The Starr Chamber Report is one of the self-righteous, right-wing's most hypocritical and sanctimonious acts.
And one of its most foolish.
(Copyright © 1998 T Bruce Tober)
It's one of the self-righteous right wing's most hypocritical and sanctimonious acts.
And one of its most foolish.
More than four years and $40 million squandered and barely a word about the results of the investigations which Keyhole Ken Starr was hired to conduct. Instead we're given about 450 pages of a report into the side trip into the president's sex life, which
The Starr Chamber undertook on its own initiative.
Those were supposed to be investigations of:
the Whitewater land deal (on which the Clintons LOST money)
officials of the Resolution Trust Corporation (some of whom were already suing Keyhole Kenny's law firm at the time he was appointed as investigator)
illegal campaign contributions
the suicide of White House counsel Vince Foster
and other matters of governmental and constitutional import. Investigations of matters of governmental and constitutional import such as:
the firing of seven White House Travel Office employees
the alleged abuse of FBI background files
and whether the president, Hillary Rodham Clinton or White House aides have lied under oath.
Not that those could even legitimately be considered by any sane, rational, objective observer as "high crimes or misdemeanours", the only charges on which impeachment proceedings can be brought. But close enough.
It was the investigation of such allegations for which Ken Starr was provided the time, money and resources to conduct in August 1994, what has turned out to be, as many expected, his witch-hunt.
Just what were the framers and supporters of "family values", censorship, and other treasured fundamentalist religious and political "ideas" such as the "V-chip" and the "Communications [IN]Decency Act (aka The Exon Amendment)" able to produce with their $40 million in four years?
A novel-sized (450 pages) report, full of the most sexually titillating, salacious accounts of sex in the White House. A report which most of them and their intended audience won't even be able to download off the Internet.
Why? Because the tools so many of these fine, upstanding, family values lovers forced into being - the Net Nanny and Cyber Patrol type of content filters for Internet access will prevent them accessing it because of its heavy sexual content.
And we wondered why Ken Starr always had a smarmy smile on his face. Not any more. He was apparently getting his rocks off hearing and reading all this crap, which is no one's business other than that of the participants' and possibly their families'.
But that's not so unusual. Most religious and political fundamentalist (be they muslim, christian, jewish, democrat or republican) have a tendency towards repressed sexuality. Hence their love of censorship of things sexual for everyone but themselves (well, someone has to view the stuff to see if it should be censored). And judges, with their incredible powers, especially in the States, over life and death, appear to fall into a similar category, taking inordinate concern with every detail of every sexual activity involved in any given crime.
And we know what a good little preacher's boy he was. And even to this day, it is reported, he likes to read the bible and sing songs of praise as he jogs every morning. Such fundamentalism is fine in the world of religion, but it should be given wide berth when it comes to politics, especially in the USA where separation of church and state is allegedly a first principle.
I must admit, it comes as a very pleasant surprise that the majority of Americans have seen through this sham, and as have their European counterparts, continue overwhelmingly to support Clinton. And while I'm not and never have been a Clinton fan (never voted for him, nor would I), my disapproval of his is based on political and philosophical reasons.
I don't give a damn about his personal sex life, or any other part of his personal life. Nor should the self-righteous, holier-than-thou hypocrites among his political opponents both within and without his own party.
'Nuff said.
Well, not quite. Lee Hickling, former Washington correspondent for
the Gannett newsgroup, who used to cover Congress and occasionally the White
House, commented today, "Now that it's been established in court that a President has no
privacy and no privilege left, that even his lawyer and his Secret Service detachment can be compelled to testify
against him, future Presidents will be unable to trust any of their closest advisors, to have any real confidants,
ever again. What could the consequences of that be?"
Frightening, methinks.
One has to wonder what happened to the "good old days" when Democrat President Truman removed from Pentagon records, a letter from the Pentagon to Republican Gen Eisenhower? That letter refused to allow Ike to Divorce his wife, Mamie, in order to marry his British war-time paramour, Kay Sommersby.
Unfortunately, it would seem, those days are gone forever.