The focus of the attention...attention whose source was the Reps in question...was on the sexual scandal. I thought that was pretty evident, especially considering that at the time it was frustrating to me because ( and this was before it became evident that Clinton was using it to spin his way free of the real trouble) at the time I was concerned that the right thing would happen for the wrong reason...ie Clinton would be booted because he'd had an affair. For a while it appeared that way...and many, many Republicans were censuring him for being immoral, saying if his wife couldn't trust him, how could we, etc. The sexual scandal angle was very much at the forefront of the initial Republican thrust...Gary Hart II, if you will. No, sex is not an impeachable offense...nor was an offense which preculdes one running for office, but sexual scandal effectively destroyed hart's political career, among many, and it was quite apparent that many Republicans at the time felt that the sexual angle, and ( what they reasonably anticipated as certain) usually puritanical when it's other people's business US populace would be the actual fuel for bringing Clinton down, whatever the actual mechanics of the process would be, in this case perjury. Most Republicans I know acknowledge this was the case.
I don't want to get into another Clinton impeachment thread, but the GOP was saying Clinton committed perjury and that is a sufficient cause to remove him from office. I disagreed on the latter and the former was never proven conclusively, though I fully admit Clinton was walking a tightrope with his defense. What cinched it for me is that I really don't believe perjury was the reason he was being impeached... it was because Republicans hated him and wanted him out for political gain. Again, they couldn't be honest so they had to hide their true thoughts behind something that was more palatable to the country. I like the idea of national service for a number of reasons... it exposes all types of folks to all other types of folks, some good projects get done, ties individuals to the society, etc., but I wouldn't deny citizenship or voting rights to anyone...there would be too many issues that would divide folks... handicapped, immigrants, etc. Then again, I always favored Athens over Sparta and current voting rights over those initially in the Constitution. Depends on what the definition or "rare" is... and I think the numbers have gone down in recent years. I try to stay out of abortion threads and I don't want to start one here, but I prefer to err on the side of choice. I hit this in a recent thread on the topic, but briefly... I have no philosophical problem with the death penalty. I think some folks are so far gone and commit such heinous crimes that the death penalty is an appropriate response from society... but that decision must be absolutely fair and beyond reproach. The way it is implemented in this country is not consistent across racial, economic, societal, or even state lines and so, I can't support the practice. Agree. And I assume you draw the line at dope and do not include heroin, coke, etc. in which case I further agree.
Originally posted by MacBeth: The focus of the attention...attention whose source was the Reps in question...was on the sexual scandal. I thought that was pretty evident, especially considering that at the time it was frustrating to me because ( and this was before it became evident that Clinton was using it to spin his way free of the real trouble) at the time I was concerned that the right thing would happen for the wrong reason...ie Clinton would be booted because he'd had an affair. For a while it appeared that way...and many, many Republicans were censuring him for being immoral, saying if his wife couldn't trust him, how could we, etc. The sexual scandal angle was very much at the forefront of the initial Republican thrust...Gary Hart II, if you will. <b>He was criticized not censured. That was not legalistic; it was opinionizing. Clinton made the thrusts-- not the Republicans!</b> No, sex is not an impeachable offense...nor was an offense which preculdes one running for office, but sexual scandal effectively destroyed hart's political career, among many, and it was quite apparent that many Republicans at the time felt that the sexual angle, and ( what they reasonably anticipated as certain) usually puritanical when it's other people's business US populace would be the actual fuel for bringing Clinton down, whatever the actual mechanics of the process would be, in this case perjury. Most Republicans I know acknowledge this was the case. <b>Well, yeah, the impropriety of it all gave the process legs just as a distaste for greed would give a financial scandal legs. I do think the Republicans overbid their hand by overly-scrutinizing the behavior and brought a harsh focus upon themselves. Maybe they should have left more to the public's imagination and let the public's mind trash Clinton's honor rather than do it in broad daylight before the cameras and tape recorders. Call it arrogance, I suppose.</b>
Interestingly, I agree with all of the views MacBeth shared in this post, but I am classified as a conservative (which I would generally agree with, especially fiscally, which JAG did not address) and he is classified as a liberal. Crazy.
More on deceptive language... ______________ Masters of Deception By BOB HERBERT It was snowing and the temperature was headed toward single digits when I left the hotel on Park Avenue Wednesday night. A doorman flagged a cab and I climbed in. I'd just finished an interview with Al Gore and it was hard to shake the melancholy feeling that the man who should be president was spending a stormy night in Midtown Manhattan while the momentous world events he should be shaping were careering in all sorts of dangerous directions. The former vice president was in town to give a speech on the Bush administration's environmental policies, which he basically described as an exercise in wholesale environmental destruction. Instead of caving in to such special interests as the coal, oil and chemical industries (as the administration has done), Mr. Gore said that the U.S. should be leading the effort to rein in pollution and get control of the potentially devastating problem of global warming. During the interview, he spoke passionately about the environment and opened his laptop computer to give what amounted to a spontaneous seminar on global warming. He noted that most of the glaciers in the world are melting at an alarming rate and added wryly, "Glaciers don't give a damn about politics. They just reflect reality." The environmental speech, which he delivered at the Beacon Theater on the Upper West Side yesterday afternoon, is the latest in a series of formal critiques of the administration that Mr. Gore has delivered in recent months. Previous subjects have been national security, economic policy and civil liberties. The theater, including the balcony, was packed. People had waited in a long line in the cold and snow to pass through metal detectors and be allowed in. The crowd, enthusiastic from the very beginning, included families with small children, elderly men and women and students. When Mr. Gore strode onto the stage he was greeted with a long standing ovation. At one point, he told his audience: "In preparing this series of speeches, I have noticed a troubling pattern that characterizes the Bush-Cheney administration's approach to almost all issues. In almost every policy area, the administration's consistent goal has been to eliminate any constraints on their exercise of raw power, whether by law, regulation, alliance or treaty. And in the process, they have in each case caused America to be seen by the other nations of the world as showing disdain for the international community." Amid cheers, he made it clear that the broad interests of the American public are consistently betrayed by the policies and practices of President Bush and his administration. "They devise their policies with as much secrecy as possible," he said, "and in close cooperation with the most powerful special interests that have a monetary stake in what happens. In each case, the public interest is not only ignored, but actively undermined. In each case, they devote considerable attention to a clever strategy of deception that appears designed to prevent the American people from discerning what it is they are actually doing. "Indeed, they often use Orwellian language to disguise their true purposes. For example, a policy that opens national forests to destructive logging of old-growth trees is labeled Healthy Forest Initiative. A policy that vastly increases the amount of pollution that can be dumped into the air is called the Clear Skies Initiative." Our history has shown that we can and should be better than this. Mr. Gore leaned forward during Wednesday night's interview and ticked off some of the nation's greatest successes — the simultaneous victories in Europe and the Pacific during World War II, the Marshall Plan, the eradication of polio, the civil rights movement, the space program and the victory over Communism in the cold war. There is no reason to expect less, he said, as the country faces its biggest challenges today. The fates dealt Mr. Gore and the United States a weird hand in 2000. He got the most votes but the other guy became president. And the country, its Treasury looted and its most pressing needs deliberately ignored, has been rolling backward ever since. "This is insanity," said Mr. Gore, referring to the administration's handling of the environment. But his speech made it clear that he could just as easily have applied that sentiment to the full range of Bush-Cheney policies. History will not be kind to the chicanery that passes for governing in the Bush II administration.
