every three year old is taught that two wrongs don’t make a right.

The Republicans could at least wonder what might come out their investigation,and let’s be truthful, we’ve had and have some squeaky clean and honest and straight shooting Democrats. Nobody was going to get anything on Jimmy Carter, and Bill Bradley is what politics should be about.

Bill Clinton was not in that class. Perhaps we can concede that there may have been something to merit in an investigation. That in no way ameliorates the irresponsible fashion in which the investigation occured, and how it was used.

It seems odd to hear the people who so vehemently shouted out about the injustce and unfairness of Whitewater now gleefully manufacturing the same type of scenario on Bush.

It’s not surprising, just odd that such barefaced hypocrisy can exist. What is sad, and surprising is that some people seem to believe their own press releases.

2

Testify, brother Scylla.

3

The issue of how thoroughly the matter was investigated has already been called into question on a number of points. Assertion is not evidence.

As to the indictment issue, is this a matter of the statute of limitations expiring? Certainly, if the original investigation was lackadaisical, the fact that an investigation had been once carried out would not prevent a new investigation.

That said, I do not favor the hounding of a sitting president for crimes not directly bearing on the exercise of power. If Bush (and/or Cheney) are guilty, the appropriate office should file whatever papers are necessary to stave off the statute of limitations and then sit back and wait until they have left office before pursuing the case.

Nixon was nailed on charges of corrupting the process of government. That was an impeachable offense. Agnew got caught in the general concern over corruption and resigned, but I would not have supported impeaching the scum as Vice-President for kickbacks taken while governor.

4

Indeed it has been called into question, but we’ve been discussing this pretty thoroughly in another thread, and I have yet to see any evidence that the investigation was not thorough and complete, and up to and exceeding the standards of the time.

Certainly I haven’t seen a serious attempt to dispute the conclusions of the investigation, and that would seem a logical place to start.

Of course.

I guess one is free to investigate something to one’s heart’s content. “What’s the point? What do we hope to show or accomplish” seems a valid question, does it not?

I would disagree. A murderer should not be given succor from the law simply because he holds political office.

I think I agree with the substance of what you say, that we should not pursue legal issues that are not serious or would not be pursued if the person in question were not holding office.

5

Yeah. I’ll give you murder, rape, armed robbery and several others. I do think that no one should be able to avoid facing their crimes just because they were able to make it to the Oval Office. I just do not believe that it serves Justice or the country to drag a sitting President through the court system for breaches of fiduciary trust or cheating on taxes or cheating on a spouse.

6

We are at the level of a conspiracy here, because if we reject the SEC report, then we have to say (to maintain that ibn Bush is a crook) that the SEC was under influence from, say, the sitting president (George non-W Bush).

Now, hey, this isn’t a conspiracy at the level of the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, and JFK assassins, but it is a conspiracy none-the-less.

The only other option is that the investigation wasn’t thorough period, just a botched job that GWB was lucky enough to slip through for totally unrelated reasons.

So we investigate the investigation in either case to find out if we should reinvestigate GWB for matters we couldn’t do anything about anyway.

The alternative is just to reinvestigate GWB on the grounds that he has documents which could exonerate him and it is in the public interest WRT ongoing accounting scandals that we know. Though it remains unclear to me how this will matter one way or the other. If the reinvestigation happened and it turned out the SEC was covering things up and Bush was a crook, I don’t see what is going to happen other than Bush’s administration working to correct the problem in government now as well as corporate America.

IOW, the information seems to serve no purpose to me, and seems to be a scandal brought to light only for the sake of scandal.

7

tomndeb:

Agreed.

8

I have some limited experience with the SEC, and my personal observation is that they are quick to examine a potential impropriety and just as quick to drop it. I don’t know if it was the practice of the time, but these days you can regularly find notices in the Federal Register which clear dozens of names at a time. Examination is by no means an indicator of guilt. The look-and-drop of GWB’s case seems completely consistent with my own observations, and I personally interpret it to mean that there was nothing worth further investigation.

But, Congress appears to have the power to impeach for transgressions which have long since fallen outside of the statute of limitations. That might mean that old dirt is still good dirt.

If I could give a word of advice to my fellow Dems, I’d recommend they get their noses out of the President’s mediocre past and instead start paying closer attention to what the Bush Administration is doing right now. Why is the Department of the Interior so adamant about allowing a foreign company to strip-mine an American Indian sacred site, with virtually no profits returned either to the tribe, the state, or the federal government? So far, we don’t know, and nobody cares.

We’re hunting the fox without guarding the henhouse.

