Newt Gets Pardoned By James Dobson: Hallelujah!

A pursuit the presiding judge in the Jones case eventually threw out as not being material to the case the Jones Team was trying to prove.

He denied having sexual relations with Lewinsky, not sex, and neither the Jones team nor Starr defined sexual relations in a way that would nail him down in an outright lie. Now, I would define a BJ as sex and I wouldn't restrict the definition of sexual relations to just intercourse, but I'm neither as smart as Clinton nor as prudish as Starr.

The much more problematic one from Clinton's perspective was his answer to "Were you ever alone with Lewinsky?"

At any rate, it was huge shame all around, but when you compare what Clinton did and what Starr and the Congressional Repubs did while looking through the lens of national interest, the behavior of the latter two was significantly more egregious.

 

Well this was a blast from the past!

Remember that Clinton wasn't removed from office. His impeachment was more symbolic than anything else. As it should be.

Nobody tricked him, or forced him to lie under oath. That was his decision. And as pres...and a lawyer...he should know better. Doesn't matter what the lie was about. Or whether the quesitions were relivant. Or should have been asked. Not one bit. He doesn't get discretion in choosing what the oath applies to. Simply cannot give him a pass on this. There is no wiggle room here.

So he lied under oath, and paid the consequences. An impeachment, but not removal from office. Seems fair. Move on. Had the lies been of more significance, perhaps the consequences would have been more severe. But they weren't. So that was the end of it.

Doesn't make him a terrible president. Certainly not the worst. And clearly not the worst in the last 10 years. In no way does it exhonerate the tactics of Starr or anyone else. I think if he had been eligible to run again he would have won handidly.

And his infidelity was in the open before he got elected. Remeber Jennifer Flowers? NOBODY CARED! Until he lied.

I really don't understand why he had to anwer the questions in the first place. I would have thought his lawyers could 'plead the fifth' or somehow otherwise dance around them. But once he answered....under oath...he was obliged not to lie. That's the system. Thems the rules. It's not a speeding ticket. It's not a gentlemans fib. It's not a technicality. He lied under oath. Doesn't matter if George has done worse.

And lets not set the integrety bar at W's level. Not many can limbo that low.

We're partying like it's 1999.

On Newt....dear lord spare us! Newt or Jeb. It would serve our Rudy bashers right if they somehow got stuck with one of those two. Like a twisted groundhog day movie. Every 4 years you wake up to go through the same old crap again...

 

I agree with Bnb but would say censure was a more likely penalty. Clinton perjured himself though and he should've been held to account through censure and a legal case after he left office. Impeachment is more of a political exercise and it was clear the country wasn't behind it.

That said though I still wouldn't excuse his perjury even if it wasn't dealing with something as severe as Libby.

 

I was never a Clinton fan and I never voted for him. (Given the last six years, I've become a huge fan by comparison but that's irrelevant.)

I strongly believe he was entrapped through very shady methods by a politically driven prosecutor, and of course I have a problem with that.

Once he was set up though, he did lie under oath. And I have a huge problem with that as well. I don't care what party he's with -- however it happens, if someone gets a president to lie under oath, I believe impeachment is a proper remedy.

So I really didn't have too much of a problem with the impeachment, though I did have problems with how we got there. But I had an enormous problem with the language, innuendo and political spin that surrounded it.

There is a reason the public focuses on the blowjob and not on the perjury. It is because the family values party made damn sure everybody remembered that the Democratic president had kinky sex in the Oval Office and did virtually nothing to push the perjury angle. Hence, the hypocrisy.

IIRC, at least two House speakers resigned specifically because they were about to be busted on that exact hypocrisy. Gingrich and Livingston, if I remember it right.

But my main beef is this:

While I agree there is bad behavior (legal and illegal) in both parties, comparing the morals of our elected R's and D's is NOT a zero sum game.

There is only one party in Washington that has spent decades willfully courting the "moral majority" with their "family values" campaigns and smearing the other side for loose morals. And when members of that party get busted for behavior that they have campaigned against, they deserve to be called out on it. Bill Clinton has and has had many bad qualities, including philandering and dishonesty, but he has never staked his political fortune on being the candidate of the moral majority. Gingrich has and continues to. That's lousy.

 

i'm sure your mother is a wonderful woman.

but lying about sexual relations with underlings when you're being sued by one for sexual harassment is not kosher. i'm sorry, but you'll never be able to convince me that's ok.

 

Couple of half-serious, half-loaded questions:

Had anyone asked Newt about his infidelity before Dobson? Did he repeatedly and forcefully deny it, or allow others (like his wife and/or senior aides or colleagues) publicly deny it for him?

Politically speaking, it's probably worth noting that Bob Livingston, Bob Barr and Henry Hyde were all (rightly) exposed pre-impeachment, but it still went off without a hitch (assuming that most ppl figured Clinton wouldn't actually be removed from office).

 

Cant wait to hear the Hannity spin on his Presidential Frontrunner...LOL.


Where are the usual Chickenhawk suspects in this thread?

 

I didn't say it was OK. I said Clinton was set up, and he was. My mother thought it was the honorable thing for him to do, but she comes from a different era, one that in many ways was superior to our own, in my opinion. I didn't say I agreed with her, but that I liked her opinion regarding his actions. It's the sort of reply you simply don't see any more, that concept of honor being foreign today, and sexist, from where I sit.

