March 09, 2007

• Chastity belt the lot of them.
• "I drew a line in my mind that said, 'Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed, and even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept ... perjury in your highest officials." Ay fucking caramba.
• Show me someone overly preoccupied with the sexual proclivities of others, and I'll show you someone with a guilty conscience.
• What a perfect fool this Gingrich chap is. Is a confessional to James Dobson supposed to mitigate in some way his duplicity?
• THe whole "It's not nypocrisy because it was the perjury I had a problem with" only holds water if he can somehow demonstrate that, if he had been asked about it in court, he could not possibly have made the same decision not to tell all.
• nypocrisy Look TUM, some of my best friends are nyps.
• Or if he'd been on Judge Judy's show, except that Judge Judy was on vacation and Judge Dredd was there instead, and Mrs Gingrich was in attendance with many guns, and then Dredd asked him "Did you or did you not shag this person when you were acting all holier than thou and stuff?" And then either Gingrich says "Yes" and BLAMMO!!! Mrs Gingirch shoots him, or Gingrich says "No" and BLAMMO!!! Judge Dredd shoots him. That'd be cool.
• What a perfect fool this Gingrich chap is. President 2008! Yeah baby! Gay marriage! Gay marriage! 9/11! Ha haaa! White House, beeyotch! He could! Go! All! The! Way!
• I'm a bit of a purist about such things (being as I don't give a flying crap about the "my team versus their team" mentality), but I don't care if Clinton lied under oath about his golf score, he lied under oath. In my book, that's more than enough cause for impeachment. Of course the Clinton haters wanted to put him into a position where he had to lie... But you see, he didn't have to lie. Soon as he swore that oath he should've admitted what he did, and he would've never been impeached. A standard media shitstorm's got nothing on an impeachment. It was the worst decision of his presidency. But hey, go on spouting the party line that it was all about the adultery rather than the perjury. For some perhaps it was. I couldn't have cared less what he did with his cigar in his spare time, but lying under oath is another matter entirely as far as I'm concerned.
• And now the folks who wanted to impeach Clinton--such as Lindsey Graham--are the same ones who want Bush to pardon Libby. And the Circle of Hypocrisy turns around... Except that there was no reason to ask Clinton under oath about his sex life EXCEPT to set up impeachment proceedings, where as in Libby's case there was a rea...aw, fuck it.
• You're totally right, TenaciousPettle. There wasn't any other reason to ask about that. But if he were a greater person than he was, he would not have taken the bait. And are you implying that I would support a pardon of Libby? Far from it. Clinton deserved impeachment and removal from office for perjuring himself. the current crowd deserves that and a whole lot prison time for treason.
• No matter what disclaimers I seem to put out there, everyone who hears me say that I was in favor of Clinton's impeachment seem to think that I'm just in lock-step with what his accusers did and why. When I say that we shouldn't have gone into Iraq, apparently that's an endorsement of Clinton's involvement in Bosnia. When I say that I support the war in Afghanistan, now I'm party to lies about WMDs in Iraq. When I say I voted for Bush in 2000 and Kerry in 2004, all around me I hear heads asplode. I've had enough of the my guys versus their guys mentality, and anyone who subscribes to that can go soak their head. It's called nuance, and it might be a good idea to look into it.
• I don't think I said anything about you, chimaera. But, to reiterate my main point: fuck it.
• Perhaps I'm a bit touchy about the issue, having grown tired of being called a racist and fascist from the one side and a pinko socialist traitor from the other. Carry on, TenaciousP.
• Of course Clinton fucked up. He lied. He's an idiot for putting himself in that position, and then for lying about it. Clinton was one huge disappointment. You can believe all that and still call Newt out for his bullshit. They're not mutually exclusive positions. In your own words, chimaera: It's called nuance, and it might be a good idea to look into it.
• I blame the Supreme Court who unanimously allowed the suit to proceed. The suit should have been continued until after he had stopped being President. Their argument was essentially that the President cannot be above the law. I agree with that as it pertains to criminal charges. But since civil suits can be so much more subjective and are held to a much lower burden of proof, it follows that it would be much easier for a political opponent to sue the President than it would be to have him charged criminally. A sitting President should not be sued while in office because it takes time away from his duties, it distracts people in such a way that it makes it more difficult form him to perform his duties, and it opens up the President to making statements under oath which have nothing to do with being President. The second two of those reasons proved to be well-founded concerns. The fact that the Supreme Court allowed a case to go forward that would involve the President being asked about his sex life under oath is simply astounding. There was no reason not to continue the case until he was out of office. But I don't blame the Republicans. I cannot imagine a situation where a President lies under oath and his political opposition remains silent. It would not and should not happen.
