As to you and Luke wanting to pretend like the merits of the lawsuit matter: You're simply wrong. In this society, anybody can sue anybody for anything. (This is a good thing, and deserves our strong support.) In extreme cases of naked frivolity, the courts fine people for wasting everybody's time. The Whitewater case wasn't that frivolous, or Clinton's legal team would have slammed it shut.
Meanwhile, the facts do indeed matter, though you and Luke don't think so, and accuse me of your own nihilism and illogic. In any lawsuit, the credibility of a witness is a major issue, and it can be tested by asking questions of the witness to see if what they say matches what is known about their actual behavior. If you can prove that a party is a liar under oath, you get to instruct the jury that all of their testimony is to be doubted. It's very important in every case.
If Clinton was worth walking across the street to vote for, he would have either told the truth, or refused to answer. Instead, he answered and he intentionally lied. That's perjury. That's a felony.
As to Scaife, nice one. Your mind is so warped by trying to make Dukakis/Clinton/Gore/Kerry into something other than a knife in people's backs, you equate political principle with being a rightist. You and Luke are evidence of a hopelessly sad reality in this country. No wonder labor is dying of political cancer.
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of John Lacny Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2004 6:16 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] MoveOn v. Bush
Michael Dawson:
> The only thing worse than liking Clinton's politics is the main
> practical effect MoveOn has so far had -- the death of the
> Independent Council law that came out of Watergate.
Let me get this straight:
(1) The independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation, Robert Fiske, was ready to exonerate the Clintons of any wrongdoing in the Whitewater non-event. (We now know indisputably that there WAS NOTHING THERE, that in fact the Clintons had lost money on the deal, etc. But perhaps this little detail isn't important to Michael "The Facts Don't Matter" Dawson?)
(2) The panel of judges in charge of the independent counsel turns around and removes Fiske, replacing him with Kenneth Starr. The lead judge on the panel happens to be a Jesse Helms Republican.
(3) Starr himself can't find fuck-all to nail the Clintons with on the Whitewater nonsense, so he goes on a fishing expedition, looking for anyone who had passing contact with a twelfth cousin of the Clintons on the pseudo-legal rationale that these people would know something about Whitewater (which -- though I know it doesn't matter to Michael Dawson -- turns out to have been a non-event).
(4) Starr uses this rationale to expand the probe into the Lewinsky affair.
(5) Clinton says he didn't bang Lewinsky as any sensible person would have said in a similar situation, given that Starr had no business asking in the first place. Clinton is subsequently impeached for perjury and then acquitted after it becomes clear that the public (with the usual supermajorities among African-Americans and other segments of the population who actually understand the way the world works) rejects the whole thing and thinks it a farce.
>From this, Michael Dawson concludes that it was Clinton's defenders who
killed the independent counsel system. Got any more Scaife talking points
for us, Michael?
- - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com
People of the US, unite and defeat the Bush regime and all its running dogs!
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