I’m not happy about this. I had intended to speak this week, as always, about the environment or freedom of information or equality in education. But I can’t. Like everyone else, my thoughts this week have been pre-empted and pre-occupied by conjecture about what the president may or may not have done with an intern, what can be proven and what might happen next.
I’m not going to take sides on this issue, because there is no side worth taking. None of the participants are covering themselves in glory.
First there is the independent counsel, Kenneth Starr. Apparently Mr. Starr interprets the word “independent” to mean “independent of the law.” Illegal wiretaps, squads of bullies browbeating an obviously naive young woman, investigation by rumor and innuendo. It was wrong for Joe McCarthy to do that from the Senate, it was wrong for John Mitchell to do that from the attorney general’s office and it’s wrong for Ken Starr to do it as independent counsel. I don’t care how guilty the target of his investigation may turn out to be. There is no end that can justify those means.
Then there are Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp, the worst of friends. If the Texas cattlemen can sue Oprah for loss of revenue, what will the phone company be able to do to Linda Tripp? I won’t even talk on the phone anymore, unless I’ve got my lawyer on the extension.
An aspect of this whole affair I find scandalizing is that tens of thousands of our tax dollars are paid every year to clowns like Lewinsky and Tripp and all they seem to do is smoke cigarettes, travel around the world, write nasty e-mails, whine to Vernon Jordan, spread rumors, make illegal tapes and – ahem – get in good with the boss. They must be graduates of the Elizabeth Ray school of civil service.
Finally, there is the president, Bill Clinton, the commander-in-chief and perhaps the philanderer-in-chief. At this point, it looks like he may be guilty in everyone’s eyes but his own. I’ll say this for the man, he seems remarkably consistent. In the 60s he smoked pot, but he didn’t inhale, in the 90s he cheats on his wife, but there was no genital penetration. Bill Clinton: he parties like a lawyer – just this side of illegal, just this side of unfaithful, at least in his own mind.
So then, the question becomes, did he lie or ask anyone else to lie? Did Vernon Jordan? As in all these Washington scenarios, it doesn’t matter what the truth is, it doesn’t matter what you know, what matters is what you can prove in court. I’d guess Messrs. Jordan and Clinton are too shrewd and wily to be caught in anything that can be used against them in a court of law.
If Ken Starr can’t prove Bill Clinton is involved in an official lie, then Clinton will get off, if you’ll excuse the expression. The legal crux of this issue is about lying, not sex. If he remains unindicted, I’m sure the president will issue a statement asking us all to get back to “business as usual.” But think about this, if Clinton gets away with sex, but no lies, then we as a society will have held PeeWee Herman to a higher standard of moral conduct than the president of the United States.
If that is the case, what will we have lost? We will have continued to lose faith in our system of government. The number of active voters will drop again and democracy will continue to die from the bottom up. More and more of our fellow citizens will leave our ranks to become bitter and disillusioned. The next generation of Timothy McVeighs and Ted Kazcynskis may even now be slouching toward Washington.
No Side Worth Taking
I’m not happy about this. I had intended to speak this week, as always, about the environment or freedom of information or equality in education. But I can’t. Like everyone else, my thoughts this week have been pre-empted and pre-occupied by conjecture about what the president may or may not have done with an intern, what can be proven and what might happen next.
I’m not going to take sides on this issue, because there is no side worth taking. None of the participants are covering themselves in glory.
First there is the independent counsel, Kenneth Starr. Apparently Mr. Starr interprets the word “independent” to mean “independent of the law.” Illegal wiretaps, squads of bullies browbeating an obviously naive young woman, investigation by rumor and innuendo. It was wrong for Joe McCarthy to do that from the Senate, it was wrong for John Mitchell to do that from the attorney general’s office and it’s wrong for Ken Starr to do it as independent counsel. I don’t care how guilty the target of his investigation may turn out to be. There is no end that can justify those means.
Then there are Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp, the worst of friends. If the Texas cattlemen can sue Oprah for loss of revenue, what will the phone company be able to do to Linda Tripp? I won’t even talk on the phone anymore, unless I’ve got my lawyer on the extension.
An aspect of this whole affair I find scandalizing is that tens of thousands of our tax dollars are paid every year to clowns like Lewinsky and Tripp and all they seem to do is smoke cigarettes, travel around the world, write nasty e-mails, whine to Vernon Jordan, spread rumors, make illegal tapes and – ahem – get in good with the boss. They must be graduates of the Elizabeth Ray school of civil service.
Finally, there is the president, Bill Clinton, the commander-in-chief and perhaps the philanderer-in-chief. At this point, it looks like he may be guilty in everyone’s eyes but his own. I’ll say this for the man, he seems remarkably consistent. In the 60s he smoked pot, but he didn’t inhale, in the 90s he cheats on his wife, but there was no genital penetration. Bill Clinton: he parties like a lawyer – just this side of illegal, just this side of unfaithful, at least in his own mind.
So then, the question becomes, did he lie or ask anyone else to lie? Did Vernon Jordan? As in all these Washington scenarios, it doesn’t matter what the truth is, it doesn’t matter what you know, what matters is what you can prove in court. I’d guess Messrs. Jordan and Clinton are too shrewd and wily to be caught in anything that can be used against them in a court of law.
If Ken Starr can’t prove Bill Clinton is involved in an official lie, then Clinton will get off, if you’ll excuse the expression. The legal crux of this issue is about lying, not sex. If he remains unindicted, I’m sure the president will issue a statement asking us all to get back to “business as usual.” But think about this, if Clinton gets away with sex, but no lies, then we as a society will have held PeeWee Herman to a higher standard of moral conduct than the president of the United States.
If that is the case, what will we have lost? We will have continued to lose faith in our system of government. The number of active voters will drop again and democracy will continue to die from the bottom up. More and more of our fellow citizens will leave our ranks to become bitter and disillusioned. The next generation of Timothy McVeighs and Ted Kazcynskis may even now be slouching toward Washington.