Let me make this perfectly clear

The BBQ Pit
1

I wrote:

Then starfish replied:

Point the first: I believe I have conveyed to you the wrong impression of my opinion of the three gentlemen. To wit:

Oliver North – lied to Congress to protect the President’s ass: LIAR
Richard Nixon – lied to Congress to cover his ass: LIAR
Bill Clinton – lied to Congress about getting some ass: LIAR

Point the second: you write, “No one else, in public or in Congress, even cares if he got some.”

Bull-fscking-shit.

It’s easy to say now, in hindsight, that had he told the truth on the stand, he wouldn’t have gotten into such a deep mess. I fully believe that, had he told the truth, he’d have gotten just as lambasted. By lying on the stand, however, he gave the Clinton-haters the leverage to say, “Oh, my! I don’t mean to be holier-than-thou about his affair; my objection is to him lying under oath!” They still would have hollered just as loud about his unsuitability for office as a confessed adulterer.

They don’t need a reason to hate him. They already hate him, they just want excuses to sling mud at him. Yes, there are some folks who would be more supportive of him had he not lied. I’m one of them. I think it showed a lack of a strong moral backbone in him. He should have taken his lumps for what he did wrong, and then moved on. As I said before, he gave the anti-Clinton crowd more ammo and better leverage against him than had he not misled the court.

Point the third: you write, “I still don’t know why he never just said ‘Yeah, I did, so what.’” I think it’s pretty obvious. He misled the court because he thought he was justified in doing so, and because he thought he could get away with it.

Since almost the beginning of his Presidency, if not reaching back even further in the past, he has gotten flak shot at him, not about his policy decisions, but about his personal life. I believe some of it was justified, but I think that plenty of it was just plain harrasment by his political foes. I believe he thought so, too. He felt harrassed enough for unjustified reasons that he lumped every personal attack on him to be unjustified. They were attacking him personally, he felt, because they couldn’t defeat him politically.

Additionally, he had, up until that point, always gotten through these personal attacks by doing a full-court-press denial defense. On the other hand, he had seen many examples when a politician admitted to personal failings, which would then directly lead to their political downfall. Eagleton for VP, anyone?

He felt that his political goals were important enough to lie about his personal failings, but were fragile enough to be endangered if his personal force wasn’t there to propel them forward. Throw in a dash of egotism and a little rationalization, (Oh, I didn’t lie under oath, I told the literal truth, mostly, just in a misleading way.) and it’s really easy to see why he did what he did.

2

What do mean by “lambasted”? As far as ridicule goes, I agree with you. But as far as political implications go, I think that his lying made a large difference. With the lying, there wasn’t much of a reason for a Republican to vote against impeachment, and there was a good reason for a Democrat to vote for it. Without the lying, there would be no reason for a Democrat to vote for it, and good reason for Republicans to vote against it. For a president to succumb to temptation is understandable. For a president to sit in front of the nation, and directly state a lie is inexcusable. He violated the sacred trust that we have in our presidency.

3

I see that you cater to Bill Maher’s state of thinking, that it’s “all about sex”.

Not true. While that may be an accurate assessment for some, or even a good portion, of the Republican party (or, heck, conservatives, moderates, and liberals), I imagine that had he not committed a felony, he would have had a short period of people condemming him for his disrespectful behavior, and that would have been the end of it. NOBODY would have called for his impeachment, NOBODY would have tried to get him out of office… except Hillary.

Oh, wait… did you mean “lambasted” to mean all the jokes on Leno? Oh, yeah, THOSE would have been run into the ground just the same, had he lied or not.

Anyway, give some people some credit… mudslinging is one thing, getting a guy impeached is quite another.

4

Sure he lied! Did it show a lack of integrity: yes. Was he essentially forced into it: you bet. Were the tactics used to extract Clintons testimony were frightfully shady: and how!

The thing is, virtually every other nation in the world was looking at us, shaking their collective heads in wonder and disbelief that we would let the Presidency, indeed, the whole of the nations body politic, be side tracked even for a moment by this affair. It’s insane, really.

-Hey, there is a war going on in eastern Europe.
But the President got a blowjob!

-Hey! There is a genocide, and “ethnic cleansing,” occuring again!
But the President came on her dress!

-Hey! Our children are shooting up the schools (which I’m sure has nothing to do with the utter lack of accountability parents take these days, which is learned by the kids)
But the President stucka cigar up her twat!

Get over it. It was adultery. I think there are slightly bigger issues the Presidnet should be concerned about.

5

This is great Pit material, and I know just the Pit to throw it into! :slight_smile:

6

Sacred? Do you mean worthy of religous veneration? If so I think you have some of your own issues to work out? Or are you using the definition of a trust that shouldn’t be doubted. If that’s the case Clinton was beaten to it by Nixon, Reagan, and countless earlier presidents. Anyone with half a brain knows that the president lies to us constantly, he just confirmed our suspicions. Are you really that upset about him being caught in something that he does on a daily basis? Did you really have that much trust and faith in Clinton before hand? You poor baby, he must have shattered your fragile heart.

7

This is my first post in the Pit, but I just can’t believe the number of people here who still think Clinton is a good man or a good president, so I had to say something.
Why do I hate Bill Clinton, let me count the ways…

On second thought, I don’t have all day, so I’ll just stick to one. One that you don’t hear much about. In ’92, Willy promised us “the most ethical administration in history.” The below list of high level Clinton appointees indicted, convicted or charged with crimes goes a long way toward proving old Ben Franklin was right when he said “A fish rots from the head.”

Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman: influence-peddling and soliciting illegal campaign contributions.

Clinton health care adviser Ira Magaziner: perjury

Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy: Graft and influence peddling.

Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros: fraud and conspiracy

Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell: fraud

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt: Extortion and soliciting illegal campaign contributions.

Commerce Department official and Democratic National Committee fundraiser John Huang: making illegal campaign contributions.
Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary: Graft and influence peddling.

Commerce Secretary Ron Brown: violation of tax and financial disclosure laws and taking bribes.

White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum: lying to Congress.

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Carol M. Browner: violating the federal Anti-Lobbying Act.

Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service Jamie Clark: Graft and misappropriating funds.
Most of this stuff is the exact same kind of thing that went on in the Grant and Harding administrations, and gave them such a bad name in the history books. I suspect, though, that history will be kinder to Clinton.
More’s the pity.
Ruth

8

No, Maher’s wrong. It’s not about sex. It’s all about people trying to tear down Clinton by hook, crook, or tainted sushi. Or maybe that last one was Bush…

And it doesn’t look like it’s getting any better. Regardless of which clone wins the White House this November, factions on both sides are gearing up for a mud war if the other side wins.

9

Yes, he was forced to testify. But he wasn’t forced to lie. And he certainly wasn’t forced to go before the American public and lie.

And just how did you determine what the attitude of other countries were? And even if people in other countries did disagree with what happened, so what? It’s none of their business.

Really? Trying to punish a president for breaking our trust is “insane”?

[several straw men]
The sexual activity of the president and his lying are two different issue. The fact that he cheated on his wife had no bearing on my wanting him out of office. If he had gone before the American public and sworn that he absolutely did not eat Frosted Mini-Wheats that morning, and it turned out he had, I’d be demanding his resignation. A lie is a lie. The media did spend more time on this than they needed to, but that doesn’t reduce the seriuosness of his offence.

What… like perjury?

oldscratch quote:

No, I basically mean “not to be taken lightly” except even more so.

Not “shouldn’t be doubted”, but “should never have to be doubted”.

So as long as someoe else has done something first, it’s not really wrong?

Seeing as how Clinton neither gives Grand Jury testimony nor speaks to the American public on a daily basis, it is clear that he does not lie to us on a daily basis.

For many of the scandals, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I’m not heart broken, but I am saddened that this trust was misplaced.

Punoqllads

Two wrongs don’t make a right. Just because the Right was going overboard trying to sling mud at Clinton, that doesn’t give him the right to lie.

10

I have never said or implied otherwise.

11

So Clinton had a problem w/ a wandering penis. Hell, this was brought out before he was elected the FIRST time. America knew it, and they elected him anyway.

This whole thing was, above all else, an attempt by the Republican Party to subvert the electoral process in this country. ‘They didn’t vote for our guy like they were supposed to! We’ll show them!’

Their response? Run a former Coke-head, party-boy who has NEVER had to do one damn thing for himself to get where he is today. Check out:

http://www.weknowwhatyoudidintexas.com

(I hope that’s the right URL.)

12

should be:

http://www.iknowwhatyoudidintexas.com

13

http://www.larouchecampaign.org/

you can always find intersting tidbits that never make it to light here

14

These people are crackpots. They believe that the World Wildlife fund is a Fascist Army maintained by Prince Phillip. I wouldn’t trust anything they say. Likewise they are proto-fascist themselves. Very scary group.

15

Oh and The Ryan. I’m sorry, I didn’t actually believe you had any faith in Clinton. Hopefully he’s performed the service of taking the wool from your eyes. Don’t have any expectation for the next canidate, that way you won’t be disapointed. And I didn’t suggest that everything Clinton has done is right, only that it shouldn’t come as a surprise. In my mind the perjury is one of his lesser crimes/mistakes.

16

Well, I was going to say something, but the Ryan pretty much beat me to it.

17

What the FUCK?
Why was the investigation even ordered in the FIRST PLACE, dammit?
If you think Clinton’s the ONLY prez who had sex in the Oval Office, that’s sad.
Look at FDR, LBJ and JFK just to name a few…
Wasn’t there a list of presidents and world leaders who were pretty randy?
I mean, how in the HELL did it have anything to do with the presidency?
And my GOD! He lied!
Well, guess what? He’s a politician. 'Nuff said.

18

This board is supposed to be about fighting ignorance not doing the opposite and trusting our presidents.

19

I don’t agree with the republicans view of hanging the guy because he dropped trousers. Don’t focus a microscope on someone because the microscope can just as easily be focused on you.

20

You guys are hopeless. I point out that Clinton has run one of the most corrupt administrations in our history, and you don’t blink an eye. Instead you come back with the usual sheep-headed responses, like; “ an attempt by the Republican Party to subvert the electoral process in this country” and “the republicans view of hanging the guy because he dropped trousers.”

I was all set to come back with an account of Clinton’s attack on the 1st & 4th Amendments, or his usurpation of congressional power by executive order, or even a timeline of his sellout to China, depending on how this thread went. But you don’t care. All you want to do is parrot the Dan Rather line, “Clinton is good; anyone who says otherwise is a terrorist.” If you think I’m laying it on too thick, check out this little fact-free flack piece:

Dan Rather’s Journal
I just want to share two thoughts with you before I leave:

  1. A country gets the government it deserves.
  2. I sometimes cry because you want to drag the rest of us down with you.
    Ruth