My friends at Lucianne.com had a real blast from the past today with Kenneth Starr's Wall Street Journal editorial discussing Bill Clinton's book "My Life". That the editorial generated a lot of discussion is quite predictable. Our heroin, Lucianne Goldberg herself was involved with Linda Tripp and the Lewinsky scandal for which Clinton was ultimately impeached.
Ken Starr makes a very specific point about the veracity of the facts that were revealed, and in particular, how the entire investigation actually demonstrated the point that the Independent Counsel concept was ill conceived:
"The entire independent counsel experiment, launched in the wake of Watergate, was a noble idea, but it tugged at our architecture in the form of basic principles of separation of powers. Prosecutors should be accountable within the executive branch, not left to languish outside the tripartite system of government."
Speaking as an American Citizen, one who was not particularly in love with Bill Clinton or his wing of the Democratic Party (DLC), which, in my opinion, employs an economic philosophy very much on the same sheet of music as that of the Republican Party (thus Clinton's relationship with Ken Lay and ENRON is really no surprise) but practicing to a large degree the fiscal responsiblity that Republicans mainly just talk about, I must say that I didn't really "hate" the man either. He had a pretty good eight year run.. the country prospered.. etc.
However, Starr's comments about the dysfunctional nature of the Independent Counsel are really quite academic. And his comments about the facticity of the facts leaves me with a really deep feeling of "Who cares?"
The question that I would ask is: How did an investigatory tool designed to deal with situations like Watergate and Iran-Contra, end up being a sophomoric panty chase that ultimately led to the revelation that Clinton had a "thing" with Lewinsky, all at the taxpayers expense, tying-up assets of the FBI and IRS, the Judiciary.. etc. FOR YEARS, and culminating in impeachment?
It is all kinda like sending the FBI to bust Congressmen for not paying their parking tickets, and then using the Supreme Court Justices to convict and fine them.
It is a matter of proportion and purpose. It is using instruments designed for the investigation of governmental high crimes, and to prosecute Mafia bosses, to crack down on shoplifting at convenience stores.
The only people happy with the outcome are the Clinton-haters, who wanted Clinton, or Hillary for whatever reason, at whatever cost. Starr made professional judgements at some critical turns in order to expand his investigation.. looking to demonstrate a pattern of deception, well after it was clear that he could not implicate Bill or Hillary in Whitewater. The instrument of Justice was turned to purposes of partisan retribution dating to Watergate and Iran-Contra, and to right wing vendettas that haunted the Clintons (for some reason) throughout their White House years and before.
The instrument of Congress, designed to sanction High Crimes and Misdemeanors, was put decidedly in the service of addressing misdemeanors, venial sins, and indiscretions... There was no small amount of "lowering the bar" involved.
The Special Prosecutor, and the Congress of the United States of America could have stopped the circus at any time on the basis of sound professional judgement.. and didn't. Perhaps that is a far greater crime victimizing the American People, degrading the quality of service provided by their government by virtue of imprudence, and quite possibly, in retrospect, causing distractions to the Executive Branch that may have resulted in a decrement in our very national security posture that was later exploited in 2001.
At any rate, my friends at Lucianne.com had good things to say about Starr's article:
The last American president of the 20th century has now told in elaborate detail his remarkable story. At its best, his book, "My Life," not only demonstrates the great natural gifts and steely determination of its subject, but points more broadly to the greatness of the country itself. Ours is the opportunity society, Bill Clinton's story reminds us. It is the revolutionary society insisting on the inalienability of fundamental, God-given rights...
Comments:
Reply 1 - Posted by: 7/8/2004 12:13:52 AM
Clinton does have 3 strong principles. Me, me and me.
Reply 2 - Posted by: 7/8/2004 12:24:15 AM
Regarding klinton, I watched a replay of the 60 Minutes segment on the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgeway. When asked why he killed the women, he replied simply, "because I wanted to". Kind of reminds me of klinton's answer on 60 Minutes as to why Monica? His response, "because I could". Void of morals---only concerned about me--me--me.
Reply 3 - Posted by: 7/8/2004 12:34:06 AM
I don't watch him, I don't read anything about him, I will not buy his book, I think he is a very disgusting man.
Popular name for a failed 1970s Arkansas real estate venture by the Whitewater Development Corp., in which Governor (later President) Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, were partners; the name is also used for the political ramifications of this scheme.
