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

To: art slott who wrote (9376)	12/14/1998 11:41:00 PM
From: uu	Respond to of 13994

OK all. Lets cut the bull and vote: go to techstocks.com and cast your vote.

To: art slott who wrote (9376)	12/15/1998 4:40:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13994

The true danger lies in not impeaching Clinton: December 15, 1998 The Greater Danger Lies In Giving Clinton a Pass By GEORGE MELLOAN At a party Saturday night, a 40-something Wall Street type asked me if I thought the House Judiciary impeachment votes were "important news." He didn't seem to think so. That was only one man's opinion but it does seem that Americans are witnessing the history-making events in Washington with a certain detachment, as an unexpected distraction from the important business of preparing for a prosperous holiday season. Indeed, some politicians and pundits have been wringing their hands over their fears that the electorate is not sufficiently excited about this "national crisis." Perhaps the explanation is that Americans don't take their politicians as seriously as the politicians take themselves. The voters reelected Bill Clinton because times were good, not because they thought he was a man of high character or doing a good job of, as he puts it, "running the country." They know instinctively that no one "runs" America and that it does a pretty good job of running itself even when the president is busy trying to lie his way out of being punished for high crimes and misdemeanors. Fewer than half of the eligible voters bothered to vote in that uninspiring 1996 election. Yet there can be some argument over whether the current calm is a sign of a healthy or unhealthy mental state of the national polity. It is healthy when a free people look upon their leaders with a certain skepticism, refusing to elevate them to the status of gods or emperors. Freedom can hardly be preserved by a people who worship the government power structure. But it is unhealthy if events in the national capital are regarded as just another TV soap opera, as tempting as that might be. The characters and plots are not fictional. The players have real power that if misused can cause distress for millions of people. They make decisions on such matters as how much the voters are allowed to keep out of what they earn--which comes to bear on whether the economy waxes or wanes--and on whether young men and women are ordered to risk their lives on foreign soil. The question of whether Bill Clinton stays or goes thus has some importance. The country can easily do without him if he goes. America is awash with talented individuals whose leadership qualities are far superior to those of the incumbent. Some people cringe at the idea of an Al Gore presidency, but after Clinton, a brief spell of pedestrianism might be welcome. Besides, Congress will continue to play a powerful role in deciding the nation's course, especially if members of the House step up to that responsibility and summon the courage to vote impeachment. The Senate might not convict, but for all practical purposes, the Clinton presidency will be finished. The more interesting question has to do with how the country will fare if the president is not impeached. A good many Americans have been sent to jail on evidence of perjury far less damning than that presented to the Judiciary Committee. And that evidence, as these pages have detailed over six years, is only one piece of a record littered with shady dealings, wrecked lives and power abuses. The question before the House this week will not be the intricacies of constitutional law, but whether the country's legal institutions can survive a continued tolerance of the behavior of Bill Clinton. The president is not a god, but he is the top political leader of a great nation and should be expected to display some strength of character. Of course, it can be argued that many times in history important nations have been led by men with a disregard for social norms. It also can be argued that politicians are a special breed who learn early in their careers that a certain moral agility is useful for self-advancement. It comes in handy in striking the compromises that politics often demands. But even the argument that a president is not a Boy Scout assumes certain limits to behavior beyond which a man leaves the worldly realm of the politician and enters the sordid precincts inhabited by louts. The House will have to decide that, too, as well as the issue of whether a felony was committed. After all, there still are some parents in America who think the American president should be a role model for their efforts to instill character in their children. That job is tough enough as it is in a world that at times seem devoid of positive values. Throughout 12 years of basic schooling, young minds often gain no understanding of the institutions of government and of why the American democracy has survived for 200 years. Mr. Clinton and his wife have spent the last three days in Israel and Palestine, where the president has tried to patch up the agreement made between Benjamin Netanyahu and Yasser Arafat at Wye Plantation earlier in the year. The president's formula for "peace" seems to be a matter of putting pressure on a longtime friend and ally, Israel, while appeasing a veteran terrorist who has graduated to the role of dictator over the territory that has been conceded to him. In popular parlance this is called greasing the wheel that squeaks the most, and it is a Clinton specialty. He has applied it to Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, at the expense of the Bosnians and Kosovars, and to China's Communist leaders, raising fears in Taiwan and Japan. It is no wonder that Israel did not welcome this presidential visit. In other words, character counts for something in foreign as well as domestic policy. And dealing with threats to American interests and American security is the more important part of a president's job. Failure at that is literally a life and death matter. A president who has been charged with damning evidence of misbehavior of a most sordid kind can hardly be expected to command the respect abroad that the putative leader of the world's democratic nations should have. Holding together important alliances and keeping tyrants in check is hardly the job for a man who is the butt of dirty jokes. These are the kinds of issues that House members must confront this week. They are eminently practical issues. What members should be asking themselves is not the question of what will happen if they impeach, but rather what will happen if they don't. Only fortune tellers can have an answer to that, but one thing will be clear: If they fail to impeach, they will have passed up a historic opportunity to shore up the weakened institutions of American government. interactive.wsj.com