Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Les H who wrote (1209)	8/15/1998 5:06:00 PM
From: Les H	Respond to of 13994

WASHINGTON -- L'Affaire Lewinsky will go down in the annals of American politics as the episode that forced us to ask: What's normal? An extraordinary thing has happened lately. When pressed to discuss the president's behavior, Bill Clinton's friends have given up talking about facts and have lashed out against moral standards, instead. A few of the more famous claims: -- Nobody cares about adultery. -- Nobody cares about whether the president had sex with Monica Lewinsky, even though he swore under oath that he'd never had such relations with the intern. -- Nobody cares whether the president gave gifts to "that woman, Ms. Lewinsky" even though he said in sworn testimony that he couldn't remember doing such a thing (His exact words: "I don't recall. Do you know what they were?"). -- Perjury doesn't matter when it concerns little stuff, like adultery. Everybody lies about sex. -- Perjury isn't an impeachable offense. It is not a high crime or misdemeanor. -- You can't blame him for obstructing justice. Ken Starr and the others are just engaged in a partisan vendetta. The assumption withal is that Bill Clinton restricts himself to victimless crimes. But cheating on one's wife certainly doesn't fit that category. Nor does lying after swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. After all, an oath is the distinguishing characteristic of the presidency. The chief executive, alone of all elected officials, promises to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. If he'll lie to a court, why trust him with the oath of office? Clinton apologists have a ready response to such questions. They complain about the extremism of the law and its enforcers. They say Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr has set up a "perjury trap" in advance of the president's upcoming grand jury appearance, blithely ignoring that everybody knows Starr's strategy and perjury traps catch only one type of beast -- the liar. This may have a familiar ring. When we first heard allegations that Democrats swapped national security for campaign cash in 1996, the White House argued for changing the law rather than enforcing it. While no administration in memory has done a better job of blurring distinctions and befuddling the public than this one, palpable panic nevertheless has set in among the faithful. Lanny Davis himself has begun affixing escape clauses to his testimonials on the president's behalf. Last weekend, Davis confessed, "So far as I know, he's told the truth." We have moved in a short span from Bill Clinton, the Teflon president, to Bill Clinton, the latex president; from three strikes and you're out to three strikes and who cares? In trying to dumb down standards of justice, White House lawyers have proposed new privileges -- expanded executive privilege, attorney-client privilege for the president and any lawyer, "protective function privilege" -- that amount to full immunity before the law. At the same time, the administration has used its police powers to intimidate enemies. The IRS has initiated ruthless audits against conservative organizations, while forgiving the first family after it hid Whitewater payoffs from the late James McDougal. It's sicced the FBI after former White House Travel Office Director Billy Dale but wasn't able to get excited about Chinagate. That's typical of a crew that holds common decency in uncommon contempt. The man who promised the most ethical administration in the history of the Republic has earned a record number of independent counsels -- even without one for the campaign-finance scandal. Now, with Starr moving in for the truth, Clinton aides stress the president's popularity rather than his innocence. They pick politics over the rule of law. This time, however, nobody's buying. Aides are inching slowly, discernibly away from their man. The stock market is plummeting -- and not because it thinks Bill Clinton is innocent. Perhaps worst of all for the White House, we can reach lots of damaging conclusions before we even begin delving into the major scandals -- L'Affaire Lewinsky, Filegate, the Travel Office massacre, drug abuse among White House employees, the Vince Foster investigation, the politicization of the IRS, the use of private eyes to harass innocent citizens or the use of White House resources to launch character assassination campaigns against everybody from Gennifer Flowers to Kenneth Starr. A creeping suspicion has set in: Team Clinton has turned the rules upside down. It is corrupt not by happenstance, but design. At the heart of our misgivings is the issue of whether deception is normal. Bill Clinton, impugning George Bush's integrity, once chortled, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." True: And when a president presumes to fool the public on a daily basis, people's shame eventually turns into rage.