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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (3426)	9/17/1998 5:32:00 PM
From: j_b	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

<<If you eliminated people who lie from Congress and the presidency, you would eliminate everyone.>> Only because we continue to allow the behavior to continue unpunished. As long as politicians get away with lying and cheating, they will lie and cheat. They seem to be motivated primarily by a desire for power rather than a desire to serve the public. If we discourage the concept of a career politician and encourage more public service from the general populace, and combine that with strict punishment for any public official found abusing the public trust, we might be able to have a government we can be proud of.

To: Sam who wrote (3426)	9/17/1998 5:43:00 PM
From: mrknowitall	Respond to of 67261

Sam, it really boils down to what the lie is about, and we, as citizens, elect officials to do the business of state, some of which we are better off not knowing about. For example, I do not want to know what the codes are to launch missiles, nor do I want to know the names of CIA agents working on behalf of the US in foreign operations, and I would expect the administration to not tell everyone everything about those matters as well as others. In fact, I would anticipate that the administration and members of congress are required by circumstances of their oath of office, to "preserve and defend the constitution" and "faithfully execute the office" by, yes, actually lying to the public, and to political enemies and even allies if it is for the good of this nation. I do, however, feel we need to know the *character* of the person who has been elected to oversee those kinds of sometimes indelicate and even dangerous acts on the world stage. History is the judge of some of those lies - the secret support for the nations fighting against Japan and Germany before we declared war is just one example of a "lie" we probably can now agree was justified. What Clinton lied about did not "preserve and defend" anything but his own ego. Mr. K.