Whitewater was backed by the Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, which went bankrupt in 1989. The controlling partners in both the land deal and the bank were friends of the Clintons, James and Susan McDougal. Vincent Foster, a Little Rock law partner of Mrs. Clinton, represented the Clintons in the buyout of their Whitewater shares. Accusations of impropriety against the Clintons and others soon surfaced, regarding improper campaign contributions, political and financial favors, and tax benefits. Claiming that relevant files had disappeared (they were found at the White House in 1996) and that they had in any case lost money on the Whitewater venture, the Clintons denied any wrongdoing.
When Foster, now White House counsel, committed suicide (1993), however, more questions arose. Strongly pursued in Washington, mainly by Republicans, but largely ignored by the general public, Whitewater was investigated by a special prosecutor beginning in 1994 and by congressional committees in 1995–96. Special prosecutor Kenneth Starr’s investigation included testimony from Mrs. Clinton (which was the first time a first lady was subpoenaed by a grand jury) and videotaped testimony from the president.
In a 1996 trial, the McDougals and Jim Guy Tucker, Clinton’s successor as governor of Arkansas, were found guilty of fraud in the case, and in another decision the former municipal judge David Hale, who had pled guilty to fraud and had been a witness in the McDougal trial, received a jail sentence. In yet another trial the same year two Arkansas bankers were acquitted of some charges, and the jury deadlocked on others. Although nothing conclusive concerning the Clintons’ involvement in the Whitewater deal was proved in the congressional or special prosecutor’s inquiries, Republicans charged Hillary Clinton with having sought to suppress politically damaging information and accused Clinton administration officials of lying under oath.
In early 1998, Starr won authorization to expand his investigation to include the Lewinsky scandal, and questions about Monica Lewinsky’s relationship with Clinton quickly overshadowed Whitewater matters. However, in late 1998, when Starr presented his case for impeachment of the president for his attempts to conceal the Lewinsky affair, he indicated that his office had no impeachable evidence in the Whitewater matters. Starr resigned in Oct., 1999, and was succeeded by Robert W. Ray, the senior litigation counsel in Starr’s office. In Sept., 2000, Ray ended the Whitewater inquiry, stating there was insufficient evidence to prove that President Clinton or his wife had committed any crime in connection with the failed real estate venture or the independent counsel’s investigation into it; the final report was issued 18 months later. Susan McDougal was pardoned by President Clinton in Jan., 2001, shortly before he left office.
(lwn´sk) (KEY) , sensation that enveloped the presidency of Bill Clinton in 1998–99, leading to his impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives and acquittal by the Senate.
Paula Corbin Jones, a former Arkansas state worker who claimed that Bill Clinton had accosted her sexually in 1991 when he was governor of Arkansas, had brought a sexual harassment lawsuit against the president. Seeking to show a pattern of behavior on Clinton’s part, Jones’s lawyers questioned several women believed to have had a liaison with him. On Jan. 17, 1998, Clinton himself was questioned, becoming the first sitting president to testify as a civil defendant.
In his testimony, Clinton denied having had an affair with Monica S. Lewinsky, an unpaid intern and later a paid staffer at the White House, in 1995–96. Lewinsky had earlier, in a deposition in the same case, also denied having such a relationship. Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel in the Whitewater case, had previously received tape recordings made by Linda R. Tripp (a former coworker of Lewinsky’s) of telephone conversations in which Lewinsky described her involvement with the president. Asserting that there was a “pattern of deception,” Starr obtained from Attorney General Janet Reno permission to investigate the matter.
The president publicly denied having had a relationship with Lewinsky and charges of covering it up. His adviser Vernon Jordan denied having counseled Lewinsky to lie in the Jones case, or having arranged a job for her outside Washington, to help cover up the affair. Hillary Clinton claimed that a “vast right-wing conspiracy” was trying to destroy her husband, while Republicans and conservatives portrayed him as immoral and a liar.
In March, Jordan and others testified before Starr’s grand jury, and lawyers for Paula Jones released papers revealing, among other things, that Clinton, in his January deposition, had admitted to a sexual relationship in the 1980s with Arkansas entertainer Gennifer Flowers, a charge he had long denied. In April, however, Arkansas federal judge Susan Webber Wright dismissed the Jones suit, ruling that Jones’s story, if true, showed that she had been exposed to “boorish” behavior but not sexual harrassment; Jones appealed.
In July, Starr granted Lewinsky immunity from perjury charges, and Clinton agreed to testify before the grand jury. He did so on Aug. 17, then went on television to admit the affair with Lewinsky and ask for forgiveness. In September, Starr sent a 445-page report to the House of Representatives, recommending four possible grounds for impeachment: perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and abuse of authority (in claiming executive privilege and other actions). The report, detailed not only in its reporting of claimed misdeeds but also its description of sexual acts, was condemned by many as prurient.
