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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (48)	8/1/1998 4:28:00 PM
From: JF Quinnelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

uexpress.com EVERYBODY KNOWS, by Joe Sobran WASHINGTON -- Can you identify the speaker of the following words? "I've known Bill Clinton since we went to school together, and I've never known him to lie. Just the opposite. I've known him to tell the truth, many times, even when it could cost him. As far as I know, he's always been a faithful husband. And it's unthinkable that he would sell out his country for partisan advantage. I can't imagine his doing any of the things he's being accused of." The correct answer is "I give up." Nobody ever spoke those words, and nobody in his right mind would. Bill Clinton is being accused of deeds for which there is not only evidence, but antecedent probability. If he wouldn't commit them, one might ask, who would? Clinton has a thousand apologists. What he doesn't have is a single character witness. Not even his wife. Least of all his wife. Hillary is the key to this whole story. If she hadn't sprung to his defense in the first days after the Lewinsky scandal broke, Al Gore would be president by now. As soon as she sent out the signal that she didn't care what her husband had done, the Democrats had their marching orders. Mrs. Clinton is playing a curious role. She is the senior wife in what amounts to a walk-in harem. As long as she retains her primacy, she appears not to be jealous of the other women. The president's defenders are likewise protecting the facade of the Clintons' marriage. They don't really think he never went beyond a handshake with Monica Lewinsky; they make pro forma professions of believing Clinton's shabby denials and help him avoid a showdown with the facts. Another thing nobody has ever said is this: "Bill Clinton is innocent. Let's hear those tapes. Let's hear the testimony of Monica Lewinsky, Betty Currie, the Secret Service, the Chinese lobbyists, and let the chips fall where they may. The full truth will vindicate the president and confute his accusers." Clinton's apologists argue that the Secret Service shouldn't be forced to testify against him. Note the preposition. Why "against"? Why not "for" or "about"? Because they assume the facts are damaging to Clinton -- as do Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno. The words "full disclosure" sound awfully quaint in today's Washington. Clinton's chief hatchet man, James Carville, who prefers velocity to veracity, has been oddly quiet lately; the duty of defending the Democrats' alpha male seems to have devolved on Barney Frank, the man least likely to censure l'amour clintonaise , as I believe the urbane Parisians call it. (Barney recently split up with the gent who has been his main squeeze these last 10 years, so now's your chance to grab him on the rebound.) Barney is far too canny to suggest that Clinton is telling the truth, but he has perfected the rhetorical technique of violent nit-picking against Kenneth Starr. Starr, like Linda Tripp, has a way of outraging people who aren't outraged by adultery on the rug in the Oval Office. But to the point: Has Clinton committed "high crimes and misdemeanors"? The phrase means approximately "abuses of power and disgraceful behavior." Andrew Johnson, though no criminal, was impeached for far less than Clinton has done. In the private sector, any corporate executive who sexually exploited an intern would be quickly dismissed under the standard moral turpitude clause of his contract. The word "misdemeanors" in the Constitution maybe understood as a virtual moral turpitude clause. So Clinton's fling with Monica in the Oval Office should suffice for impeachment and removal from office, even without graver abuses of power and setting aside Clinton's congenital venality. But Clinton, with his usual cunning, has insinuated the dual notion, first, that a president can be impeached only for offenses that would land a private citizen in prison, and second, that a president faced with impeachment is therefore entitled to all the protections of a criminal defendant (on top of the privileges of the presidency). This confuses removal from office with penal incarceration. Clinton may well deserve both, but they are totally distinct. Removing a malefactor from office should be easier, not harder, than sending him to jail.