stoid
Bolding mine…
Doesn’t matter what he ought to have when it comes to determining what rights he actually does have. You think he should have some extra rights/privileges. Fine. The fact of the matter is that in regards to lawsuits the president is like any other citizen of the United States. This is a fact. It doesn’t matter how you think things should be (or should have been), this is the way things are.
Okay.
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Talk to me again when he’s appointed to the Supreme Court.
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Which doesn’t mean he was right. Does it?
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Then you admit that the court made the right decision. After all the error was the attorneys not the SC. But I don’t think the lawyers errored in this case either.
It isn’t a technicality. Unless you mean that any law you disagree with is a technicality.
Marc
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You should start paying more attention to what people type. It was the right decision because there was no legal reason for the President to be immune. You may not like that decision, I may not like that decision, but the Supreme Court likes to be careful when they make their decision. If you can find a legal reason why the suit should not have gone forward please share it with the class.
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I don’t think it enhances the functioning of our government but then I think that isn’t relevant. The President is a civilian and as such is not above any law. If you can find a legal reason for him to be so then please share it with the rest of the class.
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Probably.
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I wonder.
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coughtAnita Hillcough
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There no good reason on earth why he should be immune. But if you have a legal reason then please share it with the rest of the class.
Marc
The hypocrisy from the left over Clinton is just amazing. After years of championing women’s rights, and expanding the definition of rape/abuse/harassment to include just about any sexual overture at all in the workplace, they find themselves confronted with a president who uses a position of power to convince a silly starry-eyed young woman to give him oral sex on the job.
Said president is also being charged with sexual harassment by another woman, and is found guilty of lying under oath, thus subverting the justice this woman was seeking.
The answer from the left over this? “Hey, boys will be boys. And anyway, it’s none of our business. Besides, she knew what she was getting into.” The exact same lame justifications every sleazebag boss used for the last 100 years when caught abusing his power to get laid.
Paula Jones? Obviously, she’s a money-grubbing slut who’s lying. So says those former champions of women’s rights, the same people who wanted Clarence Thomas prevented from being seated on the bench because, after years of silence a woman comes forward and makes the claim that he told sexually-related jokes and put a pubic hair on a pop can. For this, Clarence Thomas is to be destroyed (without any corroborating evidence, and despite plenty of evidence that Ms. Hill and he got along fine for years after this supposed incident). But Bill Clinton can allegedly expose himself, and abuse his office to try and get a subordinate to give him sexual favors, and it’s none of our business. Oh yeah, and Monica is ugly and fat. Let’s slam her however we can while trying to save Bill, okay?
The true damage that Bill Clinton caused was to set back the cause of women’s rights about 20 years. And he was aided and abetted by the very people who fought to gain those rights.
BTW, there was an article in the paper last week about the rise in unprotected oral sex amongst teens. When interviewed, a surprisingly high percentage of the kids said that it wasn’t ‘really’ sex.
See, character matters. And what a president does has wide-ranging consequences. Bill Clinton did a lot of bad things in his capacity as president. He did even worse things in his private life, but the Lewinsky affair crossed over from private to public when he decided to get a blowjob at work, from an employee. Where I work, you get fired for that. Hell, you get fired for just suggesting it.
The technical term for that is “cognitive dissonance”. You say (via Bugliosi) that the people have a right to a full time president. We never have a full time president. All presidents spend substantial time campaigning and raising funds for their party.
No. But it allows for abuse of power. See the Federalist Papers. The authors are very respected in my neck of the woods.
Exactly. The point is to find out if he did it. If you wait eight years you might not be able to find out what happened. That’s why you shouldn’t postpone suits against the president.
Yes he is just a person. If he commits a crime he can be prosecuted. And if he commmits a tort, he can be sued.
What keeps pissy citizens or conspiracies from harrassing the president is the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. You can’t file a suit to harrass. If you have no basis for a suit, it will be dismissed and you can be made to pay a fine. Clinton’s attorneys tried to get the suit dismissed, but failed, because the judge ruled the claim had at least enough merit to go forward.
You keep falling back on this argument. Please tell me what horrible things befell the republic while Clinton was being sued. You use hyperbole (cue music “the good of the ENTIRE NATION”) and an argument that it might hurt the country. But it didn’t. We survived.
