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Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: halfscot who wrote (9568)	3/4/1998 11:17:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Respond to of 20981

Here's an informed opinion: E D I T O R I A L Having It Both Ways On Starr Date: 3/4/98 Alittle more than a month ago, the White House deferred to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr when the Monica Lewinsky matter broke. Now the White House says Starr has gone too far. What does it want? In effect, we were told that the president would like to answer more questions, but - gee - a probe was under way, and it wouldn't be right to politicize this serious matter. Now that the probe is starting to hit closer and closer to the Oval Office, the White House is full of statements - about the prosecutor, not the case. What gives? Power politics in an all-out effort to cover for the president. It's a truism among defense lawyers that if you can't try the facts, you try the law. And if you can't try the law, you try the prosecutor. The White House is doing its best to pillory Starr. To his credit (and detriment), Starr isn't playing politics. Hauling Sidney Blumenthal, the White House's best conspiracy theorist, before the grand jury last week served as Starr's latest political mistake. His missteps have given the White House precisely what it wants: a public grading of Starr and less attention to the actions of the president and his aides. By chanting that Starr has gone too far, the White House has managed to mute discussion of some serious issues - such as executive privilege being invoked to cover up possible perjury and obstruction of justice. Bruce Lindsey, probably the president's closest confidant, tangled last week with Starr's team over what he would tell them. Blumenthal did too. What do you two know about the president's actions? Did the president confide in you? Are you actively trying to delay or obstruct Starr's probe? These are the questions that Starr is asking and the White House is ducking. White House politico Rahm Emanuel took to Sunday's TV talk shows to change the subject to - you guessed it - Starr. The problem isn't that Starr has gone too far; it's that he must go this far to finish an obstruction-of-justice, witness-tampering and perjury probe of this White House. It was outside adviser Vernon Jordan's turn Tuesday. Jordan has stated that he helped Lewinsky find employment. Surely, there's a public interest in finding out whether Jordan's favors came at the president's request. Ever the Washington insider, Jordan has been carefully leaking his side of the story. He wants to ensure that he is not tarred with the Clinton brush, should everything fall apart. But we're not hearing the same kind of leaks based on the case from this White House. Rather, we get delays and deflections and mudslinging - all cloaked in the language of high principle - as if Clinton would have us believe he's protecting the presidency for future generations. Throughout its term, we've heard this administration invoke with due piety the sanctity of the attorney-client privilege. But courts have ruled that government lawyers aren't personal attorneys and thus aren't shielded from investigators. Lately we've heard from the White House that Secret Service agents shouldn't have to testify about the president's activities out of fear that the trust between the president and his defenders would be shattered. But retired Secret Service officer Lewis Fox voluntarily stepped forward to place Lewinsky and Clinton in the Oval Office together. Isn't that really what the White House fears in any Secret Service testimony? Of course, all these events flow from Paula Jones' sexual harassment suit -the same one the president could have settled several different times. The president instead argued that he should be immune from such a civil suit while in office due to the pressing needs of the country. By a 9-0 vote, the Supreme Court virtually laughed the claim out of its chambers. Some months ago, Clinton minions dismissed Starr's probe as ineffective. No matter that he'd obtained 13 convictions and guilty pleas from Clinton's cronies. Then a trunkful of bank documents, including a check with Bill Clinton's name on it, turned up in an Arkansas junkyard. So now we hear Starr has gone too far. No, that charge better applies to how much this White House has stretched its credibility. investors.com