No smoking gun!!!

Jeff Bone (jbone@activerse.com)
Mon, 21 Sep 1998 11:53:12 -0500


I'm sitting here watching the testimony (it's impossible to avoid, CNN
is obsessed) and I'm totally awestruck. I'd pretty much assumed that
Clinton was going to be shifty, uncooperative, and relatively
undignified. He seems so collected, in good spirits, and FAR more
cooperative than this whole thing deserves! And I'm now inclined to
believe him --- it doesn't look to me like there's any smoking gun!
Semantics of perjury aside, it doesn't look like there is any --- just
very careful legal brinkmanship and (in some cases) a tremendous effort
to be honest in the midst of a flurry of confusing and conflicting facts
and recollections. At the end of the day, this is a guy that screwed
up, tried to do right by it afterwards, and has done a *fantastic* job
of toeing the line between legal requirement and personal discretion.

The perjury issue comes down to a vote of confidence between
witnesses; one, a lovesick, manipulative young woman who has tremendous
credibility issues, the other the President of the United States.
Subornation of perjury appears to be purely fictitious. The obstruction
of justice relates primarily to the handling of evidence --- and if that
was done at all, it was apparently on the initiative of Monica, without
his immediate direction. And abuse of power looks ludicrous in the face
of this testimony.

It's *so* clear, hearing the phrasing of the OIC's
painstakingly-constructed, ridiculously delicate potential perjury
traps, how partisan this whole thing is. It's also clear how totally
out-of-sync the Republicans are with the rest of the country, indeed,
the rest of the world.* Over the weekend, I heard several soundbytes
from sanctimonious right-wing legislators saying essentially "polls be
damned, opinion be damned, we're running this turkey out of office."

I've usually voted Republican by default when third-party options aren't
available... I'm getting more and more fed up with the damned GOP,
though, and their pet prosecutor. I hope that the "people" are as
impressed by Clinton's composure and dignity in the face of this circus
as I am... and I hope the backlash of public opinion bite the GOP in
the butt hard come November.

Leaning left and hating it,

jb

* Clinton got a several-minute standing ovation this morning when he
addressed the UN General Assembly. The rest of the world thinks we're
nuts... and they're right.