The House Judiciary Committee considered the report in October and November. In mid-November it sent Clinton 81 formal inquiries; his answers, seen as legalistic and combative, were thought to hurt his case. On Dec. 12, in party-line votes, the committee approved four impeachment counts, rejecting a resolution of censure drafted by Democrats as an alternative.
House Republicans had unexpectedly lost seats in the Nov. elections, and it was widely held that the impeachment proceeding was one reason, since polls showed the public did not favor impeachment. It was also said that there was no chance the Senate would convict on any charge. The White House hoped that these facts and its own campaign against impeachment would prevent it, but on Dec. 20 Clinton became the second president (after Andrew Johnson) to be impeached, on two charges: perjury—in his Aug., 1998, testimony—and obstruction of justice. The vote, again, was largely along party lines.
In Jan., 1999, the trial began in the Senate. On Jan. 12, Clinton settled the Paula Jones suit, disposing of any threat her case might hold for him. On Feb. 12, after a trial in which testimony relating to the charges was limited, the Senate rejected both counts of impeachment. The perjury charge lost, 55–45, with 10 Republicans joining all 45 Democrats in voting against it; the obstruction charge drew a 50–50 vote. Subsequently, on Apr. 12, Judge Wright, who had dismissed the Jones case, found the president in contempt for lying in his Jan., 1998, testimony, when he denied the Lewinsky affair. In July, Judge Wright ordered the president to pay nearly $90,000 to Ms. Jones’s lawyers. During that same month a Maryland grand jury indicted Linda Tripp for illegally taping phone calls (Tripp had been granted immunity from federal prosecution but not from state charges), but the charges were later dropped when crucial evidence was ruled inadmissable. On Jan. 19, 2001, the day before he left office, President Clinton agreed to admit to giving false testimony in the Jones case and to accept a five-year suspension of his law license and a $25,000 fine in return for an agreement by the independent counsel, Robert W. Ray (Starr’s successor), to end the investigation and not prosecute him.
See M. Isikoff, Uncovering Clinton (1999); A. Morton, Monica’s Story (1999); R. A. Posner, An Affair of State (1999); J. Toobin, A Vast Conspiracy (2000); P. Baker, The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton (2000).
formal accusation issued by a legislature against a public official charged with crime or other serious misconduct. In a looser sense the term is sometimes applied also to the trial by the legislature that may follow. Impeachment developed in England, beginning in the 14th cent., as a means of trying officials suspected of dereliction of duty. The English procedure was for the House of Commons to prosecute by presenting articles of impeachment to the House of Lords, which rendered judgment. Any penalty, including death, might be inflicted. The impeachment (1787) and trial (1788–95) of Warren Hastings was among the last of the English cases.
In the United States impeachment of public officials is provided for in the federal government and in most states. In federal matters the U.S. Constitution gives the House of Representatives the power to impeach civil officers of the United States, including the President and Vice President, but not including members of Congress. Impeachments are tried by the Senate, with the concurrence of two thirds of the members present needed for conviction. The sole penalties on conviction are removal from office and disqualification from holding other federal office; however, the convicted party is liable to subsequent criminal trial and punishment for the same offense.
There have been 16 impeachments tried by the Senate and seven convictions. Three of the best-known cases, which did not result in conviction, were those of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, President Andrew Johnson, and President Bill Clinton (see Lewinsky scandal). In 1974 the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives voted to bring impeachment charges against President Richard Nixon (see Watergate affair), but Nixon resigned before the House took action.
in U.S. history, series of scandals involving the administration of President Richard M. Nixon; more specifically, the burglarizing of the Democratic party national headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C.
On June 17, 1972, police apprehended five men attempting to break into and wiretap Democratic party offices. With two other accomplices they were tried and convicted in Jan., 1973. All seven men were either directly or indirectly employees of President Nixon’s reelection committee, and many persons, including the trial judge, John J. Sirica, suspected a conspiracy involving higher-echelon government officials. In March, James McCord, one of the convicted burglars, wrote a letter to Sirica charging a massive coverup of the burglary. His letter transformed the affair into a political scandal of unprecedented magnitude.
When a special Senate committee investigating corrupt campaign practices, headed by Senator Sam Ervin, began nationally televised hearings into the Watergate affair, former White House counsel John Dean testified that the burglary was approved by former Attorney General John Mitchell with the knowledge of chief White House advisers John Ehrlichman and H. R. (Bob) Haldeman; he further accused President Nixon of approving the coverup.
