December, there’s a big difference between accusing Clinton of doing something that deserves imprisonment vs. accusing him of coming (heh) close to an ethical violation. BTW isn’t there some mechanism by which the Congress reviews Presidential violations? Didn’t Clinton’s enemies get him charged with several violations, and wasn’t he cleared in all cases? I would imagine that if he really had committed a criminal offence, charges would have been filed and he would have been convicted by the Senate of the United States of America.
Cute.
Anyhow he did lose his Arkansas law license. Apparently one needs higher ethics to practice law in Arkansas than to be President of the United States.
I guess I should mention that I don’t necessarily believe what I wrote, but simply wanted to point out that you are being inconsistent in your standards.
If your standard for innocence is “being acquitted (/not disbarred) by the group charged with overseeing you”, then Clinton is just as innocent as Starr. If you truly believe that Clinton is guilty and Starr innocent, then I think you need a different standard.
december said
Damn that’s funny, and probably true. Ethics, sir, have nothing to do with it. If it were a matter of ethics, we’d have no President. Ever. The system prevents it.
Can’t speak about lawyers in Arkansas, though.
Now, it escapes my memory, but did Richard Nixon have a license to practice law? Surely he must have suffered some legal or official rebuke along those lines? No? Perhaps not.
Compared to Nixon, Slick Willy Knobjob walks in a cloud of sanctity, flowers spring from his footprints, and nightingales vie for his attention.
Reagan told us lies for eight years, the main difference being in that he sincerly believed every lie he told us, even if the day before, he knew different.
Presidential ethics. Military music. Feminist humor. Comprehensible Conservatism.
RMN “volumntarily” gave up his law license, before they could take it away from him.
Sigh. This is getting tedious, december. The Secret Service testified that approximately 40 Clinton White House aides had a history of drug use, out of almost 2000. 40/2000=.02 or 2%. So, yeah, Gingrich was “almost” correct; he was only off by approximately 460 staffers.
Specious logic from both posters above.
Myrr21, the removal of a sitting President from office is of such great import that it’s only been contemplated by the Senate and Chief Justice twice in the country’s history, and never been done. A fair-minded observer can easily imagine a situation in which the President commits a minor crime, and the Senate decides, although they believe the crime was committed, that it does not warrant removal from office. You may not, therefore, conclude that “if he had really committed a criminal offense… he would have been convicted.”
december, your post compares apples and Chevy Impalas. A lawyer may be suspended for a given length of time, or even disbarred, and return to practice; a President, once impeached, is out for good. The rules for ethical conduct used by lawyers do not always produce what a laymen would call “ethical” results – see almost any episode of The Practice for illustration – and are detailed and highly formalized. The standards for removal of a President are basically the viewpoint and will of the Senate sitting in an impeachment trial. A fair-minded observer may thus not draw any conclusion like “one needs higher ethics to practice law in Arkansas than to be President…”
- Rick
Don’t you think it’s a little strange that you, Jackmannii, are the only one who refuses to understand? Yet you consistently refuse to back down when your complete and utter wrong-headedness has been made perfectly apparent?
I suggest you spare yourself any further indignities.
If you post something, Maeglin, that even vaguely relates to one of the issues raised in this thread, it may merit a response.
That leads me to wonder why you persist in responding.
december, since you felt it necessary to call me a (and I attempt to code a quote)
here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=91819
I am calling you on your (and this is one of Rush’s favorite words meaning “dodgy”) disingenuousness.
Can you, or can you not, cite or expose any Democratic corruption found by your list of people and organizations in the OP? If not, go away. If so, do so. And just so we get the ground rules down, we’re talking malfeasance or financial gain, not entrapment into perjury.
Don’t dodge the issue; the issue you brought up was Democratic corruption. Show us some. Otherwise, I refer you to my assessment of you in the aforementioned thread on page 3
Um, I already made a Pit thread, stofsky-no need to sling names here.
Stofsky, I used the dictionary’s definition of “corrupt” (which includes “dishonest” as well as “venal”) rather than yours. (which is “venal” only.) Would you really say, “The Nixon Administration was noted for its lack of corruption.”? These words would choke in my throat.
Stofsky, your request is silly, because it follows from an intentional misreading of what I was communicating. Nevertheless, if I fulfill your request, will you write a post calling me a “highly intelligent person,” instead of an “ass”?
You requested one example. Here are four of them:
Dan Rostenkioski was convicted of stealing from the US government. Jim Wright had to resign because he had taken improper payments. Tony Coelho also resigned over financial hanky-panky.
