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Sam Smith
ONE OF THE FASCINATING THINGS ABOUT THE CLINTON YEARS was the consistent
failure of women's groups to show the slightest interest in those who
accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment. Basically, they were
dismissed as trailer trash.
One of them was Paula Jones whose lawsuit against Clinton was the
proximate cause of the testimony in which Clinton lied. Jones was
regarded as barely better than a stripper by the liberal elite and
Clinton's lying has mythologized as only being about his sex with Monica
Lewinsky when in fact it was about another woman getting a fair trial in
a sex harassment suit.
Here, from Wikipedia, is a summary of what has been conveniently
forgotten:
||||| Before the case reached trial, Judge Susan Webber Wright granted
President Clinton's motion for summary judgment, ruling that Jones could
not show that she had suffered any damages, even if her claim of sexual
harassment were otherwise proven. Jones appealed the dismissal to a
panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit,
where, at oral argument, two of the three judges on the panel appeared
sympathetic to her arguments. On November 13, 1998, Clinton settled with
Jones for $850,000, the entire amount of her claim, but without an
apology, in exchange for her agreement to drop the appeal. All but
$151,000 went to pay, what were by then, considerable legal expenses.
Before the end of the entire litigation, her marriage broke apart.
In April 1999, Judge Wright found President Clinton in civil contempt of
court for misleading testimony in the Jones case. She ordered Clinton to
pay Jones $91,000 for the expenses incurred as the result of Clinton's
evasive and misleading answers. Wright then referred Clinton's conduct
to the Arkansas Bar for disciplinary action, and on January 19, 2001,
the day before President Clinton left the White House, Clinton entered
into an agreement with the Arkansas Bar and Independent Counsel Robert
Ray under which Clinton consented to a five-year suspension of his law
license.
With the [inducement] of further evidence in the case President Clinton
was held in contempt of court by judge Susan Webber Wright. His license
to practice law was suspended in Arkansas and later by the United States
Supreme Court. He was also fined $90,000. His fine was paid for by a
legal fund raised for his legal expenses. |||||
Now, with the Scooter Libby case, the Clinton mendacity has found its
way back in the news. But once again the comparison is being dismissed
because of what is viewed by liberals as the insignificance of lying
about sex. The sexual harassment suit is rarely mentioned.
An exception was Slate's Tim Noah who wrote, "No fair-minded person can
deny that the previous president committed perjury about Monica Lewinsky
while serving in the Oval Office. The country knew it, and it let him
get away with it ... Is it really fair to treat White House aides more
harshly than ordinary citizens when presidents get off scot-free?"
A debatable argument to be sure, but what is stunning is the response
from Salon's Alex Koppelman:
|||| Though it's become conventional wisdom that Clinton committed
perjury when he lied under oath about Lewinsky during the Paula Jones
lawsuit, that question is in fact far from having a definitive answer.
It's important to draw a distinction here: Lying under oath is not the
same thing as perjury. The federal statute regarding perjury -- as well
as many state statutes, but Clinton was testifying in a federal lawsuit,
so that's the law that applies here -- requires that the lie be about
something material to the case at hand. And the question of whether
Clinton's lies were material to the case is by no means settled. Indeed,
the judge in the case, Federal District Judge Susan Webber Wright, ruled
that the Lewinsky issue was "not essential to the core issues" of the
Jones lawsuit and excluded all evidence about Lewinsky from the suit.
There is still an argument to be made that Clinton's lies were material
to that case, and the conservative legal scholar Judge Richard Posner,
who is on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, has made it.
But there are plenty of "fair-minded" people who disagree; another
eminent legal scholar, Ronald Dworkin, wrote a lengthy takedown of
Posner's arguments for the New York Review of Books, itself a
well-respected publication. "Posner's own argument for the materiality
of Clinton's deposition lies is very weak," Dworkin wrote. "... [T]he
pertinent question is not whether Clinton's false statements 'might'
have been material, as Wright said, but whether they were material
beyond a reasonable doubt. ... So Posner's claim that Clinton was
'clearly' guilty of perjury in the Lewinsky deposition is unjustified."
||||
In other words, in the Clintonista mind, it not only is a question of
what the meaning of the word "is" is, but what the word "perjury" is.
While such arguments may have a place in the courtroom they have no
place among the fair and moral. Honest, decent people don't have to flee
to such obscure distinctions.
