Resignation Was Prompted by Desire to Make a Point nytimes.com
In a momentary break from the normal unitarian activities here, there's this story on the once future speaker Livingston. As near as I can tell, the point is he couldn't take the heat, so he got out of the kitchen.
Preparing for speaker, he said, was "intense beyond all belief. I didn't mind lending myself to that intensity when my heart was in it and my spirit was up. But I knew that this was going to continue and that as long as I was there, Larry Flynt was going to be there. And on top of that, I knew that with a 5-vote margin and 18 guys disconcerted about my conduct, I was facing an impossible situation. The confluence of those conditions just made my role impossible."
He added: "I had no defense. So I had to accept reality. Was it better to cut my losses and set an example for a president I thought should have followed my advice? Or was it better simply to let events happen and be consumed by them? I chose the former."
He said he hoped his resignation would prompt an outcry so that by the time Flynt published his story about other politicians, there would be a backlash. "I figured it was too late to help me, but I hoped that by calling attention to it, it might help them -- let the world see this bottom-feeder for what he is," he said of Flynt.
Through a spokeswoman on Monday, Flynt rejected the characterization of him as a bottom-feeder. "It takes one to know one," she quoted Flynt as saying. "He got down in the mud first. I just jumped down with him."
Larry Flynt is one thing, but Richard Mellon Scaife is something else entirely. And Scaife's millions were just seed money for a whole hate industry. Of course, that was non-partisan and professional hatred. But at least Livingston had the grace to not blame it on FBI files. Back to the Big Easy for a little R&R, then a triumphant return to Washington as a big bucks lobbyist. Yes, our sleazy system of government is all Bill Clinton's fault. |