She is a wonderful woman, though. In her mid-'80's, and does aerobics 3 times a week, does the crossword puzzle in the Chronicle every day to keep her mind sharp, is the president of her sunday school class at her Methodist church, and loves to go shopping. My children are crazy about her. Needless to say, I'm one lucky son.



D&D. Reruns can be a Hoot.

 

Deck...how is one 'set up' for perjury??? Are you suggesting he didn't know he was fibbing under oath or that he had no choice? Billy's a smart boy. The whole investigation may have been a waste of time and resources and/or a complete snowjob...but Billy's lies were his own. And he knew it at the time.

Don't know why it's so hard to admit he screwed up here.

 

Oh, he made a series of mistakes, due to his inability to keep his pants zipped, and compounded it after, but he really was set up. Read rimrocker's post earlier in this thread for a good explanation. There was a conspiracy, in my opinion, to nail Clinton somehow, for something, and he fell right into it. A grievous error, for sure, but his private errors in judgement should have remained private, and between Clinton and his wife.



D&D. Reruns.

 

I don't think the overarching concept of honor is sexist, but anachronistically framed in gender-specific roles. Not using handicap stalls in a crowded restroom, giving panhandlers change, not telling racial jokes in front of minorities, or not referring to adult women as "girls" all seem like the modern equivalents of small-scale, day-to-day, honorable behavior. The older stuff seems more like what would be defined today as chivalry.

 

Good reply. I agree.



D&D. Here We Are.

 

that's awesome. sounds like a great woman!

having said that...i don't think there's anything honorable about lying about sex when it's in the context of a sexual harassment suit. sorry. the "honor" of the other underlings you've sexed up isn't nearly as big a concern as the truth in a suit where one has been sexually harassed.

if we were talking about it in some other context, i could understand this response to it. i could understand the need to be quiet about it so as not to cause embarassment for someone. but not within the context of a suit where you've been charged with sexual harassment.

i have a hard time believing that chivalry or respect, and not covering his own ass, was his motive.

it's not a "private error" when you find yourself being sued for sexual harassment. when someone asks about other employees you've banged, you can't say..."well, i don't wish to talk about that because i want to protect their honor." that's called obstruction of justice.

no offense...but i get the sense this is all political. that if this were a Republican it would be just another Republican liar. i lost respect for both political parties during this episode, big time.

 

I'm having a tough time accepting the chivalry and respect angle too. Especially when he went on national tv and refered to her as "that woman."

That said...I still think he was a good president. But it doesn't mean I have to accept everything he did.

 

Max:

I basically agree with you about the perjury and the impeachment.

But getting back to the basic topic:

With regard to what would otherwise rightly be characterized as private behavior, can you acknowledge a difference between a party that courts the "moral majority" by campaigning on "family values" and a party that doesn't?

 

absolutely.

but i don't think "not cheating on your wife with a White House intern" and "not lying under oath in a sexual harassment suit" are viewed exclusively as negatives by those who champion "family values." at least i hope not.

 

Hypocrisy is far greater sin than those..

 

Good to hear.

Sorry, but I just get really sick of hearing how they're all corrupt bums so it doesn't matter what one guy did as someone from the opposing party did the same.

Clinton is patently dishonest. That is the main reason I never supported him. And however it came down, he deserved what he got.

But do you (or anyone) think James Dobson or his many followers hated him for lying under oath? This was, for these guys, about sexual morality -- not lying and not breaking the law. ("Restoring honor and dignity to the White House" wasn't about perjury and everybody knows it.) And bam, there he goes forgiving Gingrich for cheating (not to mention his various divorces or the fact that he had one of his wives sign divorce papers while she was on her deathbed with cancer).

I don't hate anything worse than a hypocrite and, owing to that, there are sins and crimes that are worse for members of one party than another.

If an anti-gay activist has gay sex outside of his marriage it is worse than if a pro-gay one does. If a pro-environment Dem engages in wasteful actions, that's worse than if a pro-business (at the expense of the environment) Republican does. And if a friend to the religious right R cheats on his wife, it's worse than if a D that opposes bringing sexual morals into politics does.

The thing is, this is how these guys win campaigns. Many of them stake virtually their entire case on moral superiority. And then they break their own rules. Clinton was a liar and a criminal, but he wasn't a hypocrite. Newt is a huge hypocrite. Dobson is too.

 

what's ironic about my posts in this thread is that i like clinton a lot more than i like dobson or newt.

i'm not sure i agree with you on the point about, "is it worse for this guy to do it than for that guy." in fact, i'm pretty sure i disagree with you. ask the D's wife if it helps their marriage anymore because she doesn't view him as hypocritical. and if a D or R screws the environment, the environment is still screwed. i'm not sure it matters.

honestly, i think we're all hypocrites in some form or fashion. i certainly am. i think we all recall very well the good things about ourselves while easily forgetting the selfish parts.

 

I like Clinton better than those guys too.

I couldn't disagree with you more on the rest of it. Yes, the environment or the marriage would feel the same negative effect, but when we talk about politicians we are also talking about the public trust. And I consider a sin committed by someone who makes a living condemning that very sin far worse than a sin committed by one who doesn't. I'd be surprised if there weren't something about that in the Bible as well.