Why Bill Clinton Must Remain Under a Microscope

Tuesday, February 20, 2001

By JULIA MALONE

WASHINGTON--For more than eight years, the news media, with a few notable exceptions, failed to expose the full, breath-taking scope of the Clinton dishonesty.

Now that Bill Clinton has left office, however clumsily, his defenders are telling his critics to leave the guy alone. He’s gone. Get over it, they say. Even President Bush speaks of moving on.

The trouble is, that would just be putting icing on a burnt cake.

Unless we face up to the errors, we’ll never really move beyond the Clinton era.

Fortunately, Mr. Clinton’s opposite-editorial in The New York Times last Sunday is a great assist in this endeavor. Stripped of the trappings of office and with only a few diehards to defend him, he is revealing the underlying deception and the routine pandering to wealthy donors that characterized his presidency.

His justification of pardoning billionaire fugitive Marc Rich, laid out in his thrice-corrected New York Times column, has familiar patterns: It omits inconvenient facts and offers numbered arguments that appear to be based on substance until you take a hard look at them.

Here are just a few of the most obvious contradictions in his excuse-laden op-ed article: The basic reason for granting a pardon, he says, is “the desire to restore full citizenship rights” to people who have served their time and want to vote again. Bu that doesn’t have a thing to do with Rich. What the column never mentions is that Marc Rich wasn’t interested in regaining the vote or any other right of citizenship. He renounced his U.S. citizenship, as well as the obligation to pay U.S. taxes, when he refused to face the 50 federal charges against him.

As to the crimes for which Rich and his business partner, Pincus Green, were pardoned, Clinton speaks of various charges "arising out of their oil business." He fails to mention that they were charged with illegally trading with Iran while that country was holding Americans hostage.

Acknowledging the Rich/Green pardons to be "unusual," Clinton says he granted them anyway based on "legal" reasons. Yet he kept the decision far away from the normal legal channels of the Justice Department and ignored legal advice inside the White House. He cites foreign policy reasons, such as support Rich had from Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel (although how hard Barak pushed is now a subject of debate in the news media). Exactly what this would do for world peace is anyone’s guess. As several commentators have pointed out, it seems odd that Clinton did not consult with any of his foreign policy advisors on the matter. Next, he uses the "they made me do it" excuse, which for the first time reached beyond Jack Quinn, lawyer for Rich and former Clinton White House counsel. Clinton says he also was acting on the strength of arguments from three Republican lawyers, Leonard Garment of Nixon White House fame, William Bradford Reynolds of the Reagan Justice Department and Lewis Libby, now chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Each has publicly said he never had a connection with the pardon attempt. Clinton loyalist Joe Lockhart led the hasty retreat by admitting that the three should not have been wrapped into the Clinton column.

For all the uproar it caused, Clinton maintains that the Rich pardon was in "the best interest of justice."

Not a single prominent Democratic officeholder is jumping on this band wagon.

Now that the Clinton White House "spinners" are no longer around to work their spell, the public can see what was really behind the curtain in the Land of Oz. Here in plain sight are the thought processes; here is the broken moral compass that led the nation for two presidential terms.

The "spin" for the Rich pardon is that Clinton granted it "on the merits," without regard for the some $1.5 million that Rich’s ex-wife Denise poured into Democratic coffers and the Clinton library.

Doubters might consider Clinton’s more spontaneous remarks in an earlier telephone call to his most ardent media fan, Geraldo Rivera. There is "not a single, solitary shred of evidence" that the pardon was granted for donations, Clinton said.

So, he did not get cash for pardoning that man, Marc Rich? Kind of has a ring to it, doesn’t it?

But somehow, it’s difficult to imagine that a Marc who was not rich would have been accorded so much presidential mercy. It’s time to move on...to the reexamination of the real Clinton legacy.

(The writer is a Washington correspondent for Cox Newspapers.)

© 2001 Capitol Hill Blue

http://chblue.com/Article.asp?ID=1268

-- Chicken Little (cluck@cluck.com), February 20, 2001

Answers

Just a question, but doesn't putting anything under a microscope make it look completely out of proportion to normal reality?

I mean, I've seen electron microscope photos of dust mites that make them look like scary, dangerous beasts, when in reality they are far tinier than fleas and totally unnoticable to the naked eye. In fact, using a microscope distorts our view as much as it enhances it.

-- Miserable SOB (misery@misery.com), February 20, 2001.

"It’s time to move on...to the reexamination of the real Clinton legacy."

He doesn't have a "legacy" to stand on. He and his wife are nothing more than white trailer trash who have leeched off the American people long enough. The hole keeps getting deeper, and I soon he will be buried with all the seed that he sowed.

-- ready to puke (readytopuke@barf.gon), February 20, 2001.