This has always been a major argument for postponing suits. I’m sure it was on Clinton’s mind, but the country went on. Our system is strong enough to ride out the bumpy patches.
Once more, with feeling: I used the term “immunity” as short hand. I think it’s pretty clear from my posts that I know exactly what we’re talking about.
Not according to Congress, either before the Jones suit or after. The fact that you think he is does not mean we should ignore the constitutional role of the three branches.
Bugliosi’s argument is flawed for a very basic reason – a reason you failed to address: separation of powers. It is not the Supreme Court’s job to write statutes. It comes down to this: Why do you think separation of powers is a bad thing? Why is it “common sense” for the Supreme Court to assume authority it is not given by the Constitution?
Ya know, Sam, I’m not denying any of what you say about “the left” as a concept, but I sure hope you aren’t using ME as ** the ** left. I certainly had no problem with Clarence Thomas being a boor, which is all I ever heard. I was, again, enjoying the possibility that his nomination would be blocked over such foolishness, but I would never have and did not at the time champion it.
While I maintain pretty rigid consistency to my own beliefs, that does not translate as rigid adherence to left-wing dogma, which I often find irritating as hell, as I said earlier.
But then again, maybe you aren’t referring to me at all. I merely assumed so simply because no one other than me has taken the position that I have regarding this. If you were not referring to me, carry on and never mind my interrupting.
That was coming from all sides, and pissing me off no matter which direction. What cowardice and juvenile crap was that? What made it even more obnoxious was the fact that it was patently untrue. She is a lovely girl who tends to the chubby. Hardly fat and ugly.
And I think that is perfectly absurd. What a pass, eh?
I was going with Stoid’s premise of ‘Let’s assume it’s true’, because I was a little put off by her “Wake me when it gets interesting” remark. My point was that if it were true, than it would be a very, very serious issue, not the mere annoyance she was making it out to be.
I never claimed to be able to spell. [sub]See Sig[/sub]
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[/QUOTE]
Just a second…uffh…pulling on the old flame retardant suit, here…uhggh…damn zippers!..ujha…there.
Whew! Better safe than sorry, that’s my motto.
Now, then:
Thanks for the clarification,** Zoff**. No legal scholar here, but I can’t help wondering if this isn’t really the crux of the issue. Isn’t this the point that Bugliosi is arguing, really? Not that the President should be exempt from civil suits, but that 1) the evidence in the suit has to strong enough to justify it, and 2) suit itself must important enough to counterbalance the conflicting demands placed upon a person of power. I’m guessing that Bugliosi probably feels that the Paula Jones case should have been dismissed on the basis of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
It’s easy to see how any ruling about the merits of a given civil case include a subjective element. The judge weighs the merits of the case and then makes a kind of “judgement call” (hence the appellation, “judge”). The political orientation of the judge has to be a factor in this sort of decision-making. I can well imagine how a liberal judge might rule differently than a conservative judge on the merits of the Paula Jones case, for example. We don’t need a law to protect the President from baseless civil suits, because such a law (as you point out) is already in place. Stoid has stated several times that she’s not a legal scholar, and if you knew this to start with, it seems a bit disingenuous of you not to explain it to her in the first place.
With regard to the OP, I will say that although I’m very cynical about anyone who occupies the position of President, I do think that there was an unusually large amount of hatred directed at the Clintons. Others on this thread have claimed that they felt insulted by the fact that Slick Willie lied to them directly, and that he is thus beneath contempt. I can only shake my head in disbelief at such naiveté. Presidents lie, spin, distort, cheat, fail to remember, etc, regularly; it’s a part of the job. I can’t see how Clinton’s blow job is in any way comparable to, for example, the Iran-Contra scandal, and yet many folks vilify Clinton and idealize Reagan, that contemptible weasel who just had a battleship christened in his name. (uh-oh. I think I’m starting to rant.)
I’m not in any sense trying to justify Clinton’s behavio(u)r, which I do think is pretty shitty. I’m just say that it’s nothing compared to the shenanigans Reagan pulled, and he was never even put on trial.
