It was pretty dumb for Clinton to lie under oath.
But considering what he was lying about, the fuss that was made seems rather insane.
Anybody with a husband/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend, if asked in front of the entire nation about their affairs, would most likely deny it. That sort of shit is private and not for public consumption.
Yes, it was a mistake and a political miscalculation on Clinton’s part to lie about a blowjob. But, honestly, wouldn’t you?
And in the final anaylsis, isn’t it trivial to lie under oath about a blowjob, especially when compared to misleading, not under oath, about connections to Al Queda and WMD? (just curious)
What if you believed that your boss had violated your civil rights by making sexual advances toward you, and then punishing you when they were unrequited. Suppose you took the matter to court, and the judge declared that you have a right to know whether your boss had made sexual advances toward anyone else in his employ in order to determine whether he had a pattern of violating civil rights. Suppose he then lied to cover his own ass, and used his considerable power and influence to the point that you had no practical choice but to settle the case quietly for a pittance, and without his admitting any guilt.
In other words, he got away with abusing you.
You know he lied. He later admits he lied. But half the country says you got “bent out of shape” over nothing, and makes you the villain. In all honesty, I’m afraid that before you ever call me a loon again, you will need to show that you are not a loon yourself by admitting that you would be mightily pissed at your boss and all the people who trivialized what happened to you by defending him.
Except that someone else’s life and family were hanging in the balance. Covering his own ass to save himself some grief, rather than mitigating the pain that he caused someone else, was about as low as cowardice could go.
How was someone else’s life and family hanging in the balance? In other words, would you please furnish me with a cite?
And, covering your own ass when you’ve injured someone else is what the fifth ammendment is made for. Cowardly or not, our founding fathers evidently thought such ‘cowardly’ behavior was important enough to enshrine in one of our most venerated documents.
Your point is not difficult to understand. I understand the context. I understand that the Republicans were out to get him. I understand that the impeachment was politically motivated. I also understand that Clinton lied under oath and was impeached for it. I understand that saying Clinton was impeached because he got a blowjob is factually incorrect. I also understand, now, that you’re completely unable to grasp the simplest points and have no real interest in actually debating the point, an understanding, by the by, that I should have remembered from 3 years ago. Why I wasted my time with you further in this thread is the only thing I don’t understand.
Right, I’m sure she was an unwilling participant. Hell, as far as I know, she was starry-eyed and more than willing.
So what you’re saying is that rather than being handled privately, which by all accounts it was, it should have been aired for the world to see? You’re saying that making it all so public was cathartic on some odd way? Do you honestly think that the family is better off now, having had Bill’s sexual fuckups come to light in the most brutal and ruthless way that this “family hanging in the balance”, was saved?
Oh please. Surely even you cannot for a minute swallow your own justification for the tarring of Bill Clinton.
If I cheat on my wife, is it better to send out a press release, or start a thread here, or announce it to my friends and family at a dinner party? Or would it be better to mitigate the damage and get a jump on counseling all involved and trying to settle the mistake made?
Oh for pete’s sake, Liberal, feel free to join the real world at any time. She was never punished for whatever happened. There is, in fact, some doubt as to whether she was as unwilling a participant as she claimed. You may note that the judge dismissed the case even after the blowjob was out in the open.
Her case was financed by the Rutherford Institute, very much an anti-Clinton organization (and which eventually received a piece of her settlement), after her first lawyers abandoned her because she refused a settlement. I would suspect that her lawyers were very much aware of the merits of her case, and knew that a court case would go nowhere.
I have no reason to believe that Paula Jones is any more truthful than any of the other players in this sordid affair.
And I may, of course, call you a loon whenever my little heart desires, regardless of your pathetic attempt to impose hurdles for me to jump first.
Oh, sure, I understand what you mean. I mean, maybe she wore pretty dresses and make-up like any gold-digging slut would do. Who knows, maybe Lacy Peterson asked for it by being too bitchy. But isn’t that what courts are for? To try to get at the truth?
Gotta cut you off there. It was a public civil trial.
Tarring? It’s no more tarring Bill Clinton to say that he got away with sexual harassment and abuse of power than it is to say that OJ Simpson got away with murder. At least OJ was acquitted.
[…shrug…] If you don’t want to be sued for sexual harassment, cited for contempt, and disbarred it’s best you just play it straight.
This is a place where I actually agree with you. (In a moment, I’ll share something I typed up a day or two ago, when someone brought up Clinton in my LJ.)
It did the country and the world a lot of good. See below.
There are worse sins than to do good for your country and the world, at the cost of your party’s well-being. (Unfortunately, the latter cost now includes eight years of GWB, who has undone most of the good that Clinton accomplished, and then some.)
Here’s that piece. (FWIW, a comment of mine about bearing false witness was what drew a response about Clinton, hence that last paragraph.)
The real world? In the real world, he lied to the court, to America, and to his family, was cited for contempt, thrown out of the bar, and impeached — and still you grope to make excuses for him. I think you need to wake the fuck up.
You’re the one who wants to distill this whole thing down to one simple equation: Clinton = evil. There’s a lot more to it than that, as any thinking person can easily see. You choose to allow the randomly firing synapses that passes for thinking in your brain cell to be ruled by hatred instead.
I’m with you up until that last bit about lying under oath. He was working under advice of legal counsel there, IIRC. Plus, I suspect the rabid Repugs would have impeached Clinton for SOMETHING sooner or later. They thought they had Clinton on the blowjob, thought the rest of the country would go along with it, and got VERY VERY nervous when the polls kept saying the public knew it was all a bunch of bullshit and that the blowjob which lay at the heart of the matter was none of their business – or the Pubbies’. Man, those Republicans stink, they stink to high heaven. I’d forgotten how much I dislike them. The impeachment plus the stolen 2000 election – man what a bunch of total assholes. I don’t know how they stand it.
My point was that CYA is essential enough as a principle of American Justice that the founding fathers put it into the bill of rights.
In other words, if you claim he had a responsibility to admit to getting a blowjob, you are saying he had to incriminate himself. And, IIRC, a defendant can’t be accused of perjury for saying he didn’t commit a crime. (which, by the way, oral sex is under D.C statitues, also, IIRC)
Nonsense. I like Bill Clinton. It is Hillary that I hate. Just because someone broke the law doesn’t mean I hate them. He has already explained why he did what he did, so I don’t need anything from you in that regard. He did it because he could.
It’s no more tarring Bill Clinton to say that he got away with sexual harassment and abuse of power than it is to say that OJ Simpson got away with murder. At least OJ was acquitted.