FROM THE OLD MANOF THE MOUNTAIN
FROM THE OLD MAN
Then suddenly The Old Man became very tired of it all.
The Old Man was wrong: the President was impeached. The Old Man was right: the President is still President. He was not convicted and removed from office.
The White House was admonished by the pundits not to celebrate this "victory." It would be unseemly. But rumors abounded that revenge against his persecutors and prosecutors would be swift.
The idea of celebrating findings of "not guilty" on two bills of impeachment reminded The Old Man of one of his country lawyer stories a few years back. Until recently, bar disciplinary proceedings had been conducted behind a veil of secrecy "to protect the dignity of the profession." Naturally, many members of the bar opposed the idea of exposing these proceedings - lawyers judging lawyers - to the light of day.
The Old Man chose to look on the bright side. Had the dignity of the profession survived the unprofessionalism of advertising, once forbidden as unlawyerly? Well, that question actually leaves quite a lot to discuss, doesn't it? But save that for another day.
Most of us lawyers are still in business, so we could probably survive the additional progressive step of opening up our misconduct inquiries to public view. In fact, The Old Man realized that the opportunists among us could seize this as a potent marketing tool. Imagine the tasteless ads, encouraging you to consider the advantages of bankruptcy or directing you to that selfless guardian of your legal interests on the occasion of your dismemberment or - Heaven forbid! - wrongful death. At the bottom of the ad, just below the generous "no charge for initial consultation," right above the lawyer's 800-number: "Only five misconduct complaints filed against me last year!"
So savor your victory, Mr. President. You won another one.
As for his detractors, it is payback time. Let us just hope that this keeps all these public servants preoccupied enough that they don't screw up anything important.
The Old Man's writings on the subject of this scandal - some serious, many not - are preserved here for those few who might be interested in reading them. Sorry, they contain links which may no longer work.
For those of you who are sick of this and can't read another word, check out a few more country lawyer stories here and here.
I never believed it would come to all this. You can read some of The Old Man’s more intemperate remarks from last year below. We were having fun.
For some reason, the release of the Starr Report resulted in an abrupt change in The Old Man’s attitude about all this. For all the mud slung at the messenger, the message stank much more. The Old Man shrank from this. Suddenly the lying sex addict who is our President was not funny anymore. As for the Congressional Republicans, The Old Man had mistaken their indecision for discretion. With the Starr Report finally in hand, they could contain themselves no longer, and they charged blindly into a hail of accusations of partisanship that ring true.
What a disgrace our political leadership is. First, the President for his arrogance in riding the privileges of leadership and political power with such utter disregard for the responsibilities he had to all of us, never mind his family and followers; but also for his complete abdication of his political instincts in favor of a heavy-handed, legalistic strategy that was stupid and leaves a bad taste even in this lawyer’s mouth. The office deserved so much more. Secondly, the Republicans who have been pathetically impotent in capitalizing upon their control of Congress. Unable to achieve anything with their unfamiliar majority status, they gave up the high ground that would have served both the nation’s and their party’s interests better. We deserved more. They look like back-benchers and should not be surprised to find themselves consigned there once again.
Now the tawdry mess will end up before the Senate. The spectacle goes on. Many of us have stopped watching. The Old Man has largely turned away over the last two months or so, contented with a headline or two now and then, but will avidly watch the Senate proceedings in much the same way as he took in the O.J. trial or Hale Bopp; it is a once in a lifetime event, and I wouldn’t want to miss it.
From a lawyer’s standpoint, it will be a curiosity: a trial with 100 Senators sitting mutely as a jury of sorts. They will be presided over, not by a trial judge, but by the Chief Justice of the nation’s highest appellate court acting more as a chief parliamentarian, subject to being overruled by his jury which will get to make up the law as it goes along.
