Hey, good research twf ! I appreciate it.
Points of consideration:
1) People go to jail, Presidents don't. The suggestion that we define new precedents of consistency in justice between the well-heeled and well-connected sounds good, but I haven't seen pigs fly yet.
2) The prostitute was perjuring herself in an attempt to cause injury to Hoffa.
3) The woman accepting money from men for sex was engaging in a criminal act before the false statement or perjury that she gave.
4) Pam Parsons used perjury to create a personal gain via an injury to Time.
5) Bill McCollum's perjury list mention of two that were perjury about sex are perhaps the closest in potential motivation , as one was lying about sex with a subordinate (though likely that was an actual breach of a written policy and a President would have no such policy... though one would hope he had the sense to recognize the common sense of that) and the other was a defense against a civil lawsuit seeking damages, which was precisely the case with Clinton.
6) A pattern emerged about Clinton as the allegations came in on him. Clearly he was an oversexed womanizer. Seemingly, he was boorish enough to make physical passes. Yet time and again, most of the women did not come forward until others, with political motivations, pressed them to do so.
If memory serves me well, Broadrick came forward after the impeachment trial and after she'd filed an affidavit refuting such an event. Did he rape her? We'll never know, but since it didn't fit his m.o., there is cause for reasonable doubt. Has Broadrick filed a civil suit or has the statute of limitations run out on that, too?
Reasonable doubts exist with the others. I've heard more than a few women interviewed who expressed an initial dislike of him.... till they met him in person. Then they swooned. Clearly, he has some appeal, as is common with men in power. Could any of the women feel he rejected them, when they hoped for more? Could they be motivated by revenge for being scorned? Possibly.
7) So prior to Clinton's impeachment trial, what motive would he have to lie? Like #2 and #4, he was not aiming to injure or seek personal gain. Like #3, he had previously committed no criminal act unless he had, in fact, exposed himself to Paula Jones or raped Juanita Broderick. In which case his motive was to conceal his criminal act.
As with the second example in #5, he also could have been motivated to deny having sex with Ms. Lewinsky so that a 'pattern of behavior' could be denied while he defended himself against Jones' civil lawsuit.
He could also have been motivated to conceal having an affair from his wife, his daughter, and other loved ones. Even if he had a pattern of behavior that his wife was aware of, this could be so. As well, his motivation could have been pure politics if he was trying to conceal the affair from the public solely to prevent political damage to his career.
8) I'm quite clear on the point that regardless of motive, perjury is perjury. My reason for exploring motive is not to defend that, but to seek what happened and why, as it is the veracity of the historical record that matters more to me. Some have assumed what my motives are by assigning a slot for me to fit in, because it makes it easier to dismiss me and my thoughts on the matter.
I voted for Bill Clinton, once. Not out of any great respect for the man; I was aware of his potential to pursue the office at least 6 years before he ran because, in my earlier adult life, I was quite the student of Presidential politics. I can still handicap a Presidential race as good as anyone I know because I can see who's who and what's what from miles away. But now that's related more to my interest in history than it is any great ardor for Presidential politics or any candidate.
My one vote for Clinton was more a 'hold-your-nose-and-vote' decision than anything else. Few candidates in my adult life have ever inspired me after the primaries and conventions, and Clinton was no exception.
At the time, I was working with homeless women & children, but I was also enormously concerned with the difficulties homeless men faced. I was aware that many were ex-GIs, which bothered me a lot. When I voted for Clinton, public sentiment was strong to find a solution for unaffordable health care costs. At least 2 out of 3 Americans were supportive and I thought Clinton stood the best chance of accomplishing something there, which would benefit many of the folks I worked with, and many others among the working poor.
The job got botched; I consider that one of the major failures of his Presidency. And I lay this out here, to display my motives and bias, which are not about defending Clinton. I recognized him prior to his presidency only as an excellent campaigner with a capacity to innovate. I do not assign high hopes to many Presidential choices; generally there'll be one or two issues of national concern that I hope a candidate can address successfully.
9) So back to the issue of his perjury, viewing it from a commonsense perspective, rather than a proveable legal one, I weighed Clinton based on my own observations of other womanizers. I believe his motives included the personal and political ones. From all outward signs, he's certainly a political animal and seems to be a loving Daddy. His capacity to be a trustworthy husband, as with any womanizer, was not good.
He was also motivated to defend himself in the civil case Ms. Jones was pursuing against him.
That's all I have been able to discern with reasonable certainty, based on my knowledge of the guy and of womanizers in general.
From all that, then, I have no problem concluding that he committed perjury. And I'm aware it's a common trait of womanizers to deny affairs unless actually caught in the sack sans trousers. So on that point, 'Guilty as charged' is the most reasonable conclusion.
10) To take that judgment and assign a fitting punishment is the next phase of the process. And I'm certain any partisan Clinton hater will assign a motive to dissemble, but I also believe it is in the punishment phase where most Americans differed from the proponents of impeachment.
For one thing, though dirty politics have occurred throughout this nation's history and others', and all folks occupying the White House face opposition during their tenure, my memory is that most Presidents since Nixon have faced a lot of opposition from grassroots sources and populist causes, and some legislative opposition common to partisan politics.
