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

To: mrknowitall who wrote (5944)	9/28/1998 12:55:00 PM
From: dougjn	Respond to of 67261

Yes, I like discussing things with you as well. Because although I often don't agree with you, you are prepared to be reasonable. True, given the three criteria you outline, alone, I think you are correct - unless, of course, the truth is that you didn't do what the accusers are saying. Keep in mind that what Clinton is accused of perjuring himself over (and where he certainly was maximally slippery, and misleading), was over fully legal activity. Which he felt, with some considerable reason, that the Jones lawyers had no legitimate business asking him about. He doesn't stand accused of perjury for saying for instance that he never exposed himself before an unwilling and objecting Paula Jones. The judge ended up throwing out the Lewinsky line of testimony as "not essential" to the fair determination of whether Jones had been sexually harassed. The President should never have been asked those questions. Further I believe it is fully possible, and in fact likely that the Paula Jones complaint was largely fabricated. Yes, she was brought up to that hotel room, after she "made eyes" at the then Governor at that public reception. I think he turned on one of his famous smiles, then verbally asked her if she had an interest (without a lot of the preceding banter she expected); she asked well what sort of great job would be in it for me; he said well if that's how it is, perhaps we both have other things to do; she was ushered right out; she got pissed off. Well, at first she was partly flattered to have been noticed, but partly mad not to have been worth more than a fast brush-off. Retold the story to herself in increasingly lurid ways, and retold it even more luridly to friends, to give it some traction. The right wing posse scouring Arkansas for dirt to lynch Clinton with picked it up, sent it over to the right wing friendly American Spectator--- and the rest is history. (Part of why I think this is pretty much how it went down is the President's MO. He's a major philanderer. We flat out know about a lot and there are rumors about a whole lot more, especially in Arkansas. He is not a major coercer of women. They're both sins. But they are different MO's.) Sexual harassment, particularly of the very marginal sort which Paula Jones alleged, is not at all difficult to claim. Any woman can do it. She has to be properly motivated by something, of course. Money and a sort of fame could it for someone sleazy enough. Like Paula Jones. And the right wing funders and directors of her lawsuit. But it is also true that there is some fire behind all this smoke. The fire is that the President is a major philanderer. That is what his enemies were really counting on uncovering by funding and directing the Jones lawsuit. They knew the suit itself was almost certainly a looser (though terribly embarrassing to even be brought.) They were counting on using it as a vehicle to expose in lurid detail and under oath the President's philandering. Ok, that truth is fully out there now. But that the President was intentionally misleading (and just might have slipped up somewhere in the Jones deposition and crossed over to perjury) to hide that fact is not I think a terribly significant matter. And all the hysteria over it doesn't make it properly a matter of great weight either. Doug

To: mrknowitall who wrote (5944)	9/28/1998 1:21:00 PM
From: Achilles	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

>>The reason most of us aren't going to get into that kind of situation (i.e., being the subject of this kind of questioning or inquisition into our sex lives), is that ... most of us don't conduct ourselves in a manner that invites or even legally requires it.<< A fair point, Know (can I call you Know?). But is the reason that most of us are not forced to answer awkward questions because we have nothing to hide? Or is it that we are not important enough to attract well-funded politically motivated lawsuits?

To: mrknowitall who wrote (5944)	9/28/1998 2:25:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

The other side of that coin is who, exactly is in a position to withstand the intense scrutiny from all sides that Clinton has gotten? A roughly analogous situation from my home state. Used to be known as a "good government" state, i.e. squeaky clean, as opposed to Arkansas. But, the Gov. hasn't lived with his wife for 20 years or so (not a secret), and it's a fairly open secret that he retains his affections for women. That's one part of the story, the other part is that, when he entered office, this was a tax hell state. After 12 years in office, with the governor using the most powerful state line item veto in the country to rewrite the budget to his liking (it's been held he can write in his own numbers anywhere), it's still a tax hell, I think it may have moved up in the ratings. His veto has never been overriden. He's also appointed Democratic legislators to high-paying state jobs to open up seats for Republicans. We got very high property taxes, a high "progressive" income tax that hits the top bracket at $20k income, a moderate sales tax, but the highest or 2nd highest gas tax in the country. Of course, he's always pushing for a higher gas tax, good clean patronage building roads, based on a regressive tax. The last proposal would have put us way over the top on that one. And that's the clean and open stuff. How the state government works now, versus how it used to work- it's looking very much like a classical political machine. Now, the guv is a good politician, very popular, and very skillful. He also knows how to kill a story in the press, or get a reporter moved to the Siberia beat. He entertains national ambitions, which I consider truly entertaining in the current climate. I wish he was actually a viable candidate, but I'm afraid we're stuck with him for as long as he wants to serve. Good Catholic Churchgoer too. That's just one guy, that I happen to know something about. We know similar things about Newt, Henry Hyde, and others I forget. Yes, Clinton is far from an exemplar. Sleazy small state governor, hardly unique. But Colin Powell didn't choose not to run last election because he was afraid of Democratic smear tactics. In terms of general political civility, I can't see how this affair is helping, and I can't see Clinton as guilty for much of the decline in civility either. Smooth campaigner, but I don't recall any Willy Horton episodes starting with the Clinton campaign. Do you? And in the S&L cesspool at the heart of Whitewater, there were so many politicians on both sides up to their necks in it, why'd they all get off while Starr got to go on forever? Electing George Bush cost us all a ton of money on that one. Cheers, Dan.