Many of us still mistakenly think the impeachment is tantamount to removal from office. Of course, impeachment is said to be more akin to an indictment, a formal accusation. But the analogies fail us here. The House is not a grand jury; some of its members will act as prosecutors before the Senate. The Senate will be a far cry from “twelve men, tried and true.” They are themselves as political as both the accuser and the accused, and certainly are not impartial jurors to whom the two parties may make their case. Ultimately impeachment is a political process, not a legal one.
Two-thirds of the senators must vote for conviction to remove President Clinton from office. They can not do this without some Democrats abandoning their President and siding with the Republicans. The Senate can end the proceedings by majority vote, but this would require Republican defections and their admission that the nation has been absorbed in this surreal process for a year now to no end. There is a third alternative: the President himself, who can not bring himself to say “I lied” which we all know he did, could say “I resign” which we all know he can not.
So, the nation may well end up in a stalemate, both sides suffering like two boys wrestling in the playground, each with some acutely painful hold on the other, each waiting for the other (if not the American public) to scream, “Enough is Enough! UNCLE!!!”
One more thing: The Old Man is a bit impatient with those who would dramatically refer to this whole process as a coup d’état or an attempt to “reverse” the last two Presidential elections. The 1992 election of course is beyond reversal, but reversing the 1996 election would mean installing Bob Dole as president, certainly an unlikely outcome. And palace plotters down through history, not to mention contemporary Republicans, must be offended at the notion that an effective coup would replace Bill Clinton with Al Gore in the Oval Office.
And that brings me to The Old Man’s final note of incredulity: what on Earth can the Republicans be thinking of? Robert Livingston's stunning resignation from the House and declination of the Speakership, in the wake of the embarrassing revelations of his own sexual peccadilloes, was uncommonly selfless in this political era. His act demands our admiration, but it is naive to expect that the President could rise to match his courage or accept his challenge to do the same. In fact, almost immediately the Presidential spokesman sought to cloak President Clinton in some common cloth with the self-effacing ex-Speaker-elect by sharing with him the martyrdom of “the politics of destruction,” and Democratic partisans in the House who at the beginning of Livingston's resignation speech shouted at him to resign were moments later criticizing him for a lack of courage in giving in to the mud-slingers.
How twisted and adaptable are the standards of our elected representatives!
For the Republicans, the worst resolution of this whole thing from a political standpoint would be the removal of President Clinton from office and his replacement with the relatively clean, if wooden, figure of Vice President Gore. Rather than having their sport with the neutered Clinton for two more years, they would instead endow their likely opponent in the 2000 election with the power and prestige of the office, an escape from the ignominy of the second-highest office in a corrupt administration, an opportunity to establish a positive track record, and a honeymoon period during which he would be granted all sorts of sympathy from the public and perhaps even some Republicans. Instead the House Republicans have chosen a low political reflex over a dignified bipartisan rebuke of this flawed man that would have better served us all. It is hard to say who has more misused, if not abused, its power, these Congressional Republicans or the President.
It is all enough to make you sick. I don’t even know who to root for anymore.
I have no interest in invading Chelsea Clinton’s privacy. Indeed, I think few of us do. She did not choose to be born to a pair of power hungry parents, to a shameless lecher. She is innocent.
But ironies abound where principles are scarce. The President complains of a single
magazine article in six years about his daughter, now nearly 19 years old. Is that not just
two years younger than the young woman with whom he shared indiscretions that
reduced Chelsea’s father to the laughing stock of the late night comics, made a mockery of his own marriage, nearly cost him
his Presidency, and sentenced that 21 year old woman to years, if not a lifetime, in the
harsh glare of public notoriety that Chelsea could never know in a million years?
I have more sympathy for Chelsea than I do for Monica. As the People magazine cover says, she has demonstrated grace in the brief glimpses we have been allowed of her. Meanwhile, Monica remains a troubled child hounded by the press and prosecutors. But the most troubled child is our President, and if his actions have not cost him his office, they at least should cause him pause before he stands up to defend the privacy of any young woman, whether it his daughter or not.
