OT***Political (because this crisis effects everything right now) but NOT nasty. (In my view the main problem with political discussions is that people tend to have such a tendency to get personally nasty, and sometimes to shade the underlying facts as they understand them, so easily. I'll try hard not to. Responders, if any, please do the same.) Although we don't agree in some ways, you have a very civil reply. Thanks for that.
First, about my partisanship. Though I have some strong views on the impeachment issue, I am not reliably partisan. I'm an independent, not a Democrat. I voted for Clinton, twice. I also voted for Reagan, and Bush the first time. I have thought the country needed different things at different times. I tend to be moderately right of center on economic issues, including welfare policy, and fairly liberal on most social and cultural issues. I follow no party line that I am aware of. I did tend to like most of Clinton's policies. Greenspan, a lifelong Republican, and Rubin, a conservative Democrat, are heroes of mine. I thought Clinton's initial policy on gays in the military was ultimately right, but too much too soon. A cohesive and strong military, with good morale, is much more important than quickly ramming through social objectives. I think that while women in the military are often great assets in these mechanized and computerized times, feminist imperatives for the military have often been pursued too quickly and with unfair results. I thought the Pat Schroder inspired Tailhook witchhunt against all of the Navy flyers and their superiors who were anywhere in sight, regardless of their lack of direct involvement and regardless of the balance of their careers was grossly unfair, and a miscarriage of justice. All in all, just what sort of partisan would you say I am?
Clinton lied about an illicit and politically damaging sexual affair, did so repeatedly and did so under oath. He also encouraged Lewinsky to cover it up and lie about it, and at least hinted that he hoped she'd do it even under oath. I don't like it, but I don't think it's all that serious. I think perjury and obstruction of justice would often and probably usually be impeachable offenses. They would constitute High Crimes and Misdemeanors if they covered up the political bribery of a friend or subordinate, for instance, or the conspiracy of wayward subordinates to commit numerous illegal acts to gain illegal advantage for the President in the election system. (Watergate.) Both would be illegal acts that were also abuses of power. Murder would also of course be a High Crime.
I agree with the a) in your list, to some extent, but not the b) or c). With respect to b), he didn't conspire with his Cabinet to lied to the public. He simply lied to them about the affair, as well as to the public and to in the Jones deposition. What else was he going to do, if he didn't go public then and there? Lying to the public didn't add anything; it was all the same lie about the same thing.
With respect to c), the lateness and genuineness of his apologies, I think that's actually an area in which we've seen pretty much the unvarnished truth from Clinton concerning this subject. I think he WAS furious at Starr. I think he has a right to be, although I think it was a very unwise thing to say at the time. I think Clinton's contrition has deepened as he has seen the tremendous damage his conduct has had upon the country, his agenda, and his family. Clinton may well have had some sort of tacit arrangement with Hillary concerning at least his pre-presidential affairs, but I rather imagine they didn't include publicly humiliating her in front of the country and the world.
I think Clinton's affairs, and his sex lying and covering up, has almost nothing to do with his conduct in other areas. As it didn't with Kennedy's abilities as a leader, or Martin Luther King's either. Clinton has been, in my judgement and that of most Americans, a good leader. So the argument that we have now discovered the fatal flaw that will lead him to fail us in many other areas is a bit hard to sustain. He has proven himself in many ways. While all the while engaging in an illicit affair. No, its really all about punishment. And the need of moralist to reassert the fundament, from their point of view. Perhaps its the naive moral absolutism that American's tend towards that needs a little adjusting and growing up. Ironically the public seems to be much further there than the media and the Washington and editorial elites.
I guess where I come out on adultery is this. I have a hard time thinking its really all that immoral. A little yes, but not so terribly. What it really is, usually, is unfair to your spouse. It's sort of breaking the deal. Which seriously risks breaking the marriage. I think many of us have a hard time seeing politicians getting away (usually) with stuff that most of the rest of us seriously risk divorce over. We seem to allow other famous people, such as movie stars, rock stars and other musicians, and entertainers generally a lot of license in this area, but not our politicians. Most other countries cut their politicians in on the deal as well. I think the media used to keep the rather vast amount of sexual hanky panky by politicians quiet as none of the public's business. But the recent feminist agenda, well represented in the media, has tended to put such things very much on the public agenda.
Most of the rest of the world thinks this furor about covering up an affair is nuts. Other than Canada, which after all mostly watches and reads American media, just about the only foreign country that can even understand this business is Britain. And they also, for the most part, think we're. (Though their tabloids are making hay as well.) It's true that much of the world is making fun of the US right now. But not because Clinton had a perfectly ordinary affair with a young women and lied to cover it up (that's usually how it works, on both counts, isn't it?). Not because they think our President is a buffoon. They think the rest of us are buffoons. They think the crisis the country has throw itself into for so small a reason is ridiculous. And please don't say it's just the (immoral) French. It's also the Germans, Scandinavians, Italians, Japanese, Chinese, Brazilians. You name it. They all think the accusers are nuts. They are right. It's the old American sanctimonious blind spot. Right, or wrong. Black, or white. Moral absolutism. We cannot have a President who is inarguably flawed.
America seems to be caught up in a sort of neo-Puritanism regarding sexual matters. A strange alliance of the latest (unfortunate) stage of feminism, which would make much of private sexual conduct in some way political (from liaisons with co-workers to attractions between older men and younger women), despite the exception they would perhaps hypocritically make for their man Bill, and the Christian fundamentalists and other moral decay crowd, who want more of that old time religion back. Meanwhile every incentive for the modern media, both monetarily, and by the terms of their own Woodward and Bernstein influenced sense of mission, is to peruse any and all scandal in high places, without balance or restraint, and regardless of the larger national interest. Let the chips fall where they may.
Very many of our Presidents have had affairs, that we know about. And some of the best. Had Kennedy been asked about his under oath in a civil deposition which he knew would instantly leak and become headline news, I imagine he would have tried the same evasiveness, or even outright perjury Clinton did. Kennedy energized a whole generation to work for social and moral uplift, rather than only the selfish pursuit of gain. Few have been greater moral leaders than Dr. Martin Luther King. He had multiple affairs at the very time he was, rightly, stirring the nation's moral conscience, and helping cause great change as a result.
The Lewinsky questions were improper questions, not sufficiently related to the private matter of unwanted advances towards another woman that were being alleged. The judge should have so ruled beforehand, and did so rule, in the circumstances, subsequently. I believe that Clinton had very nearly the moral right to lie under the circumstances. It was wrong. But barely. His affair was also wrong. But hardly unusual.
All evidence suggests most foreign leaders throughout time have had affairs while in office. Particularly if they were relatively young at the time. Fame and power are enormous aphrodisiacs for very many women. Very many men with the ego, drive, and love of adulation that drives a man to obtain such an office, finds such availability irresistible.
Doug
|
