Defend clinton by tearing apart the investigator.
Absolve the criminal by blaming the cops.
same thing.
A “High Crime” in English common law, is based on the High Middle, and Low justice. A “High Crime” is one that calls for the death penalty, ie treason. By “misdemeanors”, the writers did not use this in our current meaning of a crime lesser than a felony, but a serious crime.
Starr was unable to prove his point, thus the Prez is “innocent”. Starr also used several unsavory and possibly illegal methods to get his evidence, such as refusing Lewinsky counsel. The link from Whitewater to lewinsky is tenuous, multi-stepped, and weak. Note that Starr never admitted he cleared Clinton on Watergate.
Not true at all. Nobody is arguing the fact that Clinton is innocent of anything. I am simply saying that Starr was a real zealous boyscout when it came to describing, in the minutest details, the relationship between Monica and the Prez.
I don’t mind those kinds of details if I’m reading the penthouse forum but I expect a little more than locker room antics from public servants. Ken Starr (IMO) resorted to sensationalist antics and lost credibility.
I said “I don’t like Bill Clinton because I think he has done more than any other president to dishonor the
office he holds.”
To which Pepperlandgirl replied:
Yes, he did; he got caught. If you know that the press adheres to a “Gentleman’s Agreement” not to report the more undignified things you, as president, do, then you have a lot of leeway to do those undiginified things, confident the press will not report them. If, on the other hand, you know or should know that the press will report every little undignified thing you do, in lavish and unflattering detail, and that doing that thing will therefore diminish your office in the eyes of the public, then you have an obligation not to do it. Kennedy knew the press would not report his affairs; Clinton knew or should have known the press would report them in a heartbeat.
It is not the obligation of the press to refrain from reporting information it considers in the public interest. The only one who can truly dishonor any office of public trust is the person who holds the office.
Then it isn’t surprising at all that we would disagree.
Well, of course you would, because you think lying is an admirable quality.
I agree with this. Which is why a person who expects to keep his private live private refuses to answer any questions that are not relevant to the job he does. If someone asked me if I was cheating on my S.O., I would refuse to answer because it ain’t nobody’s business if I do. Nobody forced Clinton to lie to the American public; he chose to do that. And from the start he put himself in the position where the press might legitimately consider every detail of his personal life to be fair game by agreeing to answer such ridiculous, pointless, and private questions as what type of underwear he wears. I have zero respect for him; I wouldn’t shake his hand if we were introduced. But then I don’t considering lying, cheating, and abuse of office to be characteristics worthy of admiration.
And thus the myth of the “liberal media” is destroyed in a single stroke!
I shook hands with him once when he had been jogging and wiped my palm off on the seat of my jeans.
QuickSilver:
He didn’t have carte blanche, every expansion of his probe had to be approved by a panel of judges.
Let me get this straight. He feels that by causing the impeachment of President Clinton, he’s got a fast track to the Supreme Court? Reality check: If Clinton got impeached, Gore would have been president. Highly unlikely that Gore would nominate someone who caused the impeachment of a fellow Democrat. Is he thinking down the road to 2000? Quite possibly, if Gore had been president for two years by the time the 2000 elections rolled around, he’d be in a stronger position to win than as a sitting vice president. On top of that, even if a Republican wins the presidency, he’d have no guarantee that the Senate would still have a Republican majority by the time a Supreme Court seat became vacant; Congress has a habit of gaining seats for the party that doesn’t hold the White House. Considering how bitterly partisan the Democrats were during the whole affair, it’s hard to see him getting confirmed if they were to regain the Senate…and thus, hard to see him getting nominated in the first place. As political power plays go, this would be a pretty stupid one.
There’s much more than that stuff in the Starr report. As I said, it details the course of the investigation, explaining how the Whitewater investigation led to the Lewinsky investigation. It details not only the facts necessary to prove the perjury allegation (i.e., the “Penthouse Forum” stuff), but also the less X-Rated evidence, such as the job hunt with Bill Richardson and Vernon Jordan, the hidden gifts under Betty Currie’s bed that failed to appear despite a subpoena, etc. It’s a shame that that’s the part that you (and many members of the media) feel it’s most worthy to focus on. And as for sensationalism, I should remind you that he delivered his report to Congress, as he was mandated to do. He did not release it to the public in any way; that was Congress’s own doing.
Chaim Mattis Keller
As a matter of fact, I don’t see any viable candidate so far who I’d rather have for pres. Right now, I’d vote for Clinton again.
That being impossible, my vote’s probably going to Ralph Nader.
Peace,
mangeorge (I know, I know.)
Because he make decisions based on how it will effect him, the welfare of the nation be damned.
I continue in bewilderment over the trashing of Mr. Starr.
During the era of the “special prosecutor” law, there have been hundreds of special prosecturos appointed to investigate suspicious activities of the White House and other relevent organizations.
Most people in this country can name at most one, Kenneth Starr. Were it not for the White House putting his name in the paper every day his name would be but a footnote.
Older Americans can recall the name of the prosecutor that ultimately brought down Nixon, Archibald Cox. I personally know of noone that can name a third special prosecutor. Even the name of the original SP in the Nixon case escapes me.
Starr acted no differently than had the hundreds of people that had taken the path before him.
SouthernStyle:
Lawrence Walsh, the special prosecutor in the Iran-Contra scandal.
Now you know me. I am…
Chaim Mattis Keller
hehehe…
Thanks cm. But as we’ve not really met, I’ll stand by my statement that I don’t personally know anyone that knows the name of a third special prosecutor – now qualified with “unless they’ve read your post”. 
CM-
Seems that our disagreement on the subject stems from only one aspect of the entire investigation. What motivated Ken Starr to pursue his investigation with the fervour that he exhibited.
You say that he is public servant extra-oridnaire who risked, career, reputation, life and limb even, to impeach a man who lied and cheated to get into the oval office and then proceeded to at least cheat while in it.
I, on the other hand, claim that Ken Starr was motivated by self interest far more than his sworn duty as public investigator. And here are my reasons why…
Clearly Mr. Starr is not a stupid man. Clearly he evaluated the risks of taking on this battle. Clearly he knew the potential consequences he would face. Clearly he chose to accept those risks in exchange for some kind of personal gain - one about which we can only speculate. But also, like many smart and ambitious men, he was rather vein. He assumed that given the evidence he held and with the sword of justice on his side, he could do no wrong. Well, perhaps Ken Starr is the last honest man in politics. Perhaps he is the martyr you claim him to be. Perhaps he sought to right an injustice he felt to be so vast that every minute detail, down to where Clinton put his cigars, needed to be exposed in the most explicit of details. Perhaps this was a good for the people of the US.
But frankly, the entire thing backfired on him and not because Congress chose to publish his findings. He damn well knew they would be publshed and become public record. He was not the innocent you claim him to be. There was no arm’s length detatchement between him and congress. The same congress, correct me if I’m wrong, that was vastly Republican. The same congress that had a vested interest in seeing the Democrat President squirm for his indiscretions.
It back fired because America is far too repressed sexually and they have too much awe for the office of their president. They paint him as a sort of deity. Certainly no-one wants a deity besmirched by allegations of taudry sexual anticks taking place within reach of the holy oval orifice… er, I mean office. The people do not want to hear about the president’s (evidently normal) sexual appetites. The people don’t want to believe that their leader and chief does anything else but contemplate the running of their country 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You might as well tell them about the president’s daily bowel movements.
That was Starr’s biggest error in judgement. That was where he went over the top. His mistake was not in exposing Clintons extra-marital affairs. His mistake was taking it to a level that the public was completely unprepared to accept, and quite frankly, neither was the media.