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

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (797)	8/7/1998 3:59:00 PM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

Another superlative Will: Condign punishment is under way--public mortification, domestic torture (life on the White House's second floor must now be gothic) and political emasculation. Yet to come, the ridicule of history. The object so sublime, to make the punishment fit the crime, is already being achieved. Will Clinton's punishment fit the crime? By George Will (Published August 6, 1998) WASHINGTON--Neither good taste nor public-spiritedness mars the nearly perfect seaminess to which President Clinton's self-indulgence and self-absorption have reduced the national conversation. However, this is almost sublime: His grand jury testimony is scheduled for Aug. 17, fifty years to the day after a riveting moment in another perjury drama. In 1948 Whittaker Chambers, a former Communist, accused Alger Hiss of espionage while both were serving the Soviet Union. On Aug. 17 Hiss was invited by Congressman Richard Nixon to Room 1400 in New York's Commodore Hotel, where Chambers awaited. After a pantomime of uncertainty, Hiss said he had known Chambers slightly, under another name. Thus Hiss continued to weave the tangled web that destroyed him. The Hiss case involved large themes--dangerous international conflict, clashing understandings of man and justice. Clinton's crisis partakes of his defining attribute: smallness. Which might save him. When Kenneth Starr's report puts Monica Lewinsky in the context of the seamless corruption of Clinton's career--a chronological report 500 pages long might not deal with her until Page 400--the very multiplicity of episodes may make all seem as small as the Clintons. So the country may say: Let him limp across the finish line. The great constitutional remedy--impeachment--should be reserved for weightier objects. Has Clinton committed perjury? Only his word--that is, nothing serious--suggests otherwise. Would a perjurer suborn perjury? Please. Can obstruction of justice be proved? Perhaps not. Clinton may not have told Lewinsky to lie--just as Henry II perhaps did not "tell" servile underlings to murder Beckett. Henry just wondered aloud, in the presence of people eager to ingratiate themselves, "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" Watergate occasioned important reappraisals (often misguided) of campaign regulations, presidential powers and the supervision of national security institutions. But no large lessons will flow from the Clintons' misadventures, only a truism: It is tremendous folly to put trashy people in positions of trust and conspicuousness. The artful dodger looks increasingly cornered, but Aug. 17 could have much drama drained from it by a pre-emptive presidential address of contrition. But be warned: Political apologies often turn out to be self-testimonials by the apologizer, who confesses that he erred because he loved the people too much or expediency too little. Clinton's might be a hackneyed reprise, replete with serial lip-bites, of his synthetic sincerity that is by now banal: "Compassion made me less than completely candid because I could not bear to hurt ..." That would be (in Mark Twain's words) not merely food for laughter but an entire banquet. (Clinton's supposed brilliance as a rhetorician is refuted by an axiom: A sculptor wants to be seen to be a sculptor, and a painter seen to be a painter, but an orator does not want to be seen as an orator.) However, what is Clinton's choice? If he commits perjury before the grand jury, a catalyzing few Democrats of distinction probably will grease the skids beneath him. Starr's indifference to polls is a facet of the probity that makes him unintelligible to Clinton, and surely there are Democrats of probity who are unwilling to ratify by passivity any more of his defining political deviancy down. Still, if that blue cocktail dress yields no physical evidence, Clinton might roll the dice and stick with his story. Doing so, he would risk everything on the gamble--he should assume that Starr has heard from witnesses Clinton knows nothing of--that Starr has not accumulated convincing corroborative evidence of Lewinsky's story. Clinton's presidency, an inconsequential skiff even before waves of scandal began pouring over the gunnels, has now been whittled nearly to nothingness by the public's intuitive wielding of "Ockham's razor," also called the principle of parsimony. The principle is: When seeking to explain phenomena, start with the simplest theory. The public understands that Clinton's behavior for six months-- silence, when not minting implausible privilege claims and directing calumny against Starr--has been rational if, but only if, he is guilty. Polls--snapshots of a flowing river--will change radically if he commits perjury before the grand jury. There is no look as baleful as that which contorts the faces of some Clinton despisers when they think he might "get away with it." Have they not noticed? Condign punishment is under way--public mortification, domestic torture (life on the White House's second floor must now be gothic) and political emasculation. Yet to come, the ridicule of history. The object so sublime, to make the punishment fit the crime, is already being achieved. sacbee.com

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (797)	8/7/1998 4:33:00 PM
From: Las Vegas Lou	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

Betty, This is spin. Even after a vasectomy it takes a very long time for the sperm count to go to absolute zero. There continue to be reports of presidential children besides Chelsea floating around making it seem reasonable that the vasectomy was not in the distant past. Without getting too gross, "gentlemen's relish" contains cells other than sperm that have nuclei. Any cell with a nucleus will contain the 46 chromosomes that most everyone has. For example, it is possible that some endothelial cells from the lining of the testicles or epidydimis may be present as well as several white blood cells more commonly called "polys". Although, the lack of sperm would make testing more difficult it is probable that the dress could still be linked to him.As long as the lab can get a few nuclei from any cells they can then do DNA testing. Many people who have been wrongfully convicted of murder and other capital crimes and sentenced have been freed in recent years as DNA testing has become available on truly miniscule amounts of genetic material. On a more humorous note, did anyone hear Susan Estrich say on national television that it is possible that he kept some "gentlemen's relish" in a vial in the bathroom and that Monica spilled it on the dress. Earth to Susan, Earth to Susan! This is real life and not "Species26" the movie.