9

The thing that people are forgetting is that the scandal mongering and smear tactics didn’t help the Republicans. Yes, the Democrats are salivating to get down into the mud. But should they be? It seems to me that the impeachment crisis hurt the Republicans far more than it hurt Clinton.

Yes, if you can prove that Bush commited actual crimes that average people can understand, then you’ve got something. But complicated business, even if they turn out to have been illegal, probably aren’t going to do anything. I don’t think scandal-mongering is going to turn out to be a viable strategy for getting rid of sitting office holders. The time to bring this up is before the elections.

10

So what? That you don’t see evidence means nothing, you demonstrated nothing quite so well in that thread as your willingness to dismiss any evidence that didn’t support your conclusions.

Many of us DO see sufficient evidence to question the SEC conclusion. Most importantly that their investigation was cursory, and that it was run by Bush partisans, and that it failed to come to a conclusion, it simply ended.

11

I disagree. I think we’re pointing out the bushy tail, the big ears and the sharp teeth to the people who think that henhouse guard is a fine lookin’ little rooster.

12

Tejota:

I apologize. After nine pages of asking and looking, I seem to have missed the part where the evidence was presented that the SECs investigation was improper.

Please do me the great favor or linking or copying those posts presenting this evidence, so that I may see it, acknowledge my wrong, and apologize to all concerned.

13

Maybe we can have more catfish, too!

14

Tejota’s point is that the investigation looks cursory to some people, and that your opinion that it was not, while quite vehemently presented, merely serves to counter that impression rather than to refute it. And the fact that all or most SEC investigations are equally cursory does not constitute vindication for Mr. Bush in all eyes.

[aside to erl]
So far, you’re the only one who’s brought up catfish in this thread. Proud?
[/aside]

15

xeno:

I see. So somehow the fact that the investigation appears similar, regular, and appropriate when compared to other investigations is a disturbing piece of evidence pointing at grave irregularity?

oooookayyyyy.

16

**

Yeah. Some have said that. They haven’t said why. If you raise the issue need more than a simple statement that it looks that way.

I don’t really call that evidence.

On the contrary a declarative assertion requires nothing more than another declarative assertion to refute it. The fact that I actually gave reasons probably helped, too

I know what you mean. My two year old looks at a chicken and says “look at the ducky,” I say “No, that’s a chicken. See, it has little feet and goes “cluck cluck,” not “quack quack,” and it doesn’t swim. It’s a chicken.” She says “No. It’s a duck.”

Fortunately my daughter, being only two years old will outgrow her ignorance.

That’s her excuse.

E][aside to erl]
So far, you’re the only one who’s brought up catfish in this thread. Proud?
[/aside] **[/QUOT

17

You have that backward. Whitewater began as a legitimate investigation into possible wrongdoing. But when no evidence of wrongdoing was found, it then morphed into a Witchhunt. If whitewater had turned up something, or if Starr had shut down the investigation after whitewater turned up empty, then there would have been no public backlash.

The backlash came from the overreach, from prosecutorial misconduct, and from the fact that the investigation went so long without either finding something actionable or shutting down. And finally, and most importantly, from the pretense that they were acting only from the highest motives. Americans will tolerate a rogue far better than a hypocrite. The pubby’s showed themselves to be hypocrites of the first order by the pius way the handled impeachment. that’s where the backlash came from.

Whole cloth? Not hardly, evidence of bad behavior by Bush is circumstantial, but compelling. The undisputed facts at this point show that Bush was repeatedly given money for failing. Now that may be normal where you work, but it certainly shouldn’t be. The pattern of pay for failure all by itself is suspicious enough to warrant an investigation. You keep wanting to make this entirely about Harken, perhaps because that’s the one part of this that you believe you can point to and say “See - no laws broken here!”. But Harken is only part of the pattern. There’s also Arbusto, Bush Exploration, Spectrum 7, Rangers stadium.

Well, yes. In politics it is. Or do you think that dirty tricks should be reserved for republicans? But this isn’t turnabout. No-one is
asking for a special prosecutor. They are asking for full disclosure of the details of Bush’s questionable behavior and the
past investigation.

with your own strawman, yep.

Agreed. So? Unindictable isn’t the same thing as honest.

Bullshit. this is pure spin of your own devising. The investigation was not thorough. You don’t know anymore than we do what information Bush had, though you assume a lack of information on his part that is contradicted by his job title, one of his co-directors, and common sense. The sale was NOT part of a pre-existing plan, we know this because Bush signed a six month lockout during the time period you claim he was planning to sell. And the ‘information’ that Bush didn’t have (that the SEC would rule the Aloha sale bogus) wasn’t the only possible insider information.