With Clinton, a distinctly different tone emerged. Part of it was driven by a brash and markedly hostile form of opposition set by a rising GOP star, Newt Gingrich. The country had seen such vicious rhetoric arising from activists on the street and from extreme fringes within both parties, but Gingrich was leading the recklessness and viciousness of the extreme fringe to center stage.
The only previous time I'd seen anything like that in my lifetime was in 1972 when the Left extreme brought it center stage to the Democratic Convention in 1972. But that was largely a result of the 1968 convention's street level dynamics, coupled with assassinations some believed were political conspiracies, plus the weight of a long and increasingly unpopular war. More importantly, that extreme never actually achieved control over any significant ruling house of the government.
The Gingrich-led House was pitbull-like in its viciousness toward Clinton. As well, there was a distinct smell of chauvinist pork cooking in the assault directed at Mrs. Clinton because she didn't project the same passivity as many First Ladies have done, though she was hardly at the extreme edges of frontline feminism. To this day, she has been convicted of nothing and has been faithful to her marriage and family (as near as anyone can tell), yet the same Clinton bashers that continue to dig up Big Bill from his political grave to piss (convincingly!) on his corpse will not be dissuaded by such niceties as courtroom verdicts unless the verdicts support their rabid faith.
Even mere entertainers like Rush Limbaugh raised the bar of viciousness to fresh heights with his cruel remarks about Chelsea Clinton's looks, right when she was in that early adolescent geeky transition phase that most of us have to endure.
So the American public was treated to a President that commonly took a position, then in the political art of compromise, shifted to a conciliatory middle with his opponents, most of the time. From the opposite side, we were treated to multi-layered and redundant investigations into everything the Clintons did, thought, ate, touched or dreamed of throughout their careers.
When Vince Foster committed suicide, rather than any compassion toward the Clintons' loss of a dear friend, it became a political thriller of the B-Grade movies. He was murdered cause he knew too much. He was Hillary's lover. Charges like these continue now, years later, despite the fact that it ranks as one of the most investigated deaths in history, complete with redundant findings of no wrongdoing.
The dismissal of folks in the Travel Office got grandstanded into kinship with Nixon's Watergate. That was akin to suggesting the dismissal of a chauffeur is as important a national matter as the break-in and bugging of political opponents in an attempt to hijack an election.
These are just two examples of the level of poisonous rhetoric directed at the middle-roading Clintons, who only ventured left on infrequent occasions. It roiled the majority of US voters sufficiently that they ultimately elected enough Democrats to effectively end Gingrich's political career.
That was the stage that was set when the name Paula Jones entered into the picture. And she came with some of the same baggage. From a group of reactionary righties determined to bring down Clinton, she was persuaded to bring her story public, her legal expenses were covered, her appearance was given an expensive makeover, and a team of talented investigators was provided.
With such allies, she had nothing to lose.... even if she lost her civil suit.... and plenty to gain. It was the skilled political operatives behind Jones that Mrs. Clinton referred to when she made her infamous 'vast right-wing conspiracy' remark. Perhaps it was not vast and the conspiracy was rather disjointed, but most Americans remained skeptical because of several years of poisoned atmosphere leading up to this fresh allegation.
And in the aftermath of what has become known since, what has been proven and what amounts to speculation, most Americans felt Clinton deserved some sort of censure that did not include jail or impeachment. I think the response of the majority is consistent with my impression of most voters. They can be misled briefly, but generally have enough common sense to reach fair and practical conclusions.
I remain undecided as to whether Clinton exposed himself to Paula Jones. In a civil trial where 'he said/she said' can deliver unpredictable results, once his credibility had been tarnished by his perjury, she finally stood at least a 50-50 chance of winning. Considering both the monetary costs of an extended legal battle and the political cost of having that lingering albatross on his neck while trying to govern effectively, it simply could be more reasonable to reach a settlement and move on.
Certainly, the Broderick case cast an entirely new kind of horrible speculation about whether Clinton ever went past sexual irresponsibility into an assaultive behavior of major criminal proportions. Mrs. Broderick's fresh allegation had to be weighed against numerous choices she made subsequently, which are sufficient to leave her charge in an uneasy limbo, as this essay notes:
singmind.com
So we are left with the certainty that Clinton lied about Lewinsky, committing perjury, and gaining penalties strong enough to satisfy the largest jury - the American public - as well as the presiding judges.
The truth about the allegations in limbo may never be known to any but the women and Big Bill. This does not suspend him from moral judgments, but I'm of the school of thought that with his Presidency over, the remaining moral judgment is up to powers greater than any of us.
I am sure my comments here-in will be read on the basis of buzzwords by some. They'll read "yadda-yadda-homeless"
"yadda-yadda-voted-for-Clinton-once" and they'll immediately be able to discern that I'm a Commie-fetus-murdering-homo or even worse, a liberal.
Or they'll refuse to engage in any discourse at all, because they can find nothing useful to say that might inspire actual brain activity. I respect the rites of those moral absolutists to be forever right.
I respect more those willing to back up their points with a little research or well-articulated points, such as you provided, twf.
-Kev@windygasbag.iam |
