No, just "truth, justice". (Try plugging in "Clinton" and you'll find mostly joke pages. There must be a message there too.)
Review & Outlook
Some 'Vindication'
The Independent Counsel shall have jurisdiction and authority to
investigate to the maximum extent authorized by the Independent
Counsel Act of 1994 whether Monica Lewinsky or others suborned
perjury, obstructed justice, intimidated witnesses, or otherwise
violated federal law . . . in dealing with witnesses, potential witnesses,
attorneys, or others concerning the civil case Jones v. Clinton.
President Clinton claims "vindication" in Judge Susan Webber Wright's
dismissal of the Paula Jones case. Even if it's true that he exposed himself
and asked for oral sex, she ruled, that doesn't qualify as sexual
harassment. Some vindication. And the vindication extends as well, the
President's spinmeisters tell us, to perjury, obstruction of justice,
fundraising dinners with Asian lowlifes, hush money for Webb Hubbell, the
ravaging of FBI files, shakedowns of Indian tribes, the Travel Office
firings, the Rose Law Firm billing papers, bogus loans to the Whitewater
account and Hillary's $100,000 commodities coup.
In short, Bill Clinton once again displayed his main talent, dodging the
bullet. Judge Wright in effect wrote that it's time for Mrs. Jones to grow
up, and that everything nasty isn't an actionable tort. There is some sense
to this reading, but it must leave thousands of men wondering where to
apply to get their jobs back. Employers across the land are routinely faced
with buying out discrimination suits based on allegations of far less
reprehensible behavior than ascribed to Mr. Clinton. Mrs. Jones' mistake
was not running immediately to the plaintiff bar. Conceivably such litigation
will now abate, but it's more likely that Judge Wright has established a
lenient reading of the discrimination law as a Presidential droit du seigneur.
Parlaying this coup into a blanket exemption, though, would be an even
more amazing dodging act. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, after all,
has all along been investigating the original Whitewater case, the Travel
Office firings and the use of FBI files. Even in the Jones case, it pays to
notice above what he has been specifically chartered to investigate. Not
sexual misconduct or even simple perjury, but possible suborning of
perjury, witness intimidation and obstruction of justice (and in the next
paragraph of the judicial panel's mandate, conspiracy toward these
crimes). Attempts to suborn perjury and obstruct justice are serious crimes
standing alone, in no way wiped out by the conclusion of the civil case that
may have occasioned them.
Intriguingly too, Monica Lewinsky is the only person specifically named in
Mr. Starr's mandate. On the face of it, she did attempt to suborn perjury
by delivering the infamous "talking points" to Linda Tripp. Bradford
Berenson, a Washington white-collar defense lawyer writing in the Los
Angeles Times, has suggested that Mr. Starr simply indict Miss Lewinsky
and call the President as a witness. Mr. Berenson subscribes to the
argument that a sitting president probably cannot himself be indicted, and
writes, "A Lewinsky trial may be the only way the president ever would
be required to answer the charges against him under oath, without
immunity, in detail and in public."
The crimes Mr. Starr is investigating here are anything but personal
peccadilloes, but go to the heart of the presidency, which is constitutionally
charged to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Obstruction of
justice, indeed, was point one of the bill of impeachment that forced
President Nixon to resign. And the theme of impeding the process of
justice runs through the gamut of Clinton offenses, from RTC investigation
of the original Whitewater matter to the use of FBI files to the firing of
Travel Office employees.
Beyond Mr. Starr's mandate, the theme appears again in the campaign
finance controversy. The big issue there is not whether Johnny Chung or
Charlie Trie broke the campaign finance laws, but whether they were
agents of a presidentially chartered conspiracy to shred them. We still
want to know whether, in the absence of an independent counsel, Justice
Department investigator Charles LaBella is even permitted to put this
question to Mr. Chung or Mr. Trie.
As tempting as it might be to dismiss Mr. Clinton as a passing rogue, he
will establish the precedent for future presidents. Is it the duty of the Secret
Service, for example, to cover up presidential crime? Can the President
act through his personal law firm to charter a gang of plumbers to
investigate and intimidate his opponents? Will Mr. Clinton's breathtaking
assertions of executive privilege win another courtroom coup insulating
future presidents from accountability not only to the Congress but the
courts as well?
Dismissal of the Jones case clearly takes some of the impetus out of the
drive to hold the president accountable, certainly in the tabloids and
perhaps in the Congress. But at the same time, dismissal may make the
issues clearer. The root issue has never been about sex. It has always been
about abuse of the powers with which a president is entrusted.
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