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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- | |
| The world turned upside down: New York Times says "What if Ken Starr Was Right?" | |
| 2017-11-20 | |
But a moment of reassessment is a good time to reassess things for yourself, so I spent this week reading about the lost world of the 1990s. I skimmed the Starr Report. I leafed through books by George Stephanopoulos and Joe Klein and Michael Isikoff. I dug into Troopergate and Whitewater and other first-term scandals. I reacquainted myself with Gennifer Flowers and Webb Hubbell, James Riady and Marc Rich. After doing all this reading, I’m not sure my reasonable middle ground is actually reasonable. It may be that the conservatives of the 1990s were simply right about Clinton, that once he failed to resign he really deserved to be impeached. Wow. Read through the comments to see Times readers having an apoplectic fit at the idea that the Right might have ever been right. The sexual misconduct was the heart of things, but everything connected to Clinton’s priapism was bad: the use of the perks of office to procure women, willing and unwilling; the frequent use of that same power to buy silence and bully victims; and yes, the brazen public lies and perjury. I knew Starr was right all along. Something like Troopergate, for instance, in which Arkansas state troopers claimed to have served as Clinton’s panderers and been offered jobs to buy their silence, is often recalled as just a right-wing hit job. But if you read The Los Angeles Times’s reporting on the allegations (which included phone records confirming the troopers’ account of a mistress Clinton was seeing during his presidential transition) and Stephanopoulos’s portrayal of Clinton’s behavior in the White House when the story broke, the story seems like it was probably mostly true. I have less confidence about what was real in the miasma of Whitewater. But with Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky, we know what happened: A president being sued for sexual harassment tried to buy off a mistress-turned-potential-witness with White House favors, and then committed perjury serious enough to merit disbarment. Which also brought forward a compelling allegation from Juanita Broaddrick that the president had raped her. The longer I spent with these old stories, the more I came back to a question: If exploiting a willing intern is a serious enough abuse of power to warrant resignation, why is obstructing justice in a sexual harassment case not serious enough to warrant impeachment? Especially when the behavior is part of a longstanding pattern that also may extend to rape? Would any feminist today hesitate to take a similar opportunity to remove a predatory studio head or C.E.O.? There is a common liberal argument that our present polarization is the result of constant partisan escalations on the right ‐ the rise of Newt Gingrich, the steady Hannitization of right-wing media. Some of this is true. But returning to the impeachment imbroglio made me think that in that case the most important escalators were the Democrats. They had an opportunity, with Al Gore waiting in the wings, to show a predator the door and establish some moral common ground for a polarizing country. And what they did instead ‐ turning their party into an accessory to Clinton’s appetites, shamelessly abandoning feminist principle, smearing victims and blithely ignoring his most credible accuser, all because Republicans funded the investigations and they’re prudes and it’s all just Sexual McCarthyism ‐ feels in the cold clarity of hindsight like a great act of partisan deformation. | |
| Posted by:Herb McCoy7309 |
| #10 Why did the left wing press not do due diligence back then? The way I remember it a number of Dems sat out that year certain that Bush the Elder was going to win. By the time the economy started to stumble it was too late. Clinton (like Obama after him) ran as a test and somehow got traction. Then once the Dems actually won an election they thought they couldn't win they just rallied around their guy no matter what was said. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2017-11-20 22:50 |
| #9 After Perez cleared out a lot of Bernie and Pocahontas professional staff at the DNC, a lot of dems/progs saw the groundwork for yet another hildabeest run. This is about gutting that before it gets any kind of legs, and telegraphing its ok for the stories to come out. Watching Clinton Inc, circle the wagons and shriek with coded threats about their much-feared dirty stories library, many are just laying low. But there are far too many bodies for even the Queen of Darkness to silence, and I think the crumbling of the Foundation takes away the candy store to buy off those that really know the dirt. |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2017-11-20 20:16 |
| #8 Judge Moore has not been known for lying (or fooling around) despite what Gloria A. says. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2017-11-20 12:12 |
| #7 Clinton was not impeached for fooling around with Monica. He was impeached for perjury, among other charges. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2017-11-20 10:33 |
| #6 Why did the left wing press not do due diligence back then? They did. They just couldn't find anything on Bob Dole. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2017-11-20 10:18 |
| #5 Should have prefaced comment with a "Not a What if question." |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2017-11-20 09:58 |
| #4 "What if Ken Starr was right?" Why did the left wing press not do due diligence back then? Was the left wing agenda more important than anything else? I'm wondering what the upcoming mini-series, Waco is going to look like? Another snow job or factual. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2017-11-20 09:57 |
| #3 Times readers having an apoplectic fit Unless it results in mass Seppuku, I could care less. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-11-20 03:46 |
| #2 if Gore had become Pres in 98, W probably would not have been elected in 2000 then Obama might not have been elected in 2008 and ditto for trump in 2016 alt history |
| Posted by: lord garth 2017-11-20 00:46 |
| #1 Gee, it isn't even April. |
| Posted by: S. Those9453 2017-11-20 00:07 |