Not to be a stickler for facts (oh, hell, who am I fooling?), but it wasn't the fact Clinton was having an affair while president that got him impeached. He was impeached because he lied under oath and obstructed justice. On a more personal level, he tried to use the power of the presidency to prevent a U.S. citizen from having her day in court.
I realize to the "it's just about sex" crowd that this will give them comfort and another clip for their "Republicans are hypocrites" file. But given that impeachment wasn't "about sex" but about lying--something you'd think Dems would be concerned about, given their delight in the Scooter Libby trial--the revelation about Gingrich doesn't do a thing to exonerate Clinton at all. It actually just makes me disgusted with both of them.
Captain Ed says Gingrich is airing the dirty laundry early in the hope that it will limit any damage to his political chances.
Gingrich, like Rudy Giuliani, has had two divorces and three marriages. John McCain has been divorced once. Only Mitt Romney, alone among GOP frontrunners, has remained married to the same woman. This contrasts sharply with the Democratic leaders in the 2008 race; neither Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, nor John Edwards have had a divorce.
It's an interesting dilemma. Everybody has known that the Clinton marriage was a sham forever, but it is a sham still in effect. And what's not to love about a trial lawyer who can buy you a house the size of Rhode Island?
Republicans need to spend more time recruiting family values people who haven't got as many divorces as Elizabeth Taylor. Unless, of course, they don't really care about such matters, which would make the Democratic noise machine correct,and who wants that?
I reluctantly supported the impeachment of President Clinton on the grounds that he had lied under oath.
ReplyDeleteThat said ... the questions he was being asked fundamentally shouldn't have been asked; I really don't *care* if he'd had sex with "that woman", and I don't think it's any of my, or the public's, business.
If the questions shouldn't have been asked, he should have settled quickly instead of dragging it out. Most people were convinced that he had probably made some sexual advance to Paula Jones (given his proclivities). I never bought her "outrage," but rather figured she was just getting her 15 minutes of fame. I didn't think it was appropriate for him to tell bald-faced lies, though.
ReplyDeleteI agree about the impeachment. I wasn't happy about the Sccoter Libby trial, but I still think if you lie under oath, you have to be punished. Otherwise, our legal system is just a sham.
You wrote that:
ReplyDeleteCaptain Ed says Gingrich is airing the dirty laundry early in the hope that it will limit any damage to his political chances.
Too late for that!
Mr Gingrich was a great political guerrilla fighter, one who led the Republicans to victory in 1994. But, like so many other guerrilla fighters, he proved far less adept at governance, and President Clinton beat him like a drum. He will never be President, nor will he ever get the Republican presidential nomination.
Trouble is that the question Mr Clinton was asked were specifically authorized by the Federal Rules of Evidence which he signed into effect himself in 1994! People being sued for sexual harassment could be asked about their sexual history according to those rules.
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