At 11:39 AM 6/19/01 EDT [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
><<Nice conspiracy theory. Do you know who was on the grassy knoll too?>>
>
>Try reading what I wrote. A decision to go ahead with impeachment knowing
the GOP did not have the votes to convict is not a vast conspiracy to
acquit. It's a recognition of facts, and a decision to proceed with
impeachment anyway to garner the benefits of distracting and tarnishing the
Clinton Administration with virtually no chance of giving Gore a leg up in
2000.
>>>>>>>>
I don't know that it was at all clear at the *start* of impeachment that
the Senate did not have the votes to convict. Indeed, I think that you
would have a very hard time demonstrating that the starting advocates of
impeachment had already calculated which way the Senate would go.
Moreover, your theory would predict that there would be a half-hearted
effort to persuade the Senate to convict. Again, I think that you would
have an extremely difficult time presenting evidence showing such a
half-hearted effort.
Indeed, all of the available evidence that I have seen points the other
way. Several of the impeachment managers today still grumble about how
Trent Lott stacked the Senate Rules against them. Other advocates of
impeachment routinely bring up the conduct of Senators during impeachment
in their critiques of them, from Arlen Specter to Joe Lieberman. This
hardly suggests the psyche of people who were secretly banking on their
votes for acquital in order to obtain their partisan advantage.
>I presented several very viable reasons why impeaching Clinton gave the
GOP an >advantage.
No Pat, all of your reasons are unviable. Most of your reasons are based
upon a secret desire for the Senate to acquit, which I have demonstrated
above, is a hypothesis that is completely unsupported by the evidence.
>And I must have missed all the proof you presented for _your_ speculation
that the >GOP did it all out of saintly self-sacrifice for the good of the
nation, with nary a
> single impure thought of partisan advantage.
No Pat, the burden of proof is on you. It is the default to take what
someone says at face value. If you wish to accuse them of lying, then
your must present substantial evidence that this is the case. So far, you
have only presented motive, and very weak motives at that, as demonstrated
above.
Ultimately, if you are going to build a case based solely upon motive, you
must show that a reasonable Republican partisan at the start of the affair
would see greater partisan advantage in pursuing impeachment rather than
rejecting impeachment. The Clinton scandals were already raking in plenty
of money, and Al Gore would have had to deal with Clinton's ethical
legacies no matter what. After all, the decision to pursue impeachment
had absolutely no effect on Kenneth Starr. With or without impeachment,
the Starr report still happens, and Clinton still has a blot on his legacy,
Al Gore still has the ethical baggage, and Republicans still have the
donations.
Thus, you need to somehow argue, that the summed value of the following:
-the marginal increase in donations produced by impeachment following the
Starr report
-the maringal additional blot on Clinton's legacy produced by impeachment
following the Starr report
-the marginal additional baggage on Al Gore's campaign, as *perceived in
1998* (remember scandals didn't hurt Clinton's '96 or '92 campaigns)
produced by impeachment following the Starr report
somehow outweighs the tremendous perceived marginal cost in 1998 of running
against a 2-year incumbent Al Gore in 2000, with the best economy in
history supporting him, *AND* the potential for Al Gore to run again as a
six-year incumbent in 2004 (leaving the Republicans no chance to run for an
open White House for an astonishing 16 years).
It just doesn't add up - as that argument seems wholly unreasonable. I'm
sorry Pat, but your case to prove that the advocates of impeachment were
acting towards partisan goals, in contradiction of the professed efforts to
be working on behalf of principle, simply does not hold water.
JDG
__________________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
"Compassionate conservatism is the way to reconcile the two most vital
conservative intellectual traditions: libertarianism & Catholic social
thought."
-Michael Gerson, advisor to George W. Bush
