Thanks re: Clausewitz (though I'd like to learn more).
And re: Clinton, I agree. Though I sense we are a declining minority. Its not cause I'm such a super demo partisan. I'm not. It's because I entirely agree with you. Lying about his private behavior in a situation where it shouldn't have been demanded under oath doesn't bother me much at all. But it sure does seem to bother others.
Seems to me its all really a cover for the successful feminist reinvigoration of Puritan American sexual morality.
Let's ask this. What if Clinton were asked if he had ever had a homosexual experience in his life in Paula Jones lawsuit for some reason. Should he have to answer that, knowing it would shortly become very, very public, if the answer would hurt him. (That particular answer wouldn't hurt me, but I can recognize that the prejudicial effect of the public disclosure of that would be great, and very unfair.)
Now if it were a serious criminal trial, and the testimony was unquestionably relevant, somehow, that would be different. As it would in Clinton's case re: question's about adulterous affairs.
It would even be different in the old days of "fault" based divorce trials, where testimony about adultery was central, rightly or wrongly, to the outcome of the trial.
But in the Jones lawsuit???? There should be a "rape shield law" for men, seems to me. Aheeemmmm. I mean for those, of whatever gender, who are accused of sexual harassment. How is it that a prior criminal conviction for theft is inadmissible in a trial for a particular current instance of theft; but prior consensual cheating is fully admissible in a lawsuit alleging unwanted sexual pressures and advances?
Doug |
