I don’t. Do you have an argument or do you want to try to make it personal? 
I’m not familiar with the case, but it looks like he broke the law and then perjured himself in covering it up. I don’t have a problem with a judge being removed from office for something like that. So let’s skip ahead and you tell me why this is comparable to Clinton.
Oh, yeah. Those poor Republican congressmen, innocently traipsing through the fields, just stumbled across the only arguably actionable thing that Clinton did in 6 years of his term, and just had NO CHOICE but to impeach him! It’s not like they’d had an investigation of every single thing both President and Mrs. Clinton had been involved in for the past 20 years, or that they’d sicced a special prosecutor on him who was going down every sleazy alley he could find that the president might possibly have walked down at some time in his life.
No, they simply stumbled upon this heinous semi-perjury over a question in a lawsuit that a sitting president probably shouldn’t have even been subject to (and I include presidents I don’t like in that…freeze the clock on any “must sue before x months have passed” until the president’s term(s) are over and then go at it). And they had no choice then! Their virgin ears were violated by the incident!
Bullshit.
Does context have any meaning to you at all?
They deployed the nuclear option of statecraft because “their base would have been furious if they hadn’t”. Right. :rolleyes: That means they chose to do the cowardly thing.
Go read Profiles in Courage sometime to learn what the right thing really would have been. Or at least go learn what the purpose of impeachment is. You can start with the Constitution, which explains in its own text that it has jackshit to do with the legal system.
This is where we disagree. In my view, once they knew he’d lied under oath, they had to impeach him. Lying under oath is a really big deal. You just can’t let something like that slide, especially not from POTUS. Had he not done that, there would have been no legal basis to impeach, and it would not have happened.
Clinton was impeached for lying under oath… AKA “perjury”, one of the biggest no-no’s in the judicial system, especially by a lawyer. (Not that it doesn’t happen all the time - there should be more prosecutions for blatant perjury.)
He was questioned in the Paula Jones sexual harrassment case over whether he displayed a pattern of sexual behaviour with various women whom he came across (so to speak). the stories about his behavior from many others close to him on the campaign or in Little Rock are sufficient to meet the test of “most likely”, even if 1 in 12 at least don’t buy it “beyond reasonable doubt”.
The lawyer who asked the original questions in that suit was an idiot, and thus gave Clinton the out. He asked if Bill had sexual relations with any of he following. Bill, lawyer that he was, deemed that an easy weasel out.
The congress after the Civil War tried to impeach Johnson (Lincoln’s successor) or a trivial matter and lost. The general consensus after that was that impeachment was reserved for serious crimes, not “misdemeanors”. (Although apparently that meant something else in 1788, too). Impeachment was for actual offenses against law, not stupid decisions or misrepresentation of political positions. Thus you can impeach someone for a definite case of perjury, say, but not for lying in speeches, say, about whether some country has WMD’s. Impeachment is NOT for the purpose of getting even.
Plus, every time someone said “Impeach Bush”, keep in mind it takes 66% to impeach in the Senate, so dragging someone into an impeachment trial over policy differences between parties simply means a waste of time and you can’t win.
Enough democrats were outraged over Bill’s “lies” that the republicans thought they could win. Essentially, he lied to try to steal $800,000 - the amount he ended up paying Paula Jones to settle the lawsuit. It’s not about the BJ, it’s the lie and the coverup.
If the republicans (or anyone) tried to impeach a politician based on personal; behavior, it would never get off the ground. (A) nobody really cares, it doen’t affect how the state is governed. (B) How many politicians would want to be part of it? I’m sure the defence would drag up enough sexual dirt on each one that the senate would be empty by vote time.
Yes, if Bill had been a CEO of a major corporation, even if he wasn’t being harrassed by possibly trumped up lawsuits, the revalation that he boinked or cigared and employee would be enough to fire him. However, the people doing the firing in the case of the people, by the people, for the people, is the people. They didn’t. As one person (Starr?) pointed out, while Bill might not consider it “sexual relations”, it’s sufficiently sexual that any court in the land would consider it grounds for harrassment. In fact, that’s what Paula Jones alleges- that he dropped trousers and demanded that she…
In the end, I think he got what he deserved. he didn’t get convicted; but he did come close enough that it was a serious rebuke to his behaviour, and it will go down in the history books as such. He got off on the technicality that it could be considered not a lie depending on precise meaning. Congress once again proved that an impeachment trial only happens in cases of serious illegal conduct, and the standard for tossing a president is very very high.
As for morality - it’s one thing for single college-age kids to play musical beds each weekend; it’s another for a guy to marry someone, promise to love honor etc., and then still do any other woman he can. It says something about honesty and character. People whose marriage falls apart and they fall in love with someone else? That happens, and you can’t really control who you fall in love with. Mercenary philandering is a completely different character flaw. However, if people didn’t like that they should not have elected the guy. It’s none of the senate’s business unless it affects the governance of the country.
They set up Starr just to keep Clinton from doing his job. they were trying to distract him. They were also trying to get even for Nixon.
The nerve of the repubs who were having affairs, getting divorced, going to whore houses standing in front of the people and discussing his morality is contemptuous. Gingrich, Sanford and Ensign having the nerve to berate Clinton while doing the same thing or worse. Diaper Dan Vitter having the nerve to discuss Clinton while he he goes to whore houses and wears diapers. They had no right to bitch about him. It was political grandstanding and blatant hypocrisy.