The anticipated acquittal in the impeachment proceedings bothers me, even though I do not favor Clinton’s removal from office. There is terrible hypocrisy here, barely masked by either the President’s defenders with the polls at their back or the hollow partisan rantings of the Republicans. Each time I grasp for a principle, I find it has been snatched by an opportunist on one side or the other, so now all principles are suspect.
These politicians and other partisans are all so transparent in the positions they have taken, that is has sickened the vast majority of us, but it is we - certainly not the politicians - who are left to make some sense of all this, to salvage some sort of principle from this wreckage. And yet the polls at the same time suggest that we are too lazy to engage in this sifting and sorting, that we just want to shut the door on this sorry episode and not be disturbed as we get on with our business.
It will be interesting to see what this chapter eventually comes to stand for in our national history.
I am prepared to believe just about anything about President Clinton when it comes to his appetite for things sexual, but even I was put off at the dissembling performance of John Whitehead, an attorney with the Rutherford Institute which has supported Paula Corbin Jones in her effort to redress Clinton's alleged sexual advances back in Arkansas. Apparently Jones has an effort afoot to get all the papers released from the suit in order to sustain the feeding frenzy. On the July 22nd edition of Chris Matthews' CNBC program "Hardball," Whitehead clarified that they wanted all the papers released except for some pertaining to an alleged rape committed by the President. I guess this alleged rape is old news, but it impressed me as quite smarmy how Whitehead attempted to appear above the fray by saying they wanted everything released except the rape papers, thereby highlighting their existence and titillating our appetite for more information about this old story while seeming to act as protector of our right to know everything else, and I mean everything else!
I think our President has his slimy moments, but Whitehead's performance put even Clinton to shame. Watching him throw out the bait and then evade (unskillfully, I might add) Matthews' efforts to draw him out about the rape allegations after he gave them credence made me almost not want to follow the President's scandals anymore. Almost.
What a week this has been (August 3-7, 1998)... at least for politicians, journalists, Washington lawyers and a few Wall Street types who think a little too much. The rest of us actually seem to have done OK.
The scandals grind on. Our Attorney General Janet Reno is cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to release some reports which might shed some light on her curious reticence to appoint a special prosecutor to look into alleged political finance violations by her boss, our President, and others in the administration.
Could it be that she has cooperated in granting liberal license to Ken Starr to pursue all manner of investigations that ultimately will amount to little more than a sideshow for our amusement, in order to distract us from the really serious infractions that go to the core of our democratic process?
Meanwhile on Friday the Circuit Court of Appeals authorized an investigation of the special prosecutor for leaking grand jury testimony to the media, this ruling issued at the behest of our President's minions who must rank high on the list of hypocrites in Washington which is saying something, isn't it?
Then of course Monica Lewinsky finally testified Thursday - behind closed doors of course - and apparently contradicted our President, or at least revealed some tortured rationalization on his part, the only political significance of which might be - my God! if he can indulge in such sophistry to get a little, how might he stretch and twist the truth if something important were at stake?
It seems that - according to Lewinsky, whose credibility must remain suspect in any event - our President indulged in some sort of behavior with her which he explained to her did not constitute "sexual relations" but which the rest of us would apparently have concluded was precisely that. It may be that the comparative credibility of Lewinsky and the President will be determined by FBI lab tests being performed this week upon a stained dress! To think that the fate of the nation, if not the world, may hinge upon our President's carelessness with his DNA!
So there pops to mind that vision of our President on television a while back, displaying that stern demeanor one would imagine should be reserved for the likes of Saddam Hussein and Mu'ammar Qadhafi, and proclaiming "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." It appears that "that woman" may have been indulging in oral sex or giving him a hand job or who knows what [and the citizenry must know!], but not "sexual relations." I can hardly wait for the Sunday morning talk shows to rip into that one!
Monica's anticipated testimony was even credited with crashing the markets this week. Foreign investors, some market mavens opined, were concerned that impeachment loomed in the near future, and so - fearing political instability - pulled their money out of the domestic markets.