What masochistic behaviour, probably better to move on...

-- Will (righthere@home.now), February 20, 2001.

MSOB --

let's use a little poetic license, shall we?

Point of the matter is not to let the MSOB get away with how he and his B have abused our nation and its highest office over these past 8 years.

Let's stay "on subject", shall we?

Common sense dictates.

-- Chicken Little (cluck@cluck.com), February 20, 2001.

This is all part of the shifty slimy Dumbya's strategy of deception. Keep all the media focused on Clinton, keep all the Democrats on the defensive, so they won't even have time to put our President-Reject under the same microscope. Then of course he says "leave him alone" to make it even more convincing, while his hypocritical goons keep poking and prodding around in everything Clinton does.

-- Dumbya (very@sleazy.character), February 20, 2001.

Dumbya --

James Carville himself couldn't have voiced it better; except you forgot to stutter 3 or 4 times.

-- Chicken Little (cluck@cluck.com), February 20, 2001.

CL,

you forgot to stutter ...

Don't forget the spitting.

The spitting was the best part. :)

-- Stephen M. Poole (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), February 20, 2001.

Why Bill Clinton Must Remain Under a Microscope

So no one notices what Junior and Company are doing.

-- soooooooo easy........ (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), February 20, 2001.

‘Dumbya’……

Clinton could never have polluted the White House for 8 years without a legion of moronic zombies supporting him. In reading your posts it becomes painfully obvious that a few are still ‘under the spell’.

Pat, how far out of town do you and the Doc have to travel to find them ‘good’ cactus plants?

-- Barry (bchbear863@cs.com), February 20, 2001.

Why Bill Clinton Must Remain Under a Microscope

Oooh ooooh I know I know. Because he's such a popular guy; well liked by sooo many Americans. We can't get enough of him. The media love this guy and they'll print anything about him (good or bad) to sell copy.

Personally I wish he'd just go away but I know that won't happen. He loves the lime light all too well.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), February 20, 2001.

Clinton could never have polluted the White House for 8 years without a legion of moronic zombies supporting him.

So then you consider the American electorate a "legion of moronic zombies". Aren't these the same "moronic zombies" who also put W in office?

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), February 20, 2001.

Problem on this webboard is you have intelligent people attempting to "chat and debate" moronic zoombies. I leave it the awake to tell the difference.

-- (doc_paulie@hotmail.com), February 20, 2001.

add "to" to the above and chew on this zombies.

is it "Small business creates the jobs in America"

or is it "Giving the wealthy the bulk of our proposed tax-cut will stimulate jobs"

Is SprinklerHead that mesmerizing to you zombies you cannot see the obvious contradiction?

And if ya think the dis-connect ends with the above you ought be sitting in some of our seats. To have Decker(Jose)then post(from work) the logic crap from Sowell as some kind of proof, backing up the stupidity, is just too much, hillarious.

-- (doc_paulie@hotmail.com), February 20, 2001.

"...it's difficult to imagine that a Marc who was not rich would have been accorded so much presidential mercy."

If Julia had just stuck to this point, she might have had a case to make. As it is, what she wrote is the journalistic equivalent of a dog pile. She relies heavilly on innuendo and sarcasm and can't be troubled to produce facts.

Here in a nutshell is why the Rich pardon stinks: Rich could afford to hire the best lawyers and experts to make his case as strong as it could possibly be. This is what wealth and privilege buys you. It always has.

But even with all his high-priced help, Rich wasn't satisfied with his odds. If he took his case to court he would be in some slight danger of the decision going against him. So Rich took his case to Clinton instead and said, in effect, "you be my judge." From Rich's point of view this was a sweet deal, because he had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I believe Clinton when he said there was no quid pro quo. All this innuendo about a bribe is so much vapor. This wasn't a matter of bribery, but of raw, naked wealthy privilege.

Just how many innocent defendents are plea-bargained into prison every day by government prosecutors, because they have no choices, no leverage and no money for a decent lawyer? My guess is that at least 10% of poor people who are sent to jail didn't do the crime they were charged with. They just caught in the jaws of the system, chewed up and spit out.

In stark contrast, Mr. Rich never spent an instant in jeopardy of going to prison because the rules change when you are wealthy. He should have had his case disposed in court. But People Like Julia want us to watch the shell wihout the pea. The real pea is under the walnut shell called Wealth and Privilege.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), February 20, 2001.

"Giving the wealthy the bulk of our proposed tax-cut will stimulate jobs"

Sounds like another attempt at the ole Reagan "trickle-down" theory. Yeah, worked out real good for greedy yuppies, Joe Six Pack got shafted. It should be called the "suck-up" theory, that would be more accurate.

-- Joe Six Pack (Daddy Bush @ got me. laid off), February 20, 2001.