My wife was telling me about the final episode of the The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. During his final monologue, Jay thanked, among other people, Monica Lewinsky. After all, she gave him a lot of material.
Jay's reference reminded me of the famous postulation that "a butterfly flapping its wings can result in a hurricane on the other side of the world." Not to excuse President Clinton for his inexcuseably self-indulgent and juvenile behavior, Monica Lewinsky really was the butterfly that generated a hurricane.
Think about it. Monica "does" President Clinton, tells a friend, and holds on to her stained blue dress. These actions result in a Republican attempt to impeach president Clinton, candidate Gore thinking that he needed to distance himself from a popular incumbant, "Clinton fatigue" - I sure felt it, the election of President Bush instead of Al Gore (who should have been a lock), Bush (and Cheney) being in office during and after 9/11 instead of President Gore, illegal spying, a falsified case for invading Iraq, an American torture program, thousands of dead Americans and hundreds of thousands of dead and/or displaced Iraqis, further financial deregulation, a refusal to rein in overly risky mortgage lending, financial collapse . . .
Let's face it. A lot can happen from flapping one's wings (or other apendages).
Be careful out there people.
Joe H.
Wow!
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9 years ago
3 comments:
Oh boy, Joe, I had a laugh over your comment, until I recognized how true and sad it was.
Alan
Do you really believe your representation of the Republican effort to impeach President Clinton is fair?
Remember, please, that the Starr Commission was convened to investigate, not Ms. Lewinsky, but the Whitewater and Madison Guarantee scandals, and that it was convened at the request of 7 Democratic Senators led by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York. Nor was the Starr Commission the beginning of the investigation; Starr and two others replaced Robert Fiske, special counsel in the Attorney General's office, investigating the same matter. Plus, the Starr Commission also investigated irregularities in the investigation of Vince Foster's death, the potential abuse of FBI investigative data, the improper firings of Travel Office personnel, and sexual harassment committed against Paula Jones while Clinton was governor of Arkansas. Nor was Starr the last investigator; both the Smatlz Commission and the Barrett Commission reported finding evidence pointing to criminal acts perpetrated by employees in the White House (Smaltz unofficially). And of course, none of this mentions the veritable flood of complaints from the right concerning other, criminal-appearing behaviors by the President, including claims that he solicited contributions from foreign governments in return for policy favors, and claims that he was involved somehow in several rapes and murders.
You may think of these accusations whatever you like; but the impeachment attempt was about orders of magnitude more than just Ms. Lewinsky and her oral performance. Ms. Lewinsky, in the end, merely provided the best evidence of President Clinton's pattern of perjury and obstruction of justice.
"Criticality self-organizes; differences accumulate like vapors from a basement gas leak... until any spark blows the roof. The explosion, when it comes, is not about the spark."
Karl Barth
I wasn't trying to reduce Clinton's behavior to getting a blow job and then lying about it under oath. But that's what led to the attempt to impeach Clinton. None of these other accusations ever bore fruit. It was that charge that led the Republican's to attempt to impeach Clinton.
The crime Clinton was accused of was perjury. He lied under oath about having sex with Monica Lewinsky. Of course, the seed of his lying was the blow job itself, and Ms. Lewinsky's lack of discretion. Those two "flaps of the butterflies wings" are the source of the current hurricane.
And I will say "wow." You're little touchy about Clinton, don't you think? He was certainly immoral and corrupt, but he's no Dick Cheney.
Joe H.
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