Please people! Get 25 miles from Washington and this drama amounts to nothing more than a little competition for "Melrose Place" which for some reason kicked off its new season last week too. You see, we pretty much knew he was a lying philanderer when we elected him in 1992, and there was really little doubt by the time we re-elected him in 1996. We never really had much choice you know, but for some reason we still like him anyway. Hell, I never voted for him and I still like him.
No, President Clinton will not be impeached. It would violate our notions of fundamental fairness to pull the plug on him now for reasons we knew or strongly suspected all along. He is pretty much Hillary's problem, not ours, and there is a limit to how sorry we can feel for her. He is neutered politically, if not literally, and - come to think of it - that seems right to me.
Oh pullleeeeze! On Tuesday (August 11th), MSNBC reported, “As a close Clinton friend testified Tuesday in the Monica Lewinsky investigation, Hillary Rodham Clinton claimed much of the pressure on her husband has to do with ‘prejudice’ against the state of Arkansas.”
They quoted the First Lady from a telephone interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “It’s just more of the same. I think a lot of this is prejudice against our state. They wouldn’t do this if we were from some other state.”
MSNBC observed, “The first lady had been quiet about the Monica Lewinsky investigation since it first broke last January, when she attacked critics for alleging that her husband lied about an affair with the former White House intern and called them part of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Silence has proven to be a superior strategy for the First Lady, and one would think that she might better have stuck with it now as well back in January.
In the aftermath of the President’s “confession” there was much wringing of hands out of concern for his loyal minions who had been cruelly deceived by his deceptions and led down the primrose path, many of whom defended or even vouched for the man over the last seven months. I know some of these people. Many are political groupies and hangers-on who gravitate to power like... well, never mind the metaphors; there are many and none of them is pretty.
I don’t fret for these people. Once they recognize that their bet went bad they will engage in the necessary calculations to determine if it would further their interests to stay in a weakened and disgraced White House or to jump ship and sign on with some rising star. It must be difficult for these people to place these wagers and terribly frustrating when they come so close to grabbing the brass ring. If their sense of self-importance suffers, so be it. It is a small price for them to pay, much less than the one we must pay for them to play this game.
I found the steady stream of proclamations from the White House that the President would testify truthfully before the grand jury to be very reassuring. I am sure this was after all his options were considered.
The President spoke to the nation briefly Monday night [August 17, 1998] following his testimony before the grand jury looking into the Lewinsky affair. It is nice at a time like this to be able to turn to no less august a bastion of traditional liberalism than The New York Times and Tuesday morning’s editorial page for a sober review:
To be sure, the President's situation is poignant. The country, through no fault of its own, is watching the unfolding of a family tragedy. But the nation also has a right to answers for the questions underlying the investigation of a duly appointed independent counsel. Is this President, who has now admitted giving misleading testimony under oath and in the television dismissal of "that woman, Miss Lewinsky," to be believed now, when he says he did not try to obstruct justice?
Oh come on. He was not known as “Slick Willy” for nothing! He is likable, he is smart, but since he came upon the national stage we have all known that he is loose with the truth.
What an opportunity was wasted last night in that regard. But from the moment the 42d President walked into the Map Room he was in a confrontation with a force far more insidious than Mr. Starr, the independent counsel. In that hallowed room, Mr. Clinton was also confronting the habit that has driven -- and haunted -- his political career in an almost addictive way. His habit of stonewalling, of misleading by omission or concealment or fabrication or failure of memory, has been the source of virtually all this Administration's troubles.
Well, that is not the only habit that has undone him.
Shame on the Friends of Bill (remember them?) who have had to be dragged kicking and screaming to an acknowledgment of this man’s glaring flaw. I do not expect the President to conduct foreign policy in a spotlight or not to play his political cards close to his vest, but I do want to feel some confidence that he will tell it straight when there is no state strategic reason for being a little cagey. So those who have maintained all along that this was a private matter and that we are all voyeurs who would invade this personal space to no legitimate public end, should recognize now that we have learned (no we knew it before, we have corroborated so they can not be denied) the serious limits upon the trust we can repose in our leader. This is too bad, but it is something we all needed to know.
