Michelle, some interesting history which I'd like to pass along over here on this thread. Henry Hyde defended a colleague, Daniel Crane, on the House floor who carried on an illegal affair with a 17 yr old congressional page. If the standards were applied to Crane that Starr is applying to Clinton, Crane apparently committed obstruction of justice and perjury under oath (not to mention statutory rape), and only admitted the affair after a 1.5 million dollar investigation by a special counsel. Yet Hyde said:
We sit here to find a punishment that fits the breach, and so in searching our souls for the appropriate punishment, I ask the Members to consider this situation in its totality, in its entire context.
I suggest to the Members that Dan Crane would rather have lost an arm at the shoulder than have to tell his wife, than have to greet his wife as he did with the media. I suggest that all life is about is to earn the esteem of our fellow men. That is what we are here for. That is why we run for election. . . . That is lost to Dan Crane. He is embarrassed, he is humiliated, he is displaced. And it endures; it is not over. It will never be over. It will not be over as long as he lives . . . . Mr. Speaker, I suggest to the Members that compassion and justice are complementary. The Judeo-Christian tradition says, "hate the sin and love the sinner." We are on record as hating the
sin, some more ostentatiously than others. I think it is time to love the sinner.
In no small part due to Hyde's speech and his towering reputation, Crane and Gerry Studds (whom also had an affair with a page)were both CENSURED by the House after more serious charges of expulsion were voted down.
Doughboy. |