But forget about morality. Let's just consider the politics. The sort of
liberal denial of the importance of simple honesty is one of the things
that has caused the Democrats so many problems. They have been forced
into endless esoteric, baroque and attorney-like defenses of the
Clintons' behavior and now propose to lay the burden on us once again.
As we have pointed out, it isn't going to go away. The GOP is just
holding its fire until after the Democratic convention.
The liberal faith these days is that it's always someone else's fault.
So they blame Al Gore's failure in 2000 on the Republicans and Ralph
Nader. But there are some important clues in that election that wise
Democrats should consider before going with another Clinton.
The exit polls revealed that far more important than GOP malfeasance or
the Greens daring to exercise their constitutional right to run for
office was the silent effect of the Clinton scandals on voters,
including liberals and other Democrats.
According to these polls:
- 60% of voters disapproved of Clinton as a person
- 59% - including some who approved of him - disliked him
- 68% said he would go down in the history books for his scandals rather
than for his leadership
- 44% thought the Clinton scandals were important or somewhat important.
In contrast, only 28% thought Bush's drunk driving arrest was important
or somewhat important.
And most strikingly, 15% of those who voted for Clinton in 1996 turned
to Bush in 2000. That certainly wasn't Ralph Nader's fault.
The Democratic elite is overflowing with lawyers these days and it has
helped turned the party from the voice of the people to the scratchy,
picky whine of the legal profession. It may be enough to get Hillary
Clinton the nomination but in the end a lot of people who go to the
polls don't like lies whether they count as perjury or not.
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PAGE ONE MUST
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GORE CLOSES DOOR TIGHTER
CNN - Former Vice President Al Gore said the only campaigning he wants
to do is against global warming. . . When asked on NBC's "Today Show"
why he wouldn't run for president again -- when presumably a president
could shape an agenda to fight global warming -- Gore said those in
power must have the support of the people to make it work. . .
Gore refused to endorse any candidate, saying that the election is 500
days away. Gore has stopped short of closing the campaign door, but he
has left little room to expect anything else.
"I've kind of fallen out of love with politics. ...Whatever experience
and talents I've gained over the years -- I think it may well be that
the highest and best use of that is to try to bring enough awareness of
the solutions to the climate crisis and enough of a sense of urgency
that we come together across party lines on behalf of our children,"
Gore said. Don't miss
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/05/gore.office/index.html
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sam Smith
ONE OF THE FASCINATING THINGS ABOUT THE CLINTON YEARS was the consistent
failure of women's groups to show the slightest interest in those who
accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment. Basically, they were
dismissed as trailer trash.
One of them was Paula Jones whose lawsuit against Clinton was the
proximate cause of the testimony in which Clinton lied. Jones was
regarded as barely better than a stripper by the liberal elite and
Clinton's lying has mythologized as only being about his sex with Monica
Lewinsky when in fact it was about another woman getting a fair trial in
a sex harassment suit.
Here, from Wikipedia, is a summary of what has been conveniently
forgotten:
||||| Before the case reached trial, Judge Susan Webber Wright granted
President Clinton's motion for summary judgment, ruling that Jones could
not show that she had suffered any damages, even if her claim of sexual
harassment were otherwise proven. Jones appealed the dismissal to a
panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit,
where, at oral argument, two of the three judges on the panel appeared
sympathetic to her arguments. On November 13, 1998, Clinton settled with
Jones for $850,000, the entire amount of her claim, but without an
apology, in exchange for her agreement to drop the appeal. All but
$151,000 went to pay, what were by then, considerable legal expenses.
Before the end of the entire litigation, her marriage broke apart.
In April 1999, Judge Wright found President Clinton in civil contempt of
court for misleading testimony in the Jones case. She ordered Clinton to
pay Jones $91,000 for the expenses incurred as the result of Clinton's
evasive and misleading answers. Wright then referred Clinton's conduct
to the Arkansas Bar for disciplinary action, and on January 19, 2001,
the day before President Clinton left the White House, Clinton entered
into an agreement with the Arkansas Bar and Independent Counsel Robert
Ray under which Clinton consented to a five-year suspension of his law
license.
With the [inducement] of further evidence in the case President Clinton
was held in contempt of court by judge Susan Webber Wright. His license
to practice law was suspended in Arkansas and later by the United States
Supreme Court. He was also fined $90,000. His fine was paid for by a
legal fund raised for his legal expenses. |||||
Now, with the Scooter Libby case, the Clinton mendacity has found its
way back in the news. But once again the comparison is being dismissed
because of what is viewed by liberals as the insignificance of lying
about sex. The sexual harassment suit is rarely mentioned.
