Kafka Goes to Alabama

I stay away from the political threads, but how anyone can defend the Starr investigation is mind-boggling.

 

If I were really an unkind fellow, I would have posted this link:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E4DF143EF931A25756C0A9609C8B63&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fR%2fRay%2c%20Robert%20W%2e

 

Thanks for not offering any kind of response.

If Ken Starr was just a guy doing a job, what was said job?

 

That is just about as ahistorical a reading of the 1990's as you're likely to see without mushrooms. That the IC law ended in a bipartisan fashion had more to do with how Starr ran his office than it did anything else. (In one of his rare principled public moments, Scalia pointed out that he'd been warning about the potential for abuse in that law for 20 years). And, again, I ask, do you seriously want to compare the level of cooperation of the Clinton Administration with the various people investigating what was a transparently fake scandal around the Whitewater property -- Don't even try. Fisk, Starr, Pillsbury Madison and Sutro all disagree with you, and even Ray has to resort to weasel words -- with an administration that simply refuses to honor congressional subpoenas?

 

I know people who were touched by the Whitewater "scandal" and they'd like to punch Ragu in the mouth. And be careful of Susan Mc ... she's likely to aim for your junk.
What an odd retelling of history. Kenneth Starr as the good cop. And this from one of the board's better posters, who is sinking to Yawn-like depths.
You must really hate Hillary.

 

I've offered you before and I'll offer again a copy of Gene Lyons's Fools for Scandal.
I'll even try to get you a signed copy.
Why you choose to willfully ignore what really happened with Whitewater is odd, but it fits with a certain view that an Arkansan hayseed couldn't have become president without being Nixon-like and that his wife, who came from better stock, must have surely been wallowing around the dirt with him.
Most of the time you're a good cat, but mention Hillary or Whitewater and it pushes a button.
But no worries from me, I'll go back to the dumb kids club, never mind that I have close relationships with some who were entangled in Whitewater and saw first-hand the abuses.
Anyone who tries to characterize Kenneth Star as the good guy in that mess, I just don't know.

 

OK, you're an idiot. I thought you were just some tiresome "they're all corrupt" hack who mistakes cynicism for wisdom and is content to let the country slide into the ditch on automatic pilot. I was wrong.
I don't say all the scandals are "fake." Certainly, the Lewinsky scandal wasn't fake. (None of the offenses rose to the level of being impeachable, IMHO, but that's a different argument.) But "Who killed Vince Foster?" -- which was investigated by three congressional committees and two special proseuctors -- was a fake. As far as crimes by the Clintons are concerned, the Whitewater scandal was a fake, as two special prosecutors and the Pillsbury Report concluded, and as Ken Starr's office itself argued in the federal trial of Jim McDougal, in which the OIC representative told the jury that the Clintons had been the victims of Crazee Jim's schemes, and not his co-conspirators. The Filegate was a fake, as was concluded by three special prosecutors, including Ray, who couldn't even find weasel words for that sack of air. TravelGate was a fake, as far as actual criminal actions by the Clintons, as was concluded by Ken Starr. I didn't make this stuff up. That's the historical record. If you want to hang your hat on "insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt" -- which, come to think of it, is the literal definition of legal innocence -- weaselness from a politically ambitious stalker-prosecutor, have at it. As I said earlier, Lawrence Walsh had most of the same complaints in re: Iran-Contra, but he at least brought indictments.
And more to the point, the Clintons and their people cooperated to the tune of a couple of million dollars worth of legal bills -- Ray argues that having a lawyer is proof of a coverup. Nice. -- and thousands of pages of documents. The Bush White House IGNORES CONGRESSIONAL SUBPOENAS ENTIRELY. There's a seriously compelling difference that pulling the word "partisan" out of your bag of magic beans doesn't elide from the record.

 

Moving back on topic, would anyone like to directly proclaim that Don Siegelman is not a crook? Because I sure could use a laugh this week.