Michelle, Daniel, check this article out:
(I highlighted the salacious parts)
irish-times.com
Aberrant adventures drag
nation to paralysis
With the US political climate already simmering with unrest, a
magazine publisher has promised further disclosures on
Republican leaders, writes Elaine Lafferty, in Washington
One political observer has compared the political
situation in the US to a bad Italian opera, where
everyone is simply dead at the end. It is, perhaps,
more like bad Italian pornography.
The escalation of hatred and grudges between
Democrats and Republicans has reached an
unimaginable crescendo, and has exposed the wounds of
America's long-simmering culture wars.
As President Clinton prepares in Washington for a trial in the US
Senate on articles of impeaching accusing him of perjury and
obstruction of justice, a man in Los Angeles is preparing to destroy
those who would destroy the President. His name is Larry Flynt, a
multi-millionaire magazine publisher who is more than a proponent
of sexually explicit fare.
Mr Flynt, love him or hate him, is an ideologue, a champion of free
speech and the right to have any kind of sex you wish, with whom
you wish, without the interference of government or of the
so-called Christian Coalition.
When the campaign by the special prosecutor, Mr Kenneth Starr,
to impeach Mr Clinton for his deceit concerning his affair with Ms
Monica Lewinsky began to pick up steam, Mr Flynt placed a full
page ad in the Washington Post offering to pay $1 million to
anyone who could prove they had a sexual affair with a member of
Congress, or a high-ranking government official. His aim, he said,
was to expose hypocrisy.
"My whole objective was about hypocrisy," he said. "If these
people on the Hill are going to sit in judgment, they should not have
skeletons in their own closets. Sex should be a private matter."
Mr Flynt hired a Washington firm of former CIA and FBI officials
to help him assess the responses to his ad and confirm their
credibility. One of the first investigations surrounded Mr Newt
Gingrich, then Speaker of the House.
Mr Flynt began negotiating with several parties, people described
as having an association with a prostitution ring, for a series of
credit card receipts that showed Mr Gingrich paying for services.
In the midst of that negotiation, Mr Gingrich resigned suddenly.
Then Mr Flynt and his team began discussions with four women
who claimed they had extra-marital affairs with Mr Robert
Livingston, the incoming Speaker of the House. Aware of the
investigation, Mr Livingston abruptly announced he had strayed
from his wife of 33 years "on occasion", but that she had forgiven
him and their marriage was solid.
On the morning of Saturday's impeachment vote, Mr Livingston
suddenly resigned, ending a 22-year Congressional career,
stunning colleagues and close friends who thought the matter was
closed.
What happened?
The Irish Times has learned that Mr Livingston became aware
that Mr Flynt had in his possession audiotapes of sexually explicit
telephone conversations between Mr Livingston and a woman. It
was the nature of the sexual talk that was so disturbing, said this
source. It was clearly a sexual relationship of a sado-masochistic
or dominant-submissive nature.
At one point in the conversation, Mr Livingston asks the woman a
question to the effect, can't I be the victim next time? (The precise
wording of the question could not be confirmed.) What was clear
was that Mr Livingston was clearly interested in playing a sexually
submissive role.
Mr Flynt, for the record, did not wish to disclose the specific
nature of the evidence he has against Mr Livingston. "It was much
more than he said in his initial statement. He knew our investigation
was under way."
With a sly smile, Mr Flynt looked into the camera at CNN and said:
"Let's say I understand why he resigned. I'm happy if our efforts
had anything to do with it."
Now that Mr Livingston has resigned, Mr Flynt says he is
uncertain whether he will make the evidence public. The inference
emerging, of course, is that Mr Flynt will not release his evidence
if the targets, such as Mr Gingrich and Mr Livingston, resign.
Mr Flynt says he will make more disclosures about other
Republican leaders in the next two weeks.
The White House, meanwhile, is aghast, concerned that Americans
will think this kind of scorched earth political warfare is emanating
from them.
In defence of that perception, Mr Clinton called on Mr Livingston
to change his mind about resignation. It is unlikely, of course, that
Mr Clinton knew of the contents of the tapes.
The latest wave of scandal has prompted calls for a ceasefire from
both sides. Most of the mainstream media seem to have forgotten
Mr Flynt's history as a sophisticated agent provocateur, and a
zealot whose ends justify his means. Nothing is more repulsive to
Mr Flynt than Mr Starr's sexual witch-hunt, and the Republican
Party's embrace of it. Says Mr Flynt: "Desperate times call for
desperate measures."
Nobody is predicting when the political cannibalism will cease. The
White House is trying to devise a plan to function and implement
policy as the Senate trial gets under way, probably on January 6th
or 7th.
One proposal from the Republicans is to split the Congress'
schedule, so that it would deal with legislation for half the day and
the trial for the other half. The White House opposes this plan as it
fears a prolonged trial.
The longer the trial in the Senate goes on, the more the US would
appear paralysed by the affair, and the more likely that Democrats
and the American people would turn around and push for Mr
Clinton's resignation. Already two Democrat members of Congress
have said they would consider asking for Mr Clinton's resignation.
Despite Mr Clinton's assertion yesterday that he would serve until
the last day of his term, some White House senior officials are
concerned.
"That is the real danger here, resignation," says one White House
source. Staffers have also stressed to the President that an
acquittal in the Senate is not a sure thing, despite conventional
wisdom that the Senate's 55 Republicans would never be able to
amass the required 67 votes to convict Mr Clinton.
Indeed, conventional wisdom never predicted that Mr Clinton, for
an affair with an intern, would become the first elected President
of the US to be impeached. |