One more post-script: this was the first President elected from my generation; the first president in half a century whose life was not somehow forged on the anvil known as World War II. In addition, President Clinton will presumably be on hand to usher in the new millennium. All of this powerful symbolism has fallen flat though amid embarrassed snickers and a near total absence of policy achievements. Ironically, Presidents Clinton and Bush may have shared one thing in common: their political motivations were born of rampaging cases of resume building that crowded out any vision that was not first viewed simply as a page in some future history book. For all my cynicism, for which I thank them, I yearn for a leader who is less a politician and more an honest man or woman who possesses a higher vision that might unite us and inspire us all to do good and to do better. Meanwhile, thank you would-be leaders, this marvelous country seems to be doing pretty well in spite of you.
One exception to the above is brought to mind by recent events overseas. I do not believe that the President was motivated by his embarrassment from the scandals to attack the terrorist targets in the Sudan and Afghanistan. I think those domestic opponents who suggest this should examine their own motivations.
But what about those people from different cultures who do not understand our system and the way we arrive at decisions such as this? The President's misbehavior is bound to mislead them and contribute to a misunderstanding of our purpose. They might dismiss our show of force as nothing more than a desperate political move intended for home consumption.
Even worse, one can not help but wonder whether weeks ago our enemies might have been confused by the President's problems and engaged in a deadly and mistaken calculus when they decided to attack our embassies. What a horrible legacy of Bill and Monica's Excellent Adventure if misguided people wrongly thought that our nation would be too distracted to respond to their cowardice.
Heard this one?
The U.S. Treasury has just announced that it will sell three new types of bonds:1. The Al Gore bond, which has no interest.
2. The Monica Lewinsky bond, which has no maturity .
3. The Bill Clinton bond, which has no principal.
This item appeared Wednesday, August 19, 1998, President Clinton's 52nd birthday:
Clinton's necktie seen as possible secret signalWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Prosecutors believe President Clinton may have tried to send a secret message to Monica Lewinsky on the day she testified about her love affair with the president, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
Clinton was wearing a distinctive gold-and-navy necktie during a televised Rose Garden ceremony on Aug. 6, a tie Lewinsky gave him with the message, ``when I see you wearing this tie I'll know that I am close to your heart,'' the New York Times said.
But as it turned out, Lewinsky did not know Clinton was wearing the tie until hours after her grand jury appearance when she saw him on television, the Times said.
When they grilled Clinton on Monday for four hours at the White House about his relationship with Lewinsky, prosecutors working with Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr asked the president about his Aug. 6 choice of ties, the Times said.
Clinton was asked why he chose to wear that particular tie on that particular day, the newspaper said. The president was said to have smiled at the question and expressed some bafflement.
When shown a photograph of the Rose Garden ceremony which depicted Clinton wearing the necktie, the president was said to have indicated that it was possible Lewinsky had given it to him but that he certainly was not trying to communicate anything by wearing it, the Times said.
The prosecutors were trying to determine whether Clinton was sending a message of solidarity to Lewinsky on the day she went before Starr's grand jury to testify that she had had an adulterous affair in the White House.
Lewinsky, who was a 21-year-old intern at the White House when the affair took place, told prosecutors she gave Clinton the necktie on his 50th birthday in August 1996.
Lewinsky said she told the president she gave him the tie because they would not be able to see each other every day but it would be a symbol.
The Times said Lewinsky, who frequently watches television to see what Clinton is wearing, saw that he had worn the tie she had given him on three occasions in recent months: on the day he left for his trip to China, the day he returned from China and several days later in Atlanta.
On Monday when Clinton confessed on television to having had an affair with Lewinsky, he was wearing a patterned blue tie, apparently not one of the six neckties that Lewinsky has said she gave the president.
Isn't it time to grow up and act your age, Sir?