Rather than type a heated post here and risk drawing the ire of a mod, I took my response to the Pit. I would provide a link, however I tried that once and succeeded only in making myself look foolish.
The title of the thread is “Stoid, I’m calling you to the mat.” It also has a subtitle, but this ain’t the pit.
Lisa
Well, Punditlisa, how about you cool off and make your points in a manner that is acceptable to GD? Cuz I don’t “do” the pit when it’s about me any more.
I’m here to enjoy myself, not be publicly eviscerated for the fun of it by my fellow dopers. Strangely enough, I don’t find that fun.
So I don’t know what you wanted to say, and if the only place you are capable of saying it is in the Pit, I really don’t care.
What you think of me is none of my business, just as what I think of you and the rest of the pit flaming crew is none of yours, and I plan to keep it that way.
Peace and love,
Stoid
<pats seat next to her> C’mon over and sit by me, Svenlisha! Happy to make your acquaintence. So… are you a real judge?
stoid
Ooops… I mixed up your vowels. I apologize. People mix up my vowels all the time, it’s annoying.
stoid
So you don’t want to see the Pit thread, fine. Personally, I think we all learn things about ourselves when called into the Pit-I personally would want to know if I was annoying someone or what have you.
Not visiting the Pit is your prerogative, Stoid. Were I you, I wouldn’t visit it either. My point, in a not-heated way, is simply this: Practice what you preach. “Life is great!” is a nice philosophy in theory. It’s a bit harder to practice, especially when you look at the world through a political filter.
This is a great place to learn and share ideas. Or to just watch ourselves type. What you take from it is up to you. But static people never grow.
I have always practiced what I preach. I preach “attack the post, not the poster”. “That’s a bullshit argument” Is perfectly fine. “You are a piece of shit and I despise you” is not. I don’t make it personal in that manner and I never have. But many, many people do that to me. [sub](My recent Scylla thread was a first, and was confined entirely to a defense of what I felt was his personal attack, and that’s all I’ll say about that since it’s all been said already.)[/sub]
Oh, and life IS great.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Well, Guin, that’s you and that’s great. Personally, I take it as a given that some people in a debate forum are going to annoy me and there are people here who absolutely do. But I’m not about to take it upon myself to tell them everything I find annoying about them. I’ll either attack their annoying arguments, or if they are just insufferable, I won’t torment either one of us by continuing to engage them. (Not to mention the fact that no one around here has been exactly shy about telling me what they think of me,now have they? Do you really think anyone has anything new to say? I don’t.)
Here’s a tip: you will never, ever be liked by everybody everywhere, most particularly if you are in any way outspoken. Somebody is going to object to something. So you need to figure out whose good opinion is really important to you. If you find that the people you most respect and/or love, and whose good opinion you value, have a problem with you, then perhaps it’s time to re-calibrate your behavior. You also need to be true to yourself, and what you believe is right and good. If you have both those bases covered, you’re in good shape.
Stoid
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Stoid *
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I think it had something to do with the incredibly high ranking in education, employment, economy and crime that the state of Arkansas had while he was the governor. IIRC, wasn’t Arkansas in the lowest 10% of the country? Good resume for a man about to run all 50 states.
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Officers in the armed forces are treated differently? HUH? I’m not sure which branch of the service is in your mind, but in the ones that I’m familiar with, the first thing that happens in something like sexual harrassment, sexual impropriety, or even fraternization is an investigation. Nothing waits until they retire. If it warrants court, it goes to court. If the “committer” is found guilty, they are punished, usually by removal from office and in many cases, dismissal from the service. What happens in the meantime? The officer is replaced by somebody else. The military does not come apart at the seams when a general or colonel is in court or removed from their position any more than the country falls apart if the President is taken out of office. Remember Kennedy? Remember Nixon? The country and the government continued to move along just fine without them.
Rage because they didn’t think he was such a hot governor?
Nope. Doesn’t have a good beat and I simply can’t dance to it. I give it a 3.
stoid
Yeah, well it’s always a suprise when one suffers an involuntary vowel movement…
“Vowel movement”, get it? Vowel movement!
Ah, God. Sometimes I just kill myself.
(PS. Pleased to meet you as well, ma’am.)