Sunday Discussion Group

The biggest but least publicized scandal was the SCOTUS decision that the Paula Jones lawsuit could proceed while Clinton was still in office. NEVER in the history of the democracy had a sitting president been forced to defend himself in a civil lawsuti regarding a subject matter that arose prior to and had nothing to do with his Presidency. The traditional reason was that all claims against a sitting President were “tolled,” and the plaintiff’s rights were thereby protected. A similar ban prevents active-duty military from being sued, under the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act.

The SCOTUS rationale was that “it would not disturb or interrupt his duties as President.” We all know that was load of crap. And then, simply because it had the power to do so, the Rethugs were able to impeach him using a legal standard of “high crime or midemeanor” that was absurd in the extreme. The same goes for the media, and Richard Mellon Scaife, and Kenneth Starr. There was an active vendetta against Clinton, where every precedent was violated because it was convenient and because those that had the power (actual, implied, governmental, legal, political, and media) chose to use it for their own petty reasons. No one with the power to stop the nonsense — including what lead directly to the creation of terrorist ability to harm America and the country’s distraction by Monica insanity — refused to elevate the country’s needs and the preservation of the separation of powers to instead engage in petty “gotcha” politics.

The real “scandal” is not what Clinton did. Rather, it is what the powerful did for personal gain to detriment of our national security and best interests.

P.S. No, I am not a Clinton apologist; he had a moral failure (in the eyes of some people, at least) by getting a blowjob. But he did not lie in the deposition when he said “I never had sexual relations” with Monica, at least within the meaning of the judge-approved definition of the “sexual relations” term. In that definition, “oral sex” was NOT to be considered as “sexual relations” — and there is no evidence whatsoever that there had been penile-vaginal intercourse, which is the only sexual act that WAS considered to be “sexual relations” for purposes of the deposition. It is a legal principal that by defining a term to include only certain things, everything else not included is deemed to be excluded. Call it parsing of words, but damn it that is exactly what the law is about, and to think otherwise — as did the powers that be, governmental and pundits — is to be intentionally naive an/or cravenly opportunistic.

ALL of the nightmare of Monicagate, and the absurd consequences including the World Trade Center attacks, would have been avoided if the Supreme Court would have followed the precedent of all of forerunners and told Paula she had to wait until Clinton was out of office. I submit their egregious violation of precedent and activist stance would be exceeded in wrongheadedness only by their intervention in and decision made in Bush v Gore. Scandals indeed.

I’m not just saying this because of the news of this week, but Watergate remains the one scandal that literally brought down a president. For that reason alone, it’s the #1 for the books.

Iraq is the biggest scandal in American history hands down and that will become more and more apparent as the years roll by while we deal with the damage to our reputation and power in the world community.

Smiley said Bush’s scandals aren’t scandals because they didn’t spark “widespread public outrage.” I disagree. They are scandals, they’re just underappreciated scandals! It’s the crime that makes something scandalous, not the reaction.

Imagine if there was a Democratic Congress against Bush’s White House, holding hearings about Valerie Plame, Abu Ghraib, non-existent WMD, Pundit Payola, Niger Forgeries and Halliburton’s No-Bid Bonanza. Impeachment wouldn’t be tin-foil hat territory.

Gary — I was going by the dictionary definition of scandal, which does specify the reaction (public outrage leading to disgrace or censure). So, what is a scandal? If the American people don’t care that the Bush administration lied about WMD and the justification for the war in Iraq and there’s no consequence (political or otherwise) for that lie, is it still a scandal or merely (!) a crime against the constitution?

George, smiley,
There are a number of definitions in Merriam-Webster Online. You’re both covered. The one I had in mind for my post is

3a: a circumstance or action that offends propriety or established moral conceptions or disgraces those associated with it.

Today’s so-called journalists should be ashamed of themselves.

How about the House Bank scandal in 1992? Here’s something I’d forgotten about it: “With the public outcry hardly abating, fifty-three representatives tendered their resignations by May 4 of that same year.”

53! I suspect that the residue from this led to the Republican takeover of the House in 1994, as well.

I have to agree with The Carpetbagger. Iran/Contra was a case of the executive wadding up the constitution and using it as toilet paper. By comparison, Watergate was a mismanaged kool-aid stand.

Then there’s Whitewater. Monica-gate was a right wing contrivance, with every scrap of manufactured outraged dutifully reported, around the clock, by obedient media poodles.

Iraq is much like Vietnam since a threat did not truly exist. However, the public merely regards Vietnam as poor judment, not a scandal. Iraq will be remembered in that same light.

Bush may not been involved in any scandals, since nobody is treating his corruption as scandalous, but I’d be curious to see a comparison between the corruption of Grant’s administration and the current one. Harding? Whose administration was/is the most corrupt?

Point well taken. However, I did say political scandal, not crimes against humanity.

And POLITICS wasn’t involved in slavery? From the formation of the Constitution to Bloody Kansas to the Civil War, Reconstruction and the Civil Rights movement? Our original sin IS our original scandal.

Thanks Ed.

What we’re involved in now should be the biggest scandal of all time – Iran Contra, S&L, JFK, Bay of Pigs, Watergate, etc., are all just a small part of the bigger picture. Bush Sr said in March (the 8th actually) of this year that if the public knew what they were doing they’d have them tarred, feather and dragging in the streets and that’s an understatement. Did you know that Bush Sr and Nixon were both in Dallas the day of JFK’s assassination but seem to be the only two people on earth who can’t recall where they were. Puh-leeze!!!! The whole thing was carried out by their henchmen (Hunt and Sturgis) as a retalliation for the Bay of Pigs by the corporations who were fed up with paying fair wages to the Cubans and the government which was embarrassed that Castro wouldn’t play nice. The blank parts of the Nixon tapes are about this whole thing and the breakin to the Watergate hotel wasn’t about the election but about getting their hands back on evidence about the White House’s involvement in all of this. For those less interested in this it will be easy to brush it off as conspiracy theory because that’s what they want us to do but as Noam Chomsky, MIT professor and current leading intellectual in the world, says, using this label is only an easy way to move the spotlight from the truth and slow down the analysis of the facts.