Attorney General Elliot Richardson appointed (May, 1973) a special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, to investigate the entire affair; Cox and his staff began to uncover widespread evidence of political espionage by the Nixon reelection committee, illegal wiretapping of citizens by the administration, and corporate contributions to the Republican party in return for political favors. In July, 1973, it was revealed that presidential conversations in the White House had been tape recorded since 1971; Cox sued Nixon to obtain the tapes, and Nixon responded by ordering Richardson to fire him. Richardson resigned instead, and his assistant, William Ruckelshaus, also refused and was himself fired. Solicitor General Robert Bork finally fired Cox (Oct. 20, 1973) in what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre.
Nixon’s action led to calls from the press, from government officials, and from private citizens for his impeachment, and the House of Representatives empowered its Judiciary Committee to initiate an impeachment investigation. Meanwhile, in response to a public outcry against the dismissal of Cox, President Nixon appointed a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworksi, and released to Judge Sirica the tapes of the Watergate conversations subpoenaed by Cox. Jaworski subsequently obtained indictments and convictions against several high-ranking administration officials; one of the grand juries investigating the Watergate affair named Nixon as an unindicted coconspirator and turned its evidence over to the Judiciary Committee.
Responding to public pressure, in Apr., 1974, Nixon gave the Judiciary Committee edited transcripts of his taped conversations relating to Watergate; however, Nixon’s actions failed to halt a steady erosion of confidence in his administration, and by the middle of 1974 polls indicated that a majority of the American people believed that the President was implicated in the Watergate coverup. On July 24, 1974, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling that ordered Nixon to turn over to special prosecutor Jaworski additional subpoenaed tapes relating to the coverup. Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee completed its investigation and adopted (July 27–30) three articles of impeachment against President Nixon; the first article, which cited the Watergate break-in, charged President Nixon with obstruction of justice.
On Aug. 5, Nixon made public the transcripts of three recorded conversations that were among those to be given to Jaworski. At the same time he admitted that he had been aware of the Watergate coverup shortly after the break-in occurred and that he had tried to halt the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s inquiry into the break-in. Several days later (Aug. 9) Nixon resigned and was succeeded by Gerald R. Ford.
President Ford issued a pardon to Nixon for any and all crimes that he might have committed while President. However, Nixon’s chief associates, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell, were among those convicted (Jan. 1, 1975) for their role in the affair. In addition to the governmental upheaval that resulted from the Watergate affair, the scandal provoked widespread loss of confidence in public officials and tended to foster a general suspicion of government agencies.
See L. Chester et al., Watergate: The Full Inside Study (1973); M. Myerson, Watergate: Crime in the Suites (1973); C. Bernstein and B. Woodward, All the President’s Men (1974); P. B. Kurland, Watergate and the Constitution (1978); L. H. Larve, Political Discourse: A Case Study of the Watergate Affair (1988); F. Emery, Watergate: The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon (1994).
My friends at Lucianne.com, the Republican administration, and and the Republican Party in general are very well aware of the political dynamite involved with exploring how the Republican Executive Branch actually used the Intelligence in building the case for the Iraq war.
There are at least two prongs to the fork. 1. What kind of influence did the Republican administration and its political appointees have in shaping the intelligence information that was actually used by the White House, i.e. what actually saw the light of day, and what was suppressed even in the bowels of the CIA because of undue political influence. We already know that the National Security Council had squabbles with the CIA regarding what actually made it into public speeches, i.e. the African uranium affair, etc. 2. Did the Republican administration perform with due dilegence its responsibilities in oversight of the process, i.e. did they actively seek and delineate the limits of the intelligence they were using to make the case?
My friends at Lucianne.com did not seem to recognize the big favor that was being done for the Republican administration by virtue of the bipartisan agreement noted in the article.
"...Under a deal reached this year between Republicans and Democrats, the Bush administration's role will not be addressed until the Senate Intelligence Committee completes a further stage of its inquiry, but probably not until after the November election. As a result, said the officials, both Democratic and Republican, the committee's initial, unanimous report will focus solely on misjudgments by intelligence agencies, not the White House, in the assessments about Iraq, illicit weapons and Al Qaeda that the administration used as a rationale for the war."
bipartisan Senate report to be issued Friday that is highly critical of prewar intelligence on Iraq will sidestep the question of how the Bush administration used that information to make the case for war, Congressional officials said Wednesday. But Democrats are maneuvering to raise the issue in separate statements.
Comments:
Reply 1 - Posted by: 7/7/2004 10:49:57 PM
Why are not the media asking questions about the cost of this 911 Commission vs. the cost benefit for allowing it to be just another political hack job. We were so concerned with the money Ken Star spent; how about this Commission. How many homeless could it have fed----. How many cops could it have put on the beat---. How many--etc, etc.