The President's trip to Russia was ill-fated from the start, of course; one wounded leader of the world's only superpower visiting the beseiged leader of the world's only former superpower. Two men, one a lying philanderer, the other an ailing alcoholic, each a buffoon in his own way - neither carrying any moral authority - meeting to what end?
President Clinton must have fully realized this. His tired performances were almost moving. Could it be that the time for joking is over?
This man is in trouble. For the first time I seriously wonder whether in fact he might leave office.
There is a lack of proportion here. Presidents should not leave office over things as trivial as this. How did we screw up? We shouldn't elect Presidents of such frail character. The Old Man is troubled now.
Over the past several months the White House has repeatedly attacked Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr for spending $40 million during his four-year investigation of President Clinton. Now Starr has estimated that his office spent just $4.4 million over the past eight months investigating the Lewinsky affair and alleged cover-up.
Lighten up everyone! NBC reportedly offered Jerry Seinfeld $5 million per episode to renew for a tenth season and he turned them down!! The way I look at it, this has been pretty cheap entertainment. Very cheap.
Joe Lieberman, Democratic senator from Connecticut and a friend of Bill Clinton’s, made a touching statement Thursday, September 3, when he rebuked the President for behavior which he pointed out was not simply “inappropriate,” but was “immoral.” This was not hyperbole from a partisan; Lieberman has the moral authority to make this statement.
As the first one to break out of the pack, he stands to become the Democrats’ answer to Republican Senator Howard Baker who, nearly a quarter of a century ago, stood up for what was right and spoke honestly against the leader of his own party. We will watch now to see if this crack in the dam of party solidarity becomes a full-fledged breach, as (to mix the metaphor) the politicians hop on the bandwagon. In fact, the metaphors themselves flood through the breach, as I think of sharks in bloody waters and animals turning on a wounded member of the pack. If we have been treated to unpleasant spectacles of independent prosecutors swarming over their political adversaries, and partisans on both sides running amuck with hysterical overstatements, this may be nothing compared to a herd of self-righteous Democrats, angry with a wounded President they never felt very comfortable with in the first place who suckered them out on the limb with him for the last eight months.
Speaking of those partisans, what about Republican Congressman Dan Burton (who, in a rhetorical flourish as disgusting for its utter lack of imagination, as much as for its baseness, publicly referred to the President in April as “a scumbag”) and the recent revelation that years ago the congressman himself fathered an illegitimate child, the product of an extramarital affair of his own. Just good political sense, if not good taste, might dictate to most of us not to stand up in the foxhole with that kind of gaping hole in your armor. On the other hand, regarding scumbags, let us remember the time-honored maxim, “It takes one to know one.”
Maybe this sort of stupidity runs with the territory. Burton is from Indiana. Recall the most prominent recent Republican named Dan from the Hoosier state. I am speaking of former Vice President Quayle, of course. Good Lord! The man seems to be running for the presidency again! Please, we are not ready for that. I have no doubt his linen is far cleaner than the President’s, or even Congressman Burton’s. But the man is simply stupid. He might have gotten the morals right on Murphy Brown and her child-out-of-wedlock, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. If you don’t remember how absurd this man is, go here.
Reuters headline Friday [September 3rd] morning:
Clinton turns to prayer as Starr report looms
Guess who is down on his knees now?
"SEXUAL relationship? Haw, yer honor...
"I thought you said saxual relationship. Shucks!"
In an editorial Wednesday morning, September 8th, The New York Times said:
Mr. Clinton and his lieutenants want to believe that the President's job performance ratings make him impervious to criticism in Washington.The President, who has "gotten lucky" in more ways than one, may be surprised to find that the fortunate confluence of his shenanigans and the incredible performance of our economy and stock market with little interference from him and politicians of all persuasions, may now suffer a divergence to his detriment.
