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 : Should Clinton resign? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (447)	9/19/1998 6:19:00 PM
From: Hiram Walker	Respond to of 567

Daniel Schuh, Wow I agree 100% with you. Can I repost that? It deserves recognition as a brilliant post. Just thought I would drop this by. Riding the Starr supernova By Joel Deane, ZDNet There are no virgins. Not when you're talking about politicians and the media. Every elected official -- from Bill Clinton to Newt Gingrich to Richard Nixon to John F. Kennedy -- has climbed into bed, figuratively speaking, with a journalist at some stage. Giving off-the-record briefings, granting exclusives, awarding preferential seating in Air Force One or just sharing gossip about their political rivals. And every political journalist, whether they'll admit it or not, lives for times like right now -- when a politician is in trouble and there's blood in the water. It's a cynical, abusive relationship with a closet-full of dirty linen that likes to kid itself it's seen it all before. But it hasn't. No one's seen anything like the Starr Supernova before. Changing everything When Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's report on his investigation into the Monica Lewinsky affair burst across the Internet, it changed everything in two ways. First of all, the Starr Report painted a bull's-eye on the back of every politician. By voting to post the 445-page tome on the Internet, Congress did a Gary Hart -- practically daring the media to investigate every politician's sexual history. And, as Salon magazine's sexual expose of Rep. Henry Hyde (the Republican chairing the Judiciary Committee which could bring impeachment proceedings against Clinton) shows, the media is more than equal to the task. Secondly, the Starr Report changed everything by giving us our first real taste of the Internet's power on a grand scale. Rather than read, see or hear just the juicy excerpts of the Starr Report -- filtered by print, TV and radio journalists -- people could download and devour every sordid byte for themselves. Of course, the Net's immediacy and appetite for detail is not new, but by attracting an estimated audience of 20 million Americans the Starr Report took the Net from niche to mass media. It's like the difference between conventional and nuclear warfare. Why ZDNN is Webcasting Clinton And the Starr Supernova hasn't finished with us yet. Monday morning, at 6 a.m. PT, all four hours of Clinton's grand jury testimony on the Lewinsky affair will be released to the media. Almost immediately, every minute of that famous testimony will be Webcast -- uncut, uncensored, for all to see -- in streaming video on umpteen Web sites. ZDNN, in conjunction with ZDTV, will be one of those Web sites. Why is a technology news site bothering with a political event such as this? Simple. The Starr Supernova is a technology story. For better or for worse, news of the Lewinsky affair was first broken by the Drudge Report. For better or for worse, the Starr Report was released on the Internet. For better or for worse, an online publication -- Salon -- broke the Hyde story. For better or for worse, the unedited version of the Clinton testimony will only be shown online. As Salon Editor David Talbot said, the Internet is coming of age with the Starr Supernova. And, as the bomb- and death-threats made against Salon show, nobody knows just where this phenomenon is leading us Hiram

To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (447)	9/19/1998 6:23:00 PM
From: mrknowitall	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 567

Wow, Dan, you sure seem to have a lot of "facts" close at hand. I guess the "so what?" light going on and off in front of you just hasn't gotten your complete attention. Would you, with a little more attention to fact and reason, and a lot less rechanting of politicized Democratic and liberal diatribe, explain why the analogy I gave you is bogus? Mr. K.

To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (447)	9/20/1998 10:40:00 AM
From: Bill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 567

<<My point of view is perjury is almost never prosecuted, and it's ridiculously partisan to push it as an "impeachable offense" in this context.>> Your point of view is based on a myth. MSNBC last night detailed several recent perjury convictions in civil cases, one where someone is serving 18 months in prison for a minor background lie when he was testifying as an expert witness. In fact, Clinton's justice department has successfully prosecuted 12 civil perjury convictions in the past 4 years. Sorry to burst your partisan bubble.