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

To: JBL who wrote (27157)	1/12/1999 10:36:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 67261

Do you really believe I'm going to argue with the usual innuendo in lieu of evidence? Well, what the heck. Do you really believe it is a coincidence that Schippers has RICO experience, and that the WH is traumatized by the idea of having witnesses testify ? Ah, the old Clinton-Capone formulation rears its ugly head once more. Schippers is Hyde's buddy, and Hyde though it would look good to have a Democrat as counsel. As for Schipper's personal motivation, I'd guess it's the same culture wars animus as the rest of the anti-Clinton crowd. If you don't remember it, you might look up the '72 Democratic convention and Mayor Daley's role in it, and of course the '68 convention too. The WH doesn't want witnesses because it doesn't want a drawn out trial. They are not alone in this desire. There is some bipartisan sentiment on this, though Henry Hyde and the House Hotheads have been fighting it off as best they can on their side of the aisle. If you really want a drawn out, go into everything trial, you might want to read nytimes.com , which I excerpted in Message 7221947 . Fine by me. Good lead in to the Y2K elections. As for the odd Wall Street tie-in, Wall Street types are in general rock ribbed Republicans. I wouldn't buy internet stocks, but how you can blame that phenomenon on Clinton is beyond me. But then, the whole Clinton-anti-Christ phenomenon is beyond me too. So much hatred, so little time.

To: JBL who wrote (27157)	1/12/1999 11:10:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

The Knock on the Door nytimes.com Meanwhile, JBL, you'll be happy to know that the Starr Inquisition continues unabated. Anthony Lewis today, quoted in full, on events of last week. The indictment of Julie Steele was more telling than all the solemn repetitions of "William Jefferson Clinton" in the Senate. It was a frightening symbol, a metaphor for a process run riot. Ms. Steele is a target of Kenneth Starr for one reason: She will not support the story of Kathleen Willey, a woman who said President Clinton made a pass at her in the White House in 1993. Ms. Willey said she immediately went to the home of Ms. Steele, then a friend, and told her about the episode. In 1997 Ms. Steele told Newsweek that she had had that visit from Kathleen Willey. But later that year, long before the Monica Lewinsky story broke, she told Newsweek that the tale was untrue -- that Ms. Willey had asked her to lie. She has held to that position ever since. In an attempt to break Ms. Steele, Starr has called her before two grand juries -- and called her brother, daughter and former lawyer. His agents have gone around Ms. Steele'ss about the adoption of her son, Adam, in Romania eight years ago. Starr was asked by members of the House Judiciary Committee whether his office had raised the adoption to pressure Ms. Steele to change her testimony. He said that was "absolutely false." But not only did agents ask neighbors about the adoption. At the grand jury Ms. Steele's brother and daughter were asked about it. Where did she get the money for it? Whom did she talk to? The questions assumed that there was something wrong about the adoption. Not many of us could stand up to pressure like that. Ms. Steele's reward is an indictment that repackages her refusal to support the Willey story into four counts of obstructing justice and making false statements. The indictment's 20 wandering, unprofessional pages include a charge that she spoke falsely on "Larry King Live." Characteristically, the Starr office leaked word of the indictment before it was handed down. I did not believe that even Kenneth Starr would actually indict Julie Hiatt Steele. It seemed so gratuitous, so indecent. But I was naïve. For him, everything must yield to the aim of destroying Bill Clinton. And if he could steamroll Ms. Steele into supporting the Willey story, it would be something else for Hyde & Co. to use against the President. It is not irrelevant that Julie Steele is a lonely woman, financially vulnerable. Starr and his brutal deputies have a thing about women. They kept Susan McDougal in prison for 18 months because she would not testify as they wanted. They ruined the life of another Arkansas woman, Sarah Hawkins, by menaces and threats of indictment. And there was the bullying of Monica Lewinsky and her mother. We all tend to ignore abuses directed at others. Conservatives overlook the abuses of Kenneth Starr now as liberals overlooked the dangers of the Independent Counsel Act when the Supreme Court in 1988 upheld its use against Theodore Olson, a Reagan Administration official. Only Justice Antonin Scalia, dissenting, saw what is evident today to all but the willfully blind: An unaccountable prosecutor menaces the Constitution and, for all of us, freedom under law. It is hard to find words for Kenneth Starr's behavior as a prosecutor. The ones that seem to me to fit are the adjectives Hamlet had for his murderous uncle: "remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless." You pays your money and you takes your choice. If you want some news background on this little escapade, you can check out nytimes.com, which I originally noted in Message 6292603. Then, perhaps, you might argue against the particular moral judgement noted in cnn.com : So on one side we have the physical and ethical gropings of Bill Clinton. But on the other are the hidden tape recorders and pornographic inquiries of Ken Starr. What most people decided this year is that if those are our choices, then Clinton at his most unbuckled and slippery is still less a threat to American values than Starr. They decided that Starr's questions are worse than Clinton's lies. That's a moral judgment too.