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

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (16647)	12/2/1998 10:52:00 AM
From: John Lacelle	Respond to of 67261

bp, I know what you mean. Anyone who has spent any time researching small-cap stocks knows that CEO often means "liar". As for the point about using a moniker instead of one's real name, I use my name because I stand behind everything I say. This is a personal choice and I don't grudge anyone for using "bp" or "STOCKLOON" or whatever. I do feel sad these days though when I see the Constitution under attack by those who took an oath to uphold it. Clearly the United States is not the moral nation it once was. If Bill Clinton had any moral fiber left in his body he would resign and save American from the hassle of putting him on trial in the Senate. -John

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (16647)	12/2/1998 11:48:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 67261

On the subject of ethical business relationships and alleged perjury, I will have to contribute an anonymous quote from another thread. It was addressed to me, I had to respond that I understood the process fully. I don't know how many depositions or other legal processes you have been involved in. I have been involved in a few more than I really wanted... The legal process is a lot different than the court of common sense. In the real world, one wants to make as good a case for one's ideas as one can, and always be ready to accept a position with more justification. In the courtroom, every statement is an opportunity for the other side to score some arcane point. The watchword is 'keep a low target profile'. Attorneys love a witness who can't keep his mouth shut. The best deposition I ever watched started out like this: (Q is attorney, A is witness) Q: can I ask your name? A: Yes. (silence) Q: Let me rephrase that, can you state your full name for the record? ... and so on. The witness provided only the absolute minimum information requested, and when there was any question in his mind about his recollection he said 'I can't recall". This man was someone whose integrity and honesty would never be questioned. But he recognized the legal process as a battle of words played by very special rules, and he responded by giving his opponents as few weapons in that battle as possible. I would have been very surprised if Bill Gates had volunteered anything at an adversarial deposition, given the quality of counsel at his disposal. Bill Gates has his own legal problems, but I haven't heard of anybody advocating bringing him up on perjury charges. In terms of public opinion, his status is about as high as Clinton's, and probably considerably higher in the business community, at least the parts that don't compete with Microsoft. From yesterday's NYT, cited here previously: "No accused," President Clinton's lawyers wrote in September in response to perjury accusations leveled by Kenneth Starr, "has an obligation to help his accuser." . . . Clinton's advisers say that the panel was not looking for facts in the detailed questionnaire. Rather, they say, the Republican majority on the committee had handed Clinton a loaded gun and asked him to put it to his own head. The president and his lawyers said no dice. (http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/120198impeach-dems-assess.html) The pro-impeachment line seems to be that Starr was justified in doing "whatever it takes" to bring down the President, even if it's stuff usually reserved for drug kingpins and mafia dons. On the other hand, Clinton has no right to defend himself, and any lack of cooperation with Starr constitutes obstruction of justice. That's one point of view. Personally, I think it's all politics. Professionally, I worry more about expressing my views about Microsoft than my views on the impeachment process. It's not like my views on impeachment are on the fringe. Well, except when others are telling me what I really think for the purpose of the kind of "substantive debate" ever popular here. Just for kicks, I'll throw out an old Newt quote. Taking his share of the blame for his party's losses, the Georgia Republican said he had misjudged how the public would recoil from the Clinton scandal and how the scandal would drown out other Republican themes. "I mean I totally underestimated the degree to which people would just get sick of 24-hour-a-day talk television and talk radio and then the degree to which this whole scandal became just sort of disgusting by sheer repetition," Gingrich said. (from nytimes.com ). I've been called hopelessly naive for expressing far less rigorous views about business ethics than you guys profess. Politically, I think there's plenty of posturing going on on both sides. If you think the public wants more impeachment, not less, right your representatives. Who knows, maybe Newt wasn't conservative enough, like the current line here says. Maybe he really screwed up with his professional, non-partisan handling of the impeachment issue, he should have been more partisan. The disgust with the Starr report and videotape deposition dump was all manufactured by the "mainstream media", right? Despite the fact that the "mainstream media" had been eating up the scandal all along.