An exception was Slate's Tim Noah who wrote, "No fair-minded person can
deny that the previous president committed perjury about Monica Lewinsky
while serving in the Oval Office. The country knew it, and it let him
get away with it ... Is it really fair to treat White House aides more
harshly than ordinary citizens when presidents get off scot-free?"
A debatable argument to be sure, but what is stunning is the response
from Salon's Alex Koppelman:
|||| Though it's become conventional wisdom that Clinton committed
perjury when he lied under oath about Lewinsky during the Paula Jones
lawsuit, that question is in fact far from having a definitive answer.
It's important to draw a distinction here: Lying under oath is not the
same thing as perjury. The federal statute regarding perjury -- as well
as many state statutes, but Clinton was testifying in a federal lawsuit,
so that's the law that applies here -- requires that the lie be about
something material to the case at hand. And the question of whether
Clinton's lies were material to the case is by no means settled. Indeed,
the judge in the case, Federal District Judge Susan Webber Wright, ruled
that the Lewinsky issue was "not essential to the core issues" of the
Jones lawsuit and excluded all evidence about Lewinsky from the suit.
There is still an argument to be made that Clinton's lies were material
to that case, and the conservative legal scholar Judge Richard Posner,
who is on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, has made it.
But there are plenty of "fair-minded" people who disagree; another
eminent legal scholar, Ronald Dworkin, wrote a lengthy takedown of
Posner's arguments for the New York Review of Books, itself a
well-respected publication. "Posner's own argument for the materiality
of Clinton's deposition lies is very weak," Dworkin wrote. "... [T]he
pertinent question is not whether Clinton's false statements 'might'
have been material, as Wright said, but whether they were material
beyond a reasonable doubt. ... So Posner's claim that Clinton was
'clearly' guilty of perjury in the Lewinsky deposition is unjustified."
||||
In other words, in the Clintonista mind, it not only is a question of
what the meaning of the word "is" is, but what the word "perjury" is.
While such arguments may have a place in the courtroom they have no
place among the fair and moral. Honest, decent people don't have to flee
to such obscure distinctions.
But forget about morality. Let's just consider the politics. The sort of
liberal denial of the importance of simple honesty is one of the things
that has caused the Democrats so many problems. They have been forced
into endless esoteric, baroque and attorney-like defenses of the
Clintons' behavior and now propose to lay the burden on us once again.
As we have pointed out, it isn't going to go away. The GOP is just
holding its fire until after the Democratic convention.
The liberal faith these days is that it's always someone else's fault.
So they blame Al Gore's failure in 2000 on the Republicans and Ralph
Nader. But there are some important clues in that election that wise
Democrats should consider before going with another Clinton.
The exit polls revealed that far more important than GOP malfeasance or
the Greens daring to exercise their constitutional right to run for
office was the silent effect of the Clinton scandals on voters,
including liberals and other Democrats.
According to these polls:
- 60% of voters disapproved of Clinton as a person
- 59% - including some who approved of him - disliked him
- 68% said he would go down in the history books for his scandals rather
than for his leadership
- 44% thought the Clinton scandals were important or somewhat important.
In contrast, only 28% thought Bush's drunk driving arrest was important
or somewhat important.
And most strikingly, 15% of those who voted for Clinton in 1996 turned
to Bush in 2000. That certainly wasn't Ralph Nader's fault.
The Democratic elite is overflowing with lawyers these days and it has
helped turned the party from the voice of the people to the scratchy,
picky whine of the legal profession. It may be enough to get Hillary
Clinton the nomination but in the end a lot of people who go to the
polls don't like lies whether they count as perjury or not.
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PAGE ONE MUST
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GORE CLOSES DOOR TIGHTER
CNN - Former Vice President Al Gore said the only campaigning he wants
to do is against global warming. . . When asked on NBC's "Today Show"
why he wouldn't run for president again -- when presumably a president
could shape an agenda to fight global warming -- Gore said those in
power must have the support of the people to make it work. . .
Gore refused to endorse any candidate, saying that the election is 500
days away. Gore has stopped short of closing the campaign door, but he
has left little room to expect anything else.
"I've kind of fallen out of love with politics. ...Whatever experience
and talents I've gained over the years -- I think it may well be that
the highest and best use of that is to try to bring enough awareness of
the solutions to the climate crisis and enough of a sense of urgency
that we come together across party lines on behalf of our children,"
Gore said. Don't miss
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/05/gore.office/index.html
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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