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

To: Les H who wrote (7219)	9/28/1998 1:15:00 PM
From: dougjn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

Well, it was like a lot of lies, once you start, and if the statement gets picked up as something of great importance, it grows and grows. The President either had to come clean right away, or he had no choice but to continue the cover-up with those around them. He could hardly let them in on the full truth, and then ask them to keep mum, could he? That would have put them in a far worse position. And he also couldn't say absolutely nothing to anybody (although he does seem to have said about as little about it to as few people as he possibly could, to the enormous frustration of the media, which demanded to know everything from everybody.) It's easy to say he should have immediately come clean when the story broke in January. But I don't know. The story had just broken that he had probably lied in his Jones testimony. If he then promptly admitted he had, or right then and there given the "it depends on what the meaning of "is" is" explanations, he might have been in an even worse fix than he is now. He'd have been in almost the same fix with Starr as he is now. But perhaps in a much worse fix with the American people. The story was fresh and the shock was palpable. The overreaching of the other side would not have become apparent before the certainty of the President's lying under oath had sunk in. The legal aspects would have been immediately paramount, and the context and sense of personal invasion such questions represent would have not sunk in. I think the cries for impeachment from the bulk of the people might have been much louder. The process could well have really snowballed. Anyway, that's what Dick Morris's quickie thumbnail polling at that moment suggested. I continue to be strongly influenced by the notion that the President lied in response to questions he should not have been made to answer. If he had lied under oath in response to questions about weighty matters I would feel entirely differently. Doug