I agree the whole Nixon thing was overblown. How many politicians today don't play dirty politics? At least Nixon didn't try to fatten his own wallet or that of big corporation. Corruption (by government official) is the worse offense. I don't see anything serious with Clinton getting a BJ from a willing intern. He needed to release some steam, and probably Hillary couldn't satisfy him. Big deal.
I didn't really have a problem with the Clinton BJ, either. I had a huge problem with him coming out with a special press conference where he did nothing but lie about what happened. That was reprehensible. If he'd just let the thing die, and said it was too silly to even discuss something like that, I wouldn't have had a problem with it at all.
If everyone in America including gov't resigned because of infidelity, half of this country would be out of work.
What? There was no oral sex from teenage girls before Bill Clinton? You do know that abortions and teen pregnancy were less under Clinton than they are now, right? If is is because of Clinton that teenage girls have oral sex is it because of Newt that the divorce rate and cheating on spouses is so prevelant?
Did you go to an All Boys high school or something? Or were you just a flat-out geek in high school? I graduated high school in 1979, and lots of us were getting head in high school back then, and even in junior high school. People who say that there is more oral sex going on in high school today because of Bill Clinton need to take a reality pill. It was going on before Clinton, during Clinton, and it will go on after Clinton. It's the nature of being a high schooler and having your crotch on fire.
I don't think it is due to Clinton, personally, but oral sex has gone up by leaps and bounds since I was in high school. These days, it's considered a natural phase of making out. It sure wasn't for me! (at least not until college)
Boy, you went to Bellaire at the wrong time!!!!! I guess in the late 70s we were still hungover from the Free Love 60s
how has this negatively affected america? are you saying before clinton oral sex was a taboo like cannibalism? you know clinton and monica are not relatives right?
Let's not bring in the great Richard Milhous Nixon into this. Let's honor the deceased who just happens to be one of the greatest Presidents of the 20th Century.
Another major Republican leader finds himself in hot water and the Repubs instantly bring up Clinton. Let's stick to events that have happened in this century -in other words- Repubs deflecting to Clinton is about as effective as Dems deflecting to Nixon.
Raising Our Game By Ed Kilgore Yes, we Democrats will have some fun with Tom DeLay's unhappy "accountability moment" today, if only because of his insufferable self-righteousness, and the rich irony of his angry denunciations of prosecutorial powers, given his central role in the effort to remove Bill Clinton from office based on the dubious findings of a prosecutor far more powerful than Ronnie Earle. And yes, it's important to note the agony of House Republicans in figuring out how to formally replace the guy who has actually been running the House since Newt Gingrich left town. But Democrats need to raise their game, raise the stakes, and raise the broader issues involved in the DeLay saga, right now. I'm sure others are raising similar points elsewhere, but I do want to quote the DLC's statement on the subject today: "Tempting as it is to dwell on the possibility that this self-appointed moral arbiter of the nation could soon be strolling the halls not of Congress but of a Texas correctional facility, we urge Democrats to keep focused on a much bigger issue: the systemic pattern of corruption, cronyism, influence-peddling, and partisan intimidation in Washington. "DeLay is clearly a major ink-spot in that pattern; even if he evades imprisonment on the Texas charges, let's remember that the object of the fundraising effort in question was The Hammer's obsessive campaign to launch a re-redistricting of U.S. House seats to buttress his power in the Capitol. And that broader determination to ruthlessly hold and use power by the GOP is what has given us a vast array of ethical lapses and bad policies, from Jack Abramoff's enormous roulette wheel of shakedowns and wirepullings, to a long series of fiscally ruinous special-interest raids on the U.S. Treasury, and even down to the staffing of FEMA with Republican campaign operatives." It's time for Democrats to connect the dots, and launch an intense, sustained, united reform message and agenda for the country. DeLay doesn't really matter. What really matters is the system which he has served, and what it has done and is doing to our country. http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/28/171344/300
As a moderate Republican, I can't stand DeLay. He is an embarrassment, a cancer on the body politic. Only he would kill federal rail money in a naked power play for his toll road cronies. I wonder if the party will nominate a decent man after they lose this one, or if they will push another nut-job ideologue. Gordon Quan looks pretty good right now. If smarter Dems can ever give up on egregious labor demands, trial lawyer libility sprees, race baiting and class warfare, it's goodbye Republican nut-jobs. I do really hate holding my nose to vote my pocketbook.
"I take very seriously the prohibition against corporate and labor union money polluting the electoral process. It is a hallowed inheritance from our Texas forbearers and is central to the protection of democracy." -- Ronnie Earle _________ The Texas DA pitted against the power of Tom DeLay Justice of the Peace Guy Herman was sitting in his office one day when a prosecutor walked in to file charges for improper campaign-finance reporting. Against himself. The man was Ronnie Earle, the Travis County district attorney, bringing a self-incriminating complaint for tardy reporting in 1981 and 1982. "He had missed the deadline by a day," says Mr. Herman, now a Travis County probate judge. "He could have filed that report late and nobody would have paid any attention. But instead he came in and said, 'I violated the law and should be fined.' So I fined him." $212 to be exact. Herman says it offered his first glimpse into how seriously Mr. Earle takes the integrity of the political system. It would not be his last. ... Indeed, to those who know him, Earle has always exhibited a strong moral streak - from his formative years growing up in a small town outside Fort Worth, to his time on the Austin night court, to his political service in the state legislature. But they contend his morality is tempered by his compassion. "Ronnie is very principled and will do the right thing even if it isn't the smartest political thing to do," says Ellen Halbert, a victim's rights advocate who first met Earle when he was prosecuting the man who raped, beat, and stabbed her in 1986. "But he is also very sensitive. He can get emotional about a sunrise or a sunset - and I have seen him do that." Earle was born and raised on a cattle ranch in Birdville, Texas, where pronouncing all the town's consonants got you beaten up. He was an Eagle Scout, earned money life-guarding, played football, and was president of the student council. "Ronnie is the beneficiary of a well-grounded childhood in small-town Texas, and he came up in a more innocent time, both culturally and politically," says Ken Oden, a former Travis County Attorney now in private practice. "And I think his early years have made him a better prosecutor." ... Indeed, many describe Earle as a populist. "He really believes that the people govern," says David Anderson, a UT law professor and longtime acquaintance. "He's suspicious of corporate power in all its forms. I don't think he's irrational about it, but ... he's vigilant and zealous about maintaining the individual's power in the political system." CSM -- full article
You're kidding, right?? "Decades after Richard Nixon resigned the office of the president, Watergate remains one of the top presidential scandals of modern time. Early in the morning on June 17, 1972, police discovered five intruders inside the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. The burglars were there, it turned out, to adjust bugging equipment they had installed during a May break-in and to photograph the Democrats' documents." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/front.htm So, in other words, Nixon tried to fix the election for President. Just "dirty politics??" I think not. Unbelievable... doesn't anyone study history any longer? It's been a toss up for me. Which is worse? Trying to fix the election for President, or starting a war based on lies and fabrications perpetuated on the United States and the world. Get a grip, people. What DeLay did was terrible. He tried, and succeeded, in fixing the elections for Congress for the state of Texas. It is a felony, and he should go to jail for a long time, but it doesn't begin to compare, in my opinion, with what Nixon did, or what Bush did and is continuing to do. Keep D&D Civil!!
BIG surprise! The guy is a crook and has been for years, heck, even Bill O'Reilly picked up on it FOUR YEARS AGO (in an April 9 2001 show to be exact). That's American politics today: lots of money involved and lots of corruption stemming from special-interest money.