The plain fact is that this president has done virtually nothing to merit any sort of job performance rating. His stats are purely the product of good times, and - to a lesser extent - utter abdication by the loyal opposition. This of course places him at risk should those times, or even the perception of them, wane. Last week's stock market gyrations under the influence of faraway events which are ultimately of little real consequence to us stateside, provided an example of this which was apparently not lost upon his fellow party members as - under the cover provided by their colleague Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, below - they began sniffing around for ways to distance themselves from their ostensible leader.
Now Congress has uploaded the report. It is available on-line now. If that link doesn't work, try this one or this one or this one.
For the President's rebuttal, click here or here. These sites will not necessarily include any apologies or statements of contrition. For the latest Presidential apologies, please stay tuned to your local station. If you have fallen behind, click here for MSNBC's multimedia gallery of Presidential Apologies.
Even after the White House defense team got the jump and issued a preemptive rebuttal slightly in advance of the release of the Starr Report, Starr was initially ahead of Clinton, 455 pages to 73. But then later Friday the President's lawyers released a second rebuttal. On top of that there are supposedly about 2,000 pages of "sensitive background information," plus tape recordings, that will be released only to the members of the House Judiciary Committee. If these materials are sensitive, and include multimedia materials, maybe they should count for more; but they are not being released into the public arena, so perhaps they should not count at all. The Old Man is getting confused. I am not sure how to keep score anymore.
Ironically, as the Reuters report points out, "a parade of computer experts, constitutional scholars and even a psychiatrist were scheduled to testify Friday before a House Commerce subcommittee on how to protect children from obscene material on the Internet."
Funny though, the Library of Congress Thomas system - designed to gain you and me “direct access” to the inner workings of Congress, still does not enable us to search the complete voting record of a member of Congress. The reason for this is purely political, not technological. Our congressmen and women simply do not want their votes easily accessible to us. Gary Ruskin, director of the Congressional Accountability Project, calls Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s efforts to get congressional documents online “pathetic,” and adds,
“The Speaker is quick to put documents on the Internet that serve his political ends and he is loath to put on the Internet the working documents of our Congress, probably because he is afraid of the political implications of the public finding all those enormous favors his committee chairs do for corporate and wealthy special interests.”But never you mind. We will worry about that later. Now let us crank up our global search utilities and see how many times we can find “fellatio” and “cigar” and “penis” and "Titanic" in the Starr Report. Come back when you are done. The Old Man will be here.
As cynical as I am, or at least may seem in these pages, I am taken aback by the speed with which the worm has turned for President Clinton. The super-confident stonewalling of only a few days ago has all but crumbled, and his Democratic colleagues - for once apparently anticipating the polls instead of blindly following them - have abandoned him like our medieval ancestors fleeing the plague.
I am surprised with the abruptness of it all. I am reminded of years ago, just before Christmas, when a good friend of mine who owns a poultry farm nearby invited me and my children out to see a just-arrived shipment of 10,000 day-old chicks. They were in a special barn with a large heater in the middle, and the legion of infant hens were furiously racing in a clockwise direction around the heater. Every so often, for no discernible reason, they would all change direction and race with the same wild abandon in a counter-clockwise direction. Racing round and round, this way and that, and getting nowhere.
The image seems apt. If there are any politicians reading this page, they might do well to ponder the day-olds' destiny: somewhat less than a year laying eggs in the close confines of a cage, followed by a less than graceful exit on their way to become broilers.
The latest commotion is over the Congressional Republicans’ decision to release portions of Clinton’s videotaped August 17th grand jury deposition. Monday [September 21st] you could watch the President dissemble on your TV set for better than four hours via CNN, MSNBC, and the Fox News Channel which planned to run it as soon as they get their hands on it. The major networks, out of concern for good taste and decorum, no doubt, were waiting to decide how much of it to show and when to do so after they had had a chance to view it themselves.
Tuesday's [September 22nd] specter of one of this century's moral icons on the same dais with our very own rascal was discouraging enough, even without Mandela's proclamations of support for President Clinton from leaders around the world.
