Dave, I respect your argument about resignation, and have thought long and hard about it. It certainly would be an alternative.
But I think its wrong to try to force him to do it. Because that amounts to another form of impeachment. With all the same consequences.
Clearly the mess we are in is not desirable. But it will tend to not reoccur if the impeachment process against Clinton for these offenses is dropped. We will have established that these sorts of issues are not impeachable. And I think by implication, should not be the subject of any future Independent Counsel investigation, if that statute surives. (Which I hope it does not, at least not without radical revision.)
If on the other hand Clinton is either successfully impeached or forced to resign over these types of offenses, these types of charges and investigations will recur again and again against future Presidents. As well as other political leaders.
I've certainly thought that Clinton is simply not worth all of this. For the country. For other countries. For the market. Etc. Get rid of him. Certainly it's not as if he's being persecute for some act of conscience, though illegal. Certainly he did nothing admirable.
The fault here in my mind, really, is much more with those that are so rabidly persuing him in areas previously considered off limits, and yes, private, than with Clinton's not very unusual adultery, or efforts to conceal it from his enemies. Other than blaming those that funded and manipulated the Paula Jones suit, which did indeed occur, and Starr's most unbalanced pursuit of Clinton into even these areas, it is had to single out many others who are so heatedly attacking him for really so little. Such a national hysteria has developed in this case, fed by the media with its twin motivations I previously mentioned.
We need to decide once and for all that this sort of stuff is off limits, and not part a legitimate avenue of political competition. In my view.
Doug |
