no. As far as perjury goes, everybody does it, and it's hardly ever prosecuted. A politician testifies under oath, there's likely perjury. Remember, Starr was supposed to be investigating Whitewater, and after 4 1/2 years he's come up with nothing. Susan McDougal is still getting daily full body cavity searches, though, and her husband died alone in solitary due to the excellent treatment given him by his jailors. Not that they weren't crooks, but they were peculiarly small fry crooks in the S&L cesspool. Remember Neil Bush, an officer of Silverado, that went down to the tune of $2 billion? Remember that the whole S&L cleanup was kept under wraps till George Bush was safely elected, a delay which was supposed to be costing millions a day, maybe 10's of millions? Remember the cool trillion dollar tab on that one we're still paying for? And how many high profile prosecutions came out of that whole fiasco? Jim Wright went down, of course, over a book deal that was laughably minute compared to the one Newt made as soon as he took charge.
Not than Clinton is very defendable. But having lived through Watergate and Iran-Contragate, this one looks like history repeating itself as farce. Watergate had something to do with the president's office, and Iran-Contra had the bizarre twist that one day there was full denial - no arms for hostages, no money to the Contras - and the next day, the line (from Ron himself) was "I knew all about it", and it was all ok. Even though they did trade arms for hostages, and they did totally ignore the Boland ammendment, you couldn't prove they were connected, so it was all ok. That line stuck, too.
So now dumb Bill Clinton admits to doing what everybody thought he was doing all along, and it's an impeachable offense. He sure looks like a dope, but if that's all Starr can pin on him, Starr is a dope too. Can't wait to hear Newt, who served his first wife divorce papers in the hospital and is supposed to have made "creative" use of his speaker's desk (nudge, nudge) take a statesmanlike, non-partisan position on this. We've already heard the news on Henry Hyde, maybe that'll keep his self righteousness down a bit, though I wouldn't hold my breath. I just wish somebody would investigate the novel living arrangements of the governor of my fair state. It's an open secret, and he's talking about running for president too. He also has no problem getting self righteous about the other side.
If we had a parliamentary system, there'd be no doubt Clinton should resign. But we don't.
Cheers, Dan. |
