We're back to degrees of wrong. Degrees of illegality. A subject that moral absolutists hate.
Certainly an older man engaging in sex with a 13 year old, not to mention an 11 year old or some such, is a lot more dispicable than with someone who is just barely younger than the applicable age of consent. And when the age of consent is itself on the high side of the national range, that also makes a difference. And usually would in sentencing.
Especially marginal violations of the age of consent are sometimes overlooked. For instance, if the couple end up getting married by the time it is discovered, and the woman/girl was just barely under the age.
Anyway, the point is that there are degrees of illegality, even though it might never be perfectly O.K. And I think most people would regard a much older man (who is also powerful, etc.) violating statutory rape laws by having sex with someone on the other side of the line....is a lot more serious than committing the most minor of all immaginable perjuries.
You know, perjury about his private sex life, given in a collateral line of questioning the judge later ruled not essential, in a lawsuit that proved to be frivolous, and was dismissed for failure to make any plausable demonstration of damages, and which was paid for and directed specifically to conduct a sexual inquisition to bring the President down. Which the Starr inquisition insisted on re-asking before the Grand Jury, so he could up the perceived seriousness. That perjury.
Even though both are illegal, they are not equally serious. Not by a long shot.
Clinton haters don't care. They just want to get their man, and use any legal pretext for doing so.
Doug |