• I have no problem with calling Newt out for his behavior, HawthorneWingo. Clearly he was being hypocritical. But the wording of the post seems to indicate that the impeachment was for the affair, and my contention is that it wasn't -- and it would have never happened if Clinton hadn't loaded the gun, cocked the hammer and handed it to the house Republicans himself. And what bernockle said.
• Projection ain't just something in your tv...
• I don't disagree with you on the point of perjury itself chimaera, although I disagree that it was grounds for removal from office. And furthermore Bush's defiance of the FISA laws (to cite only one of many examples of impeachable charges) are much more egregious and is "actual" grounds for impeachment and removal from office. Bush has committed actual crimes, high crimes as it were, and deserves impeachment much more than Clinton. The Republicans - the reigning power in government since Clinton's second term - have thrown everything at impeaching Clinton and blocked every attempt at holding Bush accountable and that, it would seem, is the reason for the knee-jerk, us-versus-them conversational dilemma in stating an approval of Clinton's impeachment. The Framers of the Constitution deliberately put impeachment into the hands of the legislative branch rather than the judicial branch, thus transforming it from strictly a matter of legal definition to a matter of political judgment. I agree with the sick-of-partisanship point of view, but I would also hasten to point out that the right-wing (Limbaugh, Reagan, Gingrich) have made partisanship a paramount concern for a long time, more or less forcing the opposition to attempt the same tactics of Fox News, talk-radio, catchphrase-spewing propaganda. "Patriot" Act, "support the troops", "cut-and-run", swiftboating, the Teri Schiavo "Palm Sunday Compromise", "the sanctity of marriage", are all part-and-parcel of Republican strategy to be partisan and stifle objective argument which is unfortunately being slowly adopted and poorly aped by the Democrats. (Not that you support either, but that it probably has to do with the head-asploding reactions to the voting-for-Bush-then-Kerry POV.) Regarding Clinton's impeachment as a simple "did he break the law? yes/no" question, I agree. But that's not even half the story.
• Re-reading Gingrich's quote, I wonder what "God's standards" are exactly? Only the highest-quality locusts one would assume.
• The god standard is a system of exchange in which the standard measure of value is god. Transactions are undertaken using a currency expressed in terms of a weight or an amount of god. A given unit of currency is exchangeable at any time for the appropriate amount of god. The total amount of currency circulating in the economy is assumed not to exceed the total amount of god available.
• But didn't Nixon do away with the god standard?
• *spit take*
• In a radio interview with Focus on the Family's James Dobson, thrice-married Newt Gingrich acknowledges that he was having an extramarital affair at exactly the same time he was leading the House of Representatives through the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Hypocrite? Not me, says Newt. "I drew a line in my mind that said, 'Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed ... I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept ... perjury in your highest officials,'" he says. Elsewhere in the interview, Gingrich says he doesn't believe in "situational ethics." Huh. I wonder what the "line in [his] mind" was separating then.
• Maybe I'm not understanding completely, chimaera, but it seems to me like there's a contradiction in what you say. If perjury is perjury, and it's an equally serious offense no matter what the subject is, that seems to me like eliminationg nuance rather than embracing it. Impeachment for a falsehood about something so unimportsnt seems to me like 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread.
• Gingrich says he doesn't believe in "situational ethics." Unless it's his situation! Yeah, Bill was a dope. A dope under a hella lot of pressure. He perjured himself about sex. But Bush is a liar, a thief, and a murderer. He perjured himself about WMDs, Intelligence information, knowledge of torture, and on and on. And this country's going to let him get away with it. WE SUCK.
• Regardless of whether or not it should have ever been an issue in the first place, President Clinton was acquitted of obstruction of justice and perjury in the Senate.
• Bush has not technically perjured himself yet because he has never made statements under oath.
• really old "news"
• Gingrich ‘Inadvertently’ Names Porn Company ‘Entrepreneur of The Year’ For Stimulating The Economy
• Inadvertently *someone's* ass