Pure Politics

Cloud over Clinton is now more ominous

Stephen Winn

Published in Kansas City Star, August 23.

Let's review those fibs. All of them. From the 4 minute statement of August 17 only.
 
 

The president is now in serious legal jeopardy with respect to perjury and the obstruction of justice.

Fatigue. That was the overwhelming emotion that many Americans felt after watching President Clinton's pseudo-confession last Monday night.

Administration officials took heart in that reaction, hoping that it meant most people would heed the president's plea for the country to forget the scandal and "move on."

But the undeniable reality is that the president is now in serious legal jeopardy with respect to perjury and the obstruction of justice.

The perjury problems in particular are obvious to anyone who, in light of Clinton's speech Monday, reviews a few passages in a legal deposition that the president gave in January.

Forget for a moment all the legalistic fencing over sexual terminology. In the deposition, Clinton said he had "no specific recollection" of ever being alone with Monica Lewinsky.

There are also serious questions about whether Clinton was involved in the obstruction of justice, a subject that received only an oblique reference in Monday's speech.

One of Clinton's fundamental responsibilities as president is to protect the integrity of the legal system.

So Clinton hardly deserves some sort of special dispensation in his own dealings with the legal system. If anything, he should be held to a higher standard of conduct there.

After all, how seriously can judges and juries expect anyone else to take the judicial system if the president himself -- the man who nominates Supreme Court judges and appoints the attorney general -- does not?

The president is looking to his political popularity for salvation, hoping that the nation will simply forgive his abuse of the legal system and move on.

But as some voters understood immediately and others will soon discover, the president's speech failed to lay the groundwork for moving on.

The short speech, in fact, was a disaster from start to finish, riddled with fresh deceptions and ominous blank spaces. For example:

 

The speech was a disaster from start to finish, riddled with fresh deceptions and ominous blank spaces.

  • "I answered their questions truthfully, including questions about my private life..."

The clear implication was that Clinton had answered all of the questions put to him before the grand jury Monday. He actually did not, as one of his own lawyers made clear.

Nor did the prosecutors have time to ask everything they wanted to ask. Clinton refused to go more than a few minutes beyond four hours of testimony.

  • "While my answers (in the January deposition) were legally accurate, I did not volunteer information."

This is apparently a reference to the president's ludicrous definition of the term "sexual relations."

Even for those who play along with this argument, the president's lies in the January deposition went beyond sexual matters.

  • "I know that my public comments and my silence about this matter gave a false impression. I misled people..."

For Clinton to characterize his angry, finger-wagging denial of the truth last January as something that merely "misled" people or left them with a false "impression" is itself a bizarre attempt to shade reality into oblivion.

  • "...at no time did I ask anyone to lie, to hide or destroy evidence or to take any other unlawful action."

Various reports in the press cast doubt on this claim. Yet the president offered no further information on the subject, no rebuttals or explanations of anything.

Even as Clinton acknowledged that he had systematically deceived the public throughout the year, he demanded the public's unquestioning trust from here on out.

  • "...I must take complete responsibility for all my actions..."

He didn't. Incredibly, Clinton even chose to feign anger at how long the scandal had dragged on -- even though he had only just offered his truncated testimony to the grand jury and his revised explanations to the public.

related...

clinton: liar, liar, liar

A week ago, the country probably was ready to forgive Clinton's transgressions against the legal system in return for a decent explanation and a sincere apology.

Unfortunately, he chose another course.


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This page updated October 24, 1998
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