I disagree, as I have amply explained.
Right wingers are in retreat, and will be more so soon.
As I said, the most significant thing that happened in the tape is that the President explained, quite convincingly, his word smithing defense.
He explained very well why it was legally permissible. And why he also felt it was morally justified, in view of the dishonest and illegal tactics of the Jones legal team to destroy him even though they could not win the suit that was their purported purpose.
It will no longer be a laughable position, and you will no longer hear most leading Democrats saying that it is.
Clinton fully admitted that he was not helping the Jones lawyers. And made it clear that he was in fact trying to mislead them. WHich is legally permissable.
The Supreme Court found under the following facts, no perjury. A financier was asked whether he had any bank accounts in Switzerland. He anwswered that he held controlling positions in several corporations which held Swiss bank accounts. The full truth was that he himself also had personal bank accounts in Switzerland. As I said, no perjuy. It is the leading case on whether misleading statements which are narrowly true constitute perjury. The clear answer is they do not.
It is just those sorts of anwers which the President gave. And for good reason. The Jones lawyers were conducting a wholesale dragnet into his private life, trying to find anything damaging, with the full intent of leaking it to a complicit press, in direct violation of the presiding judges specific and targeted prohibitions. In fact the testimony on Lewinsky was not germane to the Jones matter, since it did not involve harassment of any sort. Jones' lawyers got the judge to let such testimony in until they could be fully sure no harassment was involved, with the promise that they wouldn't leak. Which they promptly and repeatedly violated.
No wonder he wanted to mislead on these matters? And who could blame him (other than right wing zealots), at least if he stayed on the good side of perjury?
Doug |
