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Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (19723)	1/12/1999 7:22:00 AM
From: jimpit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20981

JLA, A good editorial... jim ---------------------------------- The Washington Times 12 January 1999 EDITORIAL More lies from the president When will this president stop lying? First William Jefferson Clinton lied under oath in his Paula Jones deposition. Then he lied before the grand jury investigating the Lewinsky affair. Then he lied in response to questions put to him by the House Judiciary Committee. Now Mr. Clinton is at it again, this time with a slew of bogus statements in his answer to the Senate impeachment summons. The president continues to make it abundantly clear that those desiring he make a clean breast of the whole mess will be sorely disappointed. The president's response to the summons contains none of the oh-so-clever legal maneuvers that had been forecast. Mr. Clinton did not, for example, claim that the articles of impeachment voted by the House became void with the new year and the new Congress. Had the Senate been split with partisan squabbling, the White House might have tossed that silly and discredited argument into the mix. But with harmony ruling the day, Democratic senators were in no mood to get into a food fight armed with nothing but that red herring. The Senate wants to hear the basic facts of the case against the president and then wants to hear his defense; senators do not want to entertain arguments that would keep them from going through the motions of a rudimentary trial. Thus Mr. Clinton skipped right to the heart of the matter and presented a preview of the defense he will have his lawyers offer next week. It is a defense that requires more lying from the Big He. Consider just one of the many fantastical prevarications contained in the president's response to the Senate -- that Mr. Clinton never coached his secretary Betty Currie with phony cover stories. Article II, the obstruction of justice charge alleges, in part, that the president related "false and misleading statements" to Mrs. Currie "in order to corruptly influence" her testimony. The story by now is old hat. The day after the Paula Jones lawyers sandbagged Mr. Clinton with a barrage of questions about Monica Lewinsky, the president called Mrs. Currie into his office to go over the details regarding Ms. Lewinsky. Mr. Clinton presented his secretary with a raft of statements denying there was any affair -- for example, saying that he and Ms. Lewinsky had never been alone. As he went along, the president asked Mrs. Currie to affirm that each statement was right. In other words, Mr. Clinton was offering cover stories and asking his secretary to agree that she would help cover for him. Not so, says the president in his response to the summons. No, Mr. Clinton is still trying to make us believe that when he talked to Mrs. Currie he was just trying to refresh his memory. "The president testified that, in that conversation, he was trying to find out what the acts were, what Ms. Currie's perception was, and whether his own recollection was a correct account of certain aspects of his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky." Now, let's get this straight. Mr. Clinton admits receiving oral sex on multiple occasions from Ms. Lewinsky. Indeed, he remembers the specific type of contact with Ms. Lewinsky so well that he claims he was able to exploit vagueries in the Jones lawyers' definition of sex. But even so, he had to check with Mrs. Currie and get her assurance that he and Ms. Lewinsky were never alone. Mr. Clinton knew he was alone with Ms. Lewinsky; there is no way that he could have forgotten that fact; therefore, asking Mrs. Currie to confirm that he was never alone with Monica could not possibly have had anything to do with checking his own recollection. Yet that is exactly what Mr. Clinton tells the Senate he was doing. The president is lying to the Senate. Even more laughable is the claim that Mr. Clinton "was trying to find out what the acts were," from Mrs. Currie. The president thought Mrs. Currie would have a better recollection than he of the acts he performed with Ms. Lewinsky? This isn't just a brazen lie, it is a bizarre one. Yet that is exactly what Mr. Clinton tells the Senate. The president is lying to the Senate. The president fares no better on the truth-ometer when it comes to the specific nature of his relationship with Monica. The definition of sex in the Paula Jones deposition, claims Mr. Clinton, did not cover oral sex. Thus, even though he was the recipient of that particular favor, he did not, strictly speaking, have sex with Ms. Lewinsky. That's the president's story, and he's sticking to it. The problem for Mr. Clinton, however, is that much less intimate behavior -- for example, the caress of a breast -- was included in the deposition's definition of sex. For his testimony to have been truthful, then, Mr. Clinton must never have touched Ms. Lewinsky's breasts, nor her genitals. Ms. Lewinsky claims that he did touch her in those places, and often at that. She describes the petting with consistency and specificity. There can be no doubt that Mr. Clinton touched Ms. Lewinsky sexually. It strains credulity well past the breaking point to suggest that Mr. Clinton, selfish as he is, could have been so monstrously selfish a lover. Yet that is exactly what Mr. Clinton tells the Senate. The president is lying to the Senate. The president has peppered the Senate with lies -- and he hasn't even started his defense yet! Goodness knows what whoppers we are in store for once the president's men begin their 24 hours of story-telling. The man has no respect for himself or the dignity of his office. By his continued lies, the president demonstrates he has no respect for the Senate. The question for the Senate is whether that dignified body will allow Mr. Clinton to act with such affrontery. Copyright © 1999 News World Communications, Inc. ----------------------------------------------- washtimes.com