So cynical, gonzo.
Well, the “debate” has satisfied me as far as the OP is concerned. Yes, he could have avoided impeachment. As far as Repub motives go, I tend to be a bit cynical myself.
Like anybody else . I was taught what a shining beacon of honesty and fair play we were. They wore me down. I have seen more than 50 years of lying bullshitters sell their souls for money. I have seen us call ourselves peaceful people while we have generations of endless wars , skirmishes and interference in other nations sovereignty. We spend more on munitions and the military than the rest of the world combined. That is why one of the reasons we can not afford programs for the people.
We are doing it again. nearly everyone knows our health care system is broken . Yet money will prevent us from doing the right thing yet again. Lobbyists are the government. They actually write politicians speeches and legislation. It is criminal theft on a massive scale. I am not cynical . I just am disgusted…
I adhere to the “honesty is the best policy” policy in most cases. In just about 99% of sticky lies, the truth and a mea culpa will probably thaw most of the bitter hearts and the culprit will probably squeak by. However, has there been even a single case of a politician coming clean about something and actually retaining his/her job or getting re-elected? I guess Marion Barry might be one real-life example, but I can’t think of many others. Certainly didn’t seem like it worked for Gary Condit.
You have read the Constitution, haven’t you? The part that explains that impeachment has jackshit to do with the legal system? Oakminster, you too - have you, either?
Here, I’ll do it for you. Article 1, Section 3, Clause 7: “Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but** the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law**.”
Clear now? :dubious:
Clinton certainly could have been indicted and tried for it in the legal system, and Starr knew it, but he wasn’t. Starr didn’t try it. He knew he didn’t have a case, legally. But he had one politically, and his illegal and unethical collusion with the Scaife crew pimping the Jones suit convinced him of that. Hence his collusion with DeLay in getting the matter into the lame-duck, Speakerless House. Remember any of that?
Keeping the Civil War won was hardly a trivial matter. You don’t know anything about how that episode came about, do you?
Gonna need a cite for that, friend. One that trumps the Constitution.
You assume that members of the President’s own party will always put party before country. While there’s ample evidence of that, it has not always been historically true. The Johnson trial is a good example.
Oh, please. :rolleyes:
Did you read Starr’s porn novel, either?
Know what? We the People knew he was a horndog when we hired him. And renewed his contract, too.
Who flashed the thong panties at whom?
Wrong there, too. It alleges she was discriminated against for refusing. The evidence of that did not exist, and further showed him to have been out of town at the time anyway.
Do you know how the Jones suit got started, either? It does not appear so. It does appear that you have bought into the apologists’ talking point that the impeachment was somehow not related to the political environment surrounding it, nor to the endless Investigate Until We Find Something (And We Know It’s There, Because He’s a Democrat) effort that led up to it. But it was.
More from the inevitable Wiki:
Cf. Ritter v. United States, 84 Ct. Cl. 293, 300 (Ct. Cl. 1936) (“While the Senate in one sense acts as a court on the trial of an impeachment, it is essentially a political body and in its actions is influenced by the views of its members on the public welfare.”); STAFF OF H. COMM. ON THE JUDICIARY, 93D CONG., CONSTITUTIONAL GROUNDS FOR PRESIDENTIAL IMPEACHMENT 24 (Comm. Print 1974) (“The purpose of impeachment is not personal punishment; its function is primarily to maintain constitutional government.”) (citation omitted), reprinted in 3 LEWIS DESCHLER, DESCHLER’S PRECEDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, H.R. DOC. NO. 94‒661 ch. 14, app. at 2269 (1977).
Please try to make your posts reflective of the world of fact if you wish them to be taken seriously. Thank you.
Convict in the Senate. Impeachment happens in the House.
Lying under oath is *not *perjury unless it’s material to the case.
I would disagree with this. In 1873 Judge Delahay was impeached on just two charges. One was being drunk on the bench which I guess would fall under the “good behavior” clause in the Constitution, but the other charge was drinking at home.
FWIW, Johnson avoided removal by only one vote:
The failure of that removal effort was hardly a foregone conclusion about a trivial matter, md2000.
They have something called the 5th amendment for that. They impeached him because they could. I mean do you really think they impeached the President of the United States for lying about about a blowjob from Monica Lewinsky in a case about someone else he had an affair with? They impeached him because they wanted to drag his name through the mud.
Not in civil cases they don’t. I’m not sure what your point is, though, as “they really just wanted to dis Clinton” doesn’t follow from, “he didn’t have to lie - he could have refused to testify.”
Technically yes, but there were a few RadRep Senators that had decided to vote for acquittal if it made a difference. To be pedantic, Johnson escaped conviction by one vote but there were about 7 people who would have cast that one vote if Ross hadn’t.
I’m not rabid anything, but a BJ ain’t sex, I don’t care what anyone says.
I remember it the same way.
The search for evil and wrongdoing bad ummmm evilness had been going on for a long time, and would have kept going on.
I remember it as a witch hunt, from start to finish. Considering this was all they could come up with, it’s pretty pathetic.
Clinton was a skirt chaser. So what. It should have been settled between him and Hillary (and if she had met him at the door and clocked him, that’s still between them).