But all of this is moot, because it is of no consequence whether or not Bush is technically guilty of the crime of insider trading. The statute of limitations is passed anyway. The issue before us now is political, not legal. The question is about basic honesty and fair dealing, and NOT about hypertechnical analysis of legal issues. For the same reason people could widely believe that Clinton had lied under oath for statments that could never have been successfully prosecuted as perjury, so too Bush can be widely believed to have defrauded his investors for behavior that is within the bounds of the law.

In fact even more so, what is truly appalling about the fraudulent behavior going on at Enron (for instance), is that most of it was legal. Which is why your take on harkengate is so profoundly misguided.

No, you simply mistake the issues. There is probably no legal case against Bush, certainly not for Harken, probably not for the Rangers. But that doesn’t mean that this inquiry is of no consequence. To the contrary, it is of the highest consequence. Because Bush is in a position to help define what is legal and what is not. When there comes to be a large disparity between what is commonly thought of as fair and right, and what is legal. Then it is time to change the laws.. And yet, it is pretty clear from looking into the way Bush acuired his wealth (notice that I don’t say earned), that he isn’t very likely to recognise that the laws need fixing.

In fact, it’s highly unlikely that he will ever see that need, because to do so would be to admit to himself that he didn’t earn his fortune. Very, few people are capable of the level of self examination necessary to see the wrong in their own behavior. I suggest, that at 56 years old, Bush’s very sanity depends on not being able to see the basic unfairness in his wealth acquisition. And so, he simply cannot help but be a foe to the sort of reforms necessary to return trust to the market.

Starr’s investigation began as a legal investigation and turned into a character asassination (and failed at both). What is truely odd is that you would claim that because Starr overreached, one should always assume that an investigation into a president’s past is a partisan exercise. This is very convenient for you, since every republican president since Nixon has been corrupt. It takes a certain kind of genius to claim that the republican’s misuse of the power of the special investigator precludes the democrats from ever investigating honestly. Bravo, Scylla, you’ve outdone yourself.

I gotta hand it to you, Scylla you are truely a gifted rhetorician. Merely by drawing your (false) analogy between the clearly partisan whitewater investigation, and the current re-evaluation of the significance of Bush’s past tends to suggest that looking into Harken et all is illigitimate.

But there are no real parallels. This is not a criminal investigation, but a moral one. There is no special prosecutor to run amock, just a public’s demand for transparency, and that they be allowed to compare his past behavior with his current rhetoric.

Like I say, you truly are gifted. It’s a shame that you choose to use that gift in service of such a small man.

18

Scylla, who in congress is calling for a special prosecutor? I did an AltaVista media search and the only name I came up with was Rep. John Conyers of Michigan. I didn’t find any major-paper editorials calling for one.

19

Who said anything about irregular? What you said, that I contradicted was that the investigation was thorough.

Once again you make shit up and then address that instead. No wonder you always think you’ve refuted everone elses arguments. :rolleyes:

The investigation was not thourough. You already admitted as much in the other thread.

Now that may be the norm for the SEC, but if it is, that says more about the inadequacy of the SEC’s typical investigation than whether or not Bush can be said to have been cleared.

They never even interviewed him, or any of the Harken officers. And yet, according to you, they investigated thoroughly and found that he had no insider information. That, my friend, is called making shit up. It’s frowned on here in the SDMB.

20

I echo the sentiments that compliment Scylla’s rhetorical skills, not to mention tenacity. Lordy, the tenacity! He would have made such a good Communist! One can almost hear him snidely rebuking the Trotskyists for thier ignorance of the inner workings of dialectical materialism.

I’m going to focus on a comparatively minor point. Scylla suggests that we should believe that the fact that the investigation took a year before it was halted (or before it came to a conclusion of absolute and utter exoneration and innocence) is to be taken as substantial proof of thoroughness.

Hogwash. You never heard of foot-dragging?

Just try to imagine the hearty enthusiasm of a SEC bureaucrat, offered the opportunity to investigate the President’s son! Boy, I’ll bet that sure looked like a golden career move, huh? Yesiree, Bob, you help embarass a sitting Republican president, and your status in the business community is assured! Nothing but blue skies and sunshine after that!

Does it somehow fly in the face of reason to suspect that an investigation into the President’s son will be conducted in much the manner of porcupine sex: gingerly.

And, given what we know of human nature, why is it so difficult to conceive that the investigation was cursory?