Many are wringing their hands over the prospect of highly partisan impeachment proceedings. One can understand an aggressive approach by some House Republicans, after months and months of stone-walling, dissembling and outright lying by the President and His Men. Confronted with all that, it would be normal to fire up the artillery and take aim at this President. After all President Clinton has been dragged kicking and screaming to the admissions he has now made.
But get
a load of the likes of Georgia Congressman Robert Barr (picture left) and Florida Representative Bill
McCullom (picture right), both Republicans who transparently try to seem objective and public-spirited
as they exalt this national embarrassment into some epic governmental crisis. Their
motives are highly partisan. They smell blood in the water and are swarming.
I have no respect for President Clinton. I never did. I disagree with those who think this entire spectacle is private, should never have seen the light of day. The Old Man has had his fun with the scandal, see below, but there is a serious purpose lying behind all of this. We should know our leaders. We are better for the knowledge we have obtained of this man’s serious flaws. Rather than turning away in embarrassment as he drops his trousers in the Oval Office, we should confront what we have learned about him and look all the harder. We need to keep an eye on him for the next two years, and then - when he leaves office - breathe a sigh of relief that his flaws were just those of sexual addiction and habitual lying.
He is not the first man to occupy that office who was flawed. But it is high time we knew our leaders better. The real test will be to see if we can do any better the next time. As The Old Man surveys the field of candidates pawing the ground, eager to get started in the next race, he is not encouraged.
The latest commotion is over the Congressional Republicans’ decision to release portions of that videotaped grand jury deposition Monday morning [September 21, 1998]. Clinton's behavior on the tape was reported to have given Democrats reason for concern. According to various sources, there were times in his testimony when Clinton appeared evasive, refused to answer questions, "reacted angrily," was "visibly upset," and "even erupted at a couple of points." OK, poor choice of words there. Reportedly at one point the President had to take an hour break to calm down during the questioning.
The Old Man has not heard any reports of the President attempting to break a chair over his interrogator’s head, a la Springer.
The morning of Monday, October 12th, The New York Times' William Safire recited one argument against the impeachment and conviction of President Clinton:
With Asia and Russia in economic turmoil, refugees about to freeze in Kosovo and Saddam building weapons while thumbing his nose at the U.N., we cannot afford the distraction of firing our reckless leader.
then dismissed that argument:
A superpower should be able to walk and chew up a President at the same time. Turn the myth on its head: Mr. Clinton, who studiously avoided dealing with these crises before the impeachment inquiry, may finally have an incentive to address them -- if only to look Presidential. Advocates of his ouster will support him -- if only to appear nonpartisan.
Turning things on their heads is nothing new in Washington, and I do not suspect we will be saved this time by either the President's sense of irony or the ingenuousness of Congressional Republicans.
For all that, for reasons he finds it difficult to explain, The Old Man does not want this President to be impeached or to resign. I think the pathetic records of both Administration and Congress over the last 4-6 years have done as much to compromise these institutions as have the various scandals, and yet - global economic chaos, Kosovo and Saddam notwithstanding - the fact that, all things considered, we are nonetheless doing so well makes me wonder just how important these institutions and the people who populate them really are, other than in their own estimation.
For some of The Old Man's more sober thoughts on all this and politics in general, click here.
Finally! I spotted this item in the July 20, 1998 edition of WiredNews:
News for NosePaula Jones has a new hairstyle and a bunch of new clothes, so why not a new nose? Jones, whose prominent proboscis became a fixture on nightly newscasts and newspaper columns after she sued President Clinton for sexual harassment, was spotted emerging from a plastic surgeon's office in New York City on Saturday, her nose heavily bandaged. Given the normal healing time for a procedure like this, we should be able to admire the good doctor's handiwork in about three weeks.
I can hardly wait. Now... what's next? Might I make a recommendation or two? A speech therapist? Lose that accent. A brain transplant perhaps?
To see some of Paula's options, check out the virtual-pin-the-nose-on-Paula page at abcnews.com.
