Rex the definition in question is this:
“Sexual Relations” as when a person knowingly engages in or causes “contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.”
Want to reevaluate your definition of sex in this case??
“Sexual relations”, yeah, that’s fuzzy enough where you gotta come clean.
Wouldn’t “being honest” also include keeping your dick in your pants and not cheating on your wife? If so, then yes, he could have avoided impeachment.
So if the suckee doesn’t touch the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks" of the sucker, then, technically, they are not engaging in sexual relations with that person. However the sucker is engaged in sexual relations with the suckee.
That almost makes sense.
ok. Here is my take on the subject (I just read The Breach, which is an excellent, non-partisan summary of the events leading up to the impeachment, the impeachment itself, and the aftermath. I think it’s a great read for those interested in this historic event, whichever side of the aisle you happen to fall on.)
This is all my opinion, and not the conclusion of the author of The Breach.
First, my simple answer is “no”. Clinton would have taken a political pounding for a while, but he would have survived.
Clinton was a lot closer to being ousted than anyone may realize. Dick Gephart, the minority whip at the time, was getting the feel for his caucus and they were discussing a walk to the White House to ask for his resignation. Many on both sides of the aisle thought that resigning would be the right thing to do. But as some Democrats and Republicans at the time remarked, the difference between Nixon and Clinton is that Clinton had no shame.
It’s also interesting to note that some historians believe that Nixon may have also weathered the storm in the Senate and not been ousted. The 67 votes may not have been there after all was said and done in the Senate. But Nixon did the right thing and saved the country a long trial, and resigned. If only Clinton would have done the same thing.
Which brings me to my own opinion. Clinton was guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice. Period. To make this about sex was a strategy created by the White House to make the Republicans look like sex-crazed moralists who didn’t like the fact that Bubba was getting hummers in the White House. Does anyone actually believe that? With the infidelities on both sides of the aisle, no one really wanted to get into the particulars about sex.
Clinton had real problems. The Paula Jones trial was still hanging over his head, and there was the Willey interview sitting on a shelf at NBC waiting to be aired with more allegations. Even after his term was over, there was a real possibility that he would get prosecuted for his crimes. So, he paid $850K to Paula Jones to close that case. (the irony here is that he had to dip into Hillary’s personal money to pay for this. Had to make things around the White House even happier).
Back to impeachment. Robert Byrd (D) W.Va., wanted him gone. So did Joe Lieberman. They both came out early after the Starr report and hammered Clinton. Barbara Boxer (along with a number of Clinton defenders, both inside the White House and on Capitol Hill) felt personally betrayed because he flat out lied to them to their faces when they asked what the real story was. But Clinton and advisors like James Carville were masterful at changing the focus of the issues from one of actual crimes to one of sex. And who really cared about that? I disliked Bill Clinton, but I wouldn’t have booted him over a blow job. Perjury is a real crime, and so is obstruction of justice. Why he behaved in this manner is irrelevant to the charges.
But here’s the real issue to me… because of his lies, because of his duplicity, he lost the trust and confidence of the American people. If you remember, the day of the impeachment vote in the House, Clinton ordered bombings of Iraq. A “wag the dog” scenario that members of his own party wondered about along with Republicans. And this is the crux of it. If you lose your credibility, you have reached a point where your ability to rule is no longer there.
In the Federalist papers, number 65, Alexander Hamilton opines that impeachment offenses (the famous “high crimes and misdemeanors”), were “those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.” I believe that Clinton’s lying, his abuse of power to cover up those lies, and the inability of people to believe what he was doing by sending tomahawk missles into Iraq was the right thing to do vs. a diversion to benefit himself violated the basic tenets of the public trust.
Of course, you may disagree. But at the end of the day, it turned into a political decision, not a legal one. And the credit for that was the masterful strategy built by the White House to make a partisan event out of the impeachment.
But the one thing, more than any other that seems to be agreed on in the book… the public didn’t want to impeach Clinton. And that, more than anything, is the single biggest reason the democrats formed a strong, unified caucus to block the impeachment in the senate. And the reason they came to that conclusion was the mid-term elections that, instead of being a huge win for the repubicans, turned into a surprising win for the democrats. This gave the democrats the wind for its sails to keep Clinton in office. (the Repubs were supposed to take 20-30 seats in the House, and actually lost 5 to the Dems). Both took this as a mandate on impeachment.
I hope this was clear. It’s late and I’m pulling a lot of this from memory, so if numbers are a bit off, my apologies. I’ll try to clear anything up that is painfully inaccurate.
Tricky Dick?
One other thing I probably should tell you because if we don’t they’ll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something—a gift—after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was? It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he’d sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl—Tricia, the 6-year-old—named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it.