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

To: j_b who wrote (5144)	9/24/1998 11:03:00 AM
From: dougjn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

Nope, I don't believe Willey. They may or may not have touched one another in various ways, but I don't think he did anything unwanted at the time. I think she made up either its lack of invitation, or its entire occurrence, after the case to try to cash in. She made a good initial impression on TV. Upper middle class respectable, and all that. But then all sorts of things started looking fishy. Such as her steamy letters before and after the "unwanted" incident. She was getting more than a bit desperate for money and immediately tried to sell her story after the 60 minutes "revelation". Immediately. Clinton seemed an easy mark, with e.g. 60 minutes not the least bit skeptical, initially. I seem to recall she had recently made some other things up that were pretty big whoppers as well, but not sure about the details of the last. Yes, it certainly appears Clinton has been a major womanizer. Everyone knew or should have known that before his election. The rumors were rife that there were a lot more than Jennifer Flowers. She was just the only one that was going fully completely public at the time (to cash in on the scandal). And there really wasn't much counter, other than it isn't on the record, isn't proven, etc. Kennedy was a womanizer, Dr. Martin Leuther King was as well. So was L.B. Johnson, though with Vietnam his record is certainly mixed. (There were the first effective civil rights laws and Medicare and Medicaid on the other side of the ledger, however. Though not for the far right wing, of course.) Clinton's MO is not to force himself on anyone. Oral sex seems to be. We are told by both Flowers and Lewinsky that Clinton regards that as deniable, when sexual relations questions are asked, while intercourse is not. (It's actually a rather cleaver exploitation of the disconnect between the contemporary American cultural understanding of the word, and its continuing preferred, or first, dictionary definition. (Check out the MS Bookshelf definition, that you probably have access to through your MS Office CD.) No doubt something he has given a lot of thought to, and practiced exploiting many times.) Of course he has now made that disconnect something that will never work again. <g> Having sexual relations (either definition) with someone lower in the organization is not sexual harassment, contrary to the claims of some of the sex police. A few companies may make it against internal rules, but most do not. Threatening to fire someone if they don't put out, or anything of the sort, is sexual harassment. (In Clinton's case, people like to call each and every Arkansas state employee "his" employee, and now I guess each and every federal employee.) The new puritans, whether of the religious right or the extreme feminist stripe, of course would like to make any sort of sexual relations between those in the same workplace verboten ... or in the extreme feminist version, to create such a weighty and terrifying presumption against the man if the woman should ever subsequently become disenchanted, that he will bloody well ... be terrified. And hence properly compliant in all respects. Did I get that right? <gg> Doug

To: j_b who wrote (5144)	9/24/1998 3:45:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

When you attack the motivation behind the claims I begin to have problems. The attacks originated with the WH, and were part of the typical Clinton smear campaign. If you look at Clinton's motivation for lying, it's all about power and control. Why would you consider his claims to be more credible than theirs? Sorry to interject, and I'll try to be polite. But, as far as smear campaigns go, Clinton doesn't seem exceptional. At least for election campaigns, his seemed fairly clean compared to the '88 Willy Horton deal. On Paula Jones, and Kenneth Starr's early involvement, were sexual harassment cases a normal part of his legal practice? Even if the "Arkansas Project" stories are a White House plant, which, sans evidence of such, is a bit of a smear in and of itself, Starr's office has not been shy about the strategic leak. Plus, smear-wise, you have a lot of "colorful language" in his report that seems a bit excessive. Cheers, Dan.