Reply 2 - Posted by: 7/7/2004 11:10:20 PM
The 9-11 commission IS a democrat maneuver to attempt to destroy President Bush. Soldiers in Iraq are being put in danger as the enemy is emboldened by the negative portrayel of the support for our President. Soldiers in Afghanistan are being put in danger as well. Our future is being put in danger by the partisan hate slung by the democrats. They want power at all costs. (15 mil is nothing to them.) 15 million would have been better spent on border patrol and homeland security.
Reply 3 - Posted by: 7/8/2004 1:06:40 AM
To Question the White House use of intelligence, you have to be an intellignt life form. The 911 commission was a typical sham set up be dimwitcRATS and spineless republicans. This bunch of idiots will end up telling us Teddy the sperm whale is the greatest American ever.
Actually, questioning the Republican administration's administration and use of intelligence is part of the Senate committee's job. To place that review in abeyance until after the elections is a disservice to the American People, and it should be made loud and clear to the American People that there is this additional aspect of the investigation that has been delayed, apparently for partisan political reasons. Don't be fooled about the "bi-partisan" aspect of the agreement. When you give Republican's a majority, bullying ensues.
It is also interesting to note that my friends at Lucianne.com think that the Committee hearings on 9/11 are equivalent to the multi-year skirt-chase conducted by Ken Starr at public expense.
Senate Iraq Report Said to Skirt White House Use of Intelligence
By DOUGLAS JEHL Published: July 8, 2004
"A bipartisan Senate report to be issued Friday that is highly critical of prewar intelligence on Iraq will sidestep the question of how the Bush administration used that information to make the case for war, Congressional officials said Wednesday.
But Democrats are maneuvering to raise the issue in separate statements. Under a deal reached this year between Republicans and Democrats, the Bush administration's role will not be addressed until the Senate Intelligence Committee completes a further stage of its inquiry, but probably not until after the November election. As a result, said the officials, both Democratic and Republican, the committee's initial, unanimous report will focus solely on misjudgments by intelligence agencies, not the White House, in the assessments about Iraq, illicit weapons and Al Qaeda that the administration used as a rationale for the war.
The effect may be to provide an opening for President Bush and his allies to deflect responsibility for what now appear to be exaggerated prewar assessments about the threat posed by Iraq, by portraying them as the fault of the Central Intelligence Agency and its departing chief, George J. Tenet, rather than Mr. Bush and his top aides.
Still, Democrats will try to focus attention on the issue by releasing as many as a half-dozen "additional views" to supplement the bipartisan report. "How the administration used the intelligence was very troubling," Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said in an interview this week. "They took a flawed set of intelligence reports and converted it into a rationale for going to war."
The unanimous report by the panel will say there is no evidence that intelligence officials were subjected to pressure to reach particular conclusions about Iraq. That issue had been an early focus of Democrats, but none of the more than 200 intelligence officials interviewed by the panel made such a claim, and the Democrats have recently focused criticism on the question of whether the intelligence was misused.
The plan to release the "Report on Pre-War Intelligence on Iraq" on Friday was announced Wednesday by the committee. Congressional officials said the Central Intelligence Agency had agreed that most of the report could be made public.
The public version of the report will include more than 80 percent of a classified, 410-page version approved unanimously by the committee, the officials said. A review by the C.I.A. that was completed last month recommended that nearly half of the report be classified. But the panel's Republican and Democratic leaders objected strongly, and they won concessions during negotiations that were completed over the weekend.
The February agreement to divide the inquiry into two parts reflected what both Republicans and Democrats on the committee portrayed as a grudging compromise. Until then, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the top Republican on the panel, had insisted that the question of how the administration used the intelligence exceeded the committee's scope. Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the top Democrat, had insisted that the initial inquiry, focusing on the intelligence agencies, be expanded to include the question of whether public statements by government officials had been substantiated by intelligence information.
Both sides say they are committed to completing the second stage of the inquiry as soon as possible. But the committee also plans to begin work on recommendations for broader changes in intelligence agencies to address the shortcomings detailed in the report, leaving little time in an election year to complete an inquiry that would focus on the Bush administration and would almost certainly splinter along party lines.
The Senate report, the result of more than a year's work by the panel's staff, is the first of three to be issued this summer that are expected to be damning of the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies. The presidential commission on the Sept. 11 attacks is expected to release its final report this month, while Charles A. Duelfer, who is heading what has been an unsuccessful effort to find illicit weapons in Iraq, is expected to report in August or September."
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