-Caveat Lector-
~~for educational purposes~~
Absurdity, brazenness and hypocrisy reigns
by Walter Williams
A YEAR'S WORTH OF PRESIDENTIAL SCANDAL proves
at least two things about us: our weakened ability to think
and political hypocrisy.
The president's defenders and pundits constantly preach
that removing Clinton from office will 'overturn the 1996
elections'. I'm wondering whether they want Americans
to believe, and whether Americans actually believe, that
removing Clinton from office means that Bob Dole and
Jack Kemp, defeated in the 1996 presidential elections,
will assume the presidency and vice presidency. It doesn't.
If the Senate were to convict Clinton, Vice President Gore,
who was elected in 1996, becomes president. So what's
this business about 'overturning the 1996 elections'?
How much ignorance abounds in the land is debatable.
What's not debatable is our heightened immunity to
paternalistic insults. Some evidence of this is Clinton's
Buffalo speech where he made a pitch for using the
budget surplus to save Social Security rather than the
tax cuts Republicans want.
Clinton told a cheering crowd, "We could give (the surplus)
back to you and hope you spend it right." Then he advised,
"If you don't spend it right," Social Security shortfalls will
surface "just 14 years away."
Elites have always felt they've had wisdom superior to the
masses and an ordained duty to forcibly impose that
wisdom on the rest of us. What's surprising is Clinton's
audacity to articulate that sentiment. What's even more
surprising is our acceptance of his paternalistic insult. By
the way, Social Security's $10 trillion debt demonstrates
that Washington's retirement management isn't that great.
Clinton's impeachment has also amply demonstrated gross
political hypocrisy. One member of Congress after another
has argued that we should adhere to Framer intent behind
Article II, Section 4 (the Constitution's impeachment clause).
Clinton supporters in Congress and out, including law
professors, talk about the words of George Mason,
Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.
They've searched the "Federalist Papers" and other writings
to discover Framer intent about impeachment. I say great, but
let's not restrict this new found 'respect' for what the Framers
had to say about impeachment.
How much respect do you think congressmen and lawyers of
the Alan Dershowitz ilk have for these words of James Madison,
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the
Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending,
on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."?
Or, would these constitutional hypocrites be enthusiastic about
Federalist Paper 28 that says "that the state governments will
in all possible contingencies afford complete security against
invasions of the public liberty by the national authority (Washington)."
There's no stone that will go unturned to save Clinton's hide.
The president's strategists felt it necessary to argue that Clinton's
perjurious testimony and justice obstruction in the Paula Jones case
didn't violate her civil rights. Who better to present that defense than
a black woman?
That was Deputy White House Counsel Cheryl Mills' qualification
for making that case to the Senate; but she had another qualification.
Last September, the House Committee on Government Oversight
and Reform wrote to the Justice Department requesting that Mills be
prosecuted for perjury and obstruction for lying under oath and
concealing subpoenaed documents -- no word yet from the Justice
Department.
The subpoenaed documents were ultimately handed over when
other White House lawyers looked into Mills' files and discovered
them hidden there. The bottom line is who's better to defend the
president against charges of perjury and obstruction of justice than
a person with personal experience in that area?
Clinton has exhausted all shams; now it's the Senate's turn.
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Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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