New Gingrich helped expose these scandals.
Monica Lewinsky was offered a well-paying job at the United Nations, for which she had no qualification, because of her personal relationship with the Prez. (The impression one gets from the documents is that she was more-or-less blackmailing Clinton into giving her a good job.)
Kenneth Starr helped expose this corrupt act.
A. No one here is saying that no Democrats have ever been corrupt. Thus, an invocation of Coelho or Rostenkowski without a demonstration of a subsequent causal demonization of the people who brought the corruption to light is absolutely irrelevant.
B. I really, really urge you to read the book I recommended earlier, John Barry’s The Ambition and the Power. You can find it used online for $5 or less. To state that Jim Wright “had to resign because he had taken improper payments” which Newt Gingrich “helped expose” is to cast the situation in the most simplistic light imaginable. Gingrich’s conscious and concerted embrace of scandal politics (tactics of which include routinely making scandalous tempests out of teapots) significantly altered the character of Congress through the 1990s. To ignore thie circumstances surrounding Wright’s resignation is to engage in sophistry of the highest order.
Gaderene, I was answering Stofsky’s request, which sounded more like a challenge.
BTW the lack of causal demonstration doesn’t quite make my examples “irrelevent”; it makes them inconclusive.
How about entertaining big-money donors with government facilities? After all, IIRC the Republicans made a big stink over Clinton letting guests sleep at the Lincoln bedroom.
And since you didn’t counterargue any of my points, Milo, shall I conclude that you agree with me that the GOP is a bunch of hypocritical self-proclaimed moralists? Because I still haven’t heard of any right-wing demands to “clear the air” over Dubya’s dirty past, and I think Teletubbies is over…
No, it makes them irrelevant unless you can demonstrate causality, since that is the premise on which your argument rests.
If Newt Gingrich was “demonized” for reasons other than assiduous and proportionate investigation of Democratic corruption–note the important words assiduous, proportionate, and corruption–then he can’t be included in support of your theory (posited in the OP) that Democrats tend not to appreciate Democratic corruption being exposed.
Otherwise, it’s like me making this argument: White Midwestern males are unfairly demonized by everyone who isn’t a white Midwestern man. You want proof? Just look at the popular treatment of Timothy McVeigh and Jeffrey Dahmer![sup]*[/sup]
[sub][sup]*[/sup](Obligatory disclaimer for chronic decontextualizers: I am not saying that Newt Gingrich is in any way comparable to Timothy McVeigh or Jeffrey Dahmner.)[/sub]
What andros has learned from this thread so far:
A lot of people continue to embrace a “My party is better than yours” attitude.
There is a left-wing bias in the media. There is a right-wing bias in the media. There are both. There are neither.
Tom is a liberal.
Al Franken was right.
2% is statistically indistinguishable from 25%.
Some people are still far too concerned about President Clinton’s sex life, as well as his choice of lovers.
Somehow, Barry Bonds has an important role in politics. Or he doesn’t.
And, filtered through the crap and blather, I’ve learned that at least some thinking people truly wish to see corruption fought at all levels, regardless of partisan bullshit.
Of couse, I’ve also learned that Democrats and Republicans are both inclined to both overlook corruption in their own camps and exaggerate wrongdoing in their opponents’. But, sadly, I knew that already.
So I assume that you consider the offer to Strom Thurmond’s son of the position of U.S. Attorney for the District of South Carolina, for which he has no qualification, to be a corrupt act? Because I don’t.
Guess I’m not a good Democrat.
december, you are going all over the place. Please:
- Define “demonization;”
- Tell us who is doing the demonizing of the people you mentioned, Clinton loyalists or the general public;
- Please tell us how Newt was demonized over the House Post Office Scandal;
- Please tell us who was demonized over exposing Koreagate (where most of the implicated Congressmen were Democrats). If you point back to Newt again, please explain the negative impact on him of people disliking him - did it perhaps affect his advancement? Hmm.;
- Ditto the Keating Five (four of whom were Democrats);
- Ditto Abscam;
- By whatever definition of demonization you provide, please explain why you believe the Watergate investigators were not demonized (hint: read All the President’s Men - Woodward and Bernstein were viciously attacked by Nixon loyalists. And, of course, unlike Starr, Cox was fired).
IOW, what the hell is your beef? Clinton loyalists don’t like the group of people you mentioned because of their involvement in Zippergate? Shocking. I’m sure Nixon loyalists thought Sam Ervin was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Sua