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

To: Borzou Daragahi who wrote (24699)	12/28/1998 2:47:00 AM
From: DMaA	Respond to of 67261

Nowhere in the constitution does it say that Congress may not censure a president. Nowhere in the constitution does it say that the FBI can't tap your telephone any old time it wants. A topic of debate among scholars, but not lawmakers or reporters, is the old idea that Congress has to have explicit Constitutional authority to do anything. EVERYTHING else is reserved for the states or the people.

To: Borzou Daragahi who wrote (24699)	12/28/1998 3:28:00 AM
From: DMaA	Respond to of 67261

There seem to be many questions about whether Clinton's prosecution--filled with allegations of leaks, conflicts of interest, improper relationships between lawyers, not to mention the airing of his Grand Jury testimony--would ever hold up in a real court of law. Oh, and Borzou, nice sneaking in that old unsubstantiated smear of George Bush. Maybe he had his affair during his October trip on the SR71. Censure? The Perjurer-in-Chief Deserves Jail By Andrew C. McCarthy, an attorney in Connecticut who formerly served as chief trial counsel at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan and was the lead prosecutor in one of the World Trade Center bombing cases. Over the past few weeks a boundless number of made-for-media pro-Clinton lawyers, all brandished by their TV hosts as "former federal prosecutors," have harangued viewers with the latest theme in their campaign to stave off the president's removal from office: the asserted need for "proportionality." As they see it, proportionality is the concept that the punishment prescribed by law should be ignored because it seems too severe under the circumstances. Specifically, Mr. Clinton's defenders argue that it would be disproportionate to remove him "merely" because he subverted the judicial proceedings he is sworn to preserve, protect and defend. In fact, no responsible federal prosecutor would refrain from bringing felony charges in the president's case. Moreover, to the extent it might honestly be said that removal would not be a "proportional" punishment, that is true only insofar as it might be deemed inadequate. For the president, removal would simply deprive him of a trust he has profoundly betrayed. Any other citizen (and certainly any other public official) in the U.S. would go to jail for what the president has done. . . . interactive.wsj.com

To: Borzou Daragahi who wrote (24699)	12/28/1998 3:43:00 AM
From: Bob Lao-Tse	Respond to of 67261

Borzou, you impress me more all the time. That said: I said that the rest of your post (beginning with "Everything else the Clinton haters bring up..." was " a misplaced attempt at an ad hominem argument" because it was (it seemed) an attempt to discredit my argument by discrediting me based on other beliefs I might hold. It was misplaced (not a very accurate word, I admit) because I don't necessarily hold those beliefs. Anyway, it's not worth fighting over and I apologize for any offense. Now, the reason I had to respond. You make a very dangerous statement in your post, one that springs from the one misconception that is most responsible for the perversion of the Constitution that has been slowly going on virtually since its signing. You say "Nowhere in the constitution does it say that Congress may not censure a president." Of course it doesn't. The Constitution (with the regrettable exception of the Bill of Rights, but that's a subject for another post, or another thread) does not, at any point, list anything that any federal entity may not do. It is simply a rather short list of the things that the various branches of the government may do. The notion that the federal government can do anything that is not specifically proscribed in the Constitution is flatly wrong. I agree that there has been a long-standing vendetta against Clinton, but in this he is no different than, for instance, Reagan. The only thing that's changed is who's doing the attacking and who's doing the defending. And the issues. And whether or not any of the attacks worked. it's the latest political manifestation of a cultural war that began in Chicago's Grant Park 30 years ago. This is certainly true to some degree. However, I think there has been, ever since 1992, a growing segment of the population that just thinks Bill Clinton is a lying sack of sh*t.