Posted on 09/11/2004 8:43:07 AM PDT by tvn
The former US president has charged the Republicans with bigotry and judicial manipulation, writes Peter Wilson
BILL Clinton has delivered an extraordinary blast at America's top judge, William Rehnquist, and an uncharacteristically bitter attack on Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
Speaking before his recent health scare, the former president accused Rehnquist, the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, of deliberately politicising the system of appointing independent investigators, leading to years of relentless, politically motivated inquiries into his presidency.
In an interview with The Weekend Australian, Clinton dropped the affection with which he usually discusses Reagan and the civility he affords the current President to accuse both men of deliberately using racist electoral appeals to win the White House.
Clinton said Rehnquist, Reagan and Bush were part of a far-Right branch of the Republican Party made up of the "spiritual heirs" of white southern racists, who still used the tactics of personal destruction employed by racists in their campaign to block civil rights for blacks.
He accused Rehnquist of deliberately appointing a highly partisan Republican, David Sentelle, in 1994 to chair a three-member panel of judges empowered to appoint special counsels to conduct inquiries into presidents.
Sentelle's panel sacked Robert Fiske, the counsel investigating allegations against Clinton, and replaced him with the more partisan Republican Ken Starr.
Starr, who pursued dozens of allegations against Clinton before eventually catching him out lying to cover up his sexual liaisons with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, was "an ultra-conservative" who abused his position and should never have been appointed, Clinton said.
"Rehnquist could not have been unmindful of what he was doing," Clinton stressed. "But you know, Rehnquist is a very partisan Republican. Before he went on the Supreme Court he had been part of voter challenges to (black) minority voters in Arizona.
"When he was a clerk on the Supreme Court he argued to his justice that the Supreme Court did not need to overturn the doctrine of 'separate but equal' and could keep basically supporting legalised racial segregation in America.
"That is just his philosophy, it is what he believes."
According to Sue Bloch, a law professor at Georgetown University and an expert on US judicial history, you would have to go back 200 years to Thomas Jefferson to find a president or former president making such a bitter attack on a chief justice.
Dwight Eisenhower said in the 1960s that he regretted appointing Earl Warren as Chief Justice, but there had been no parallel to Clinton's comments since the career-long political feud between Jefferson and Chief Justice John Marshall, Bloch said.
One of Washington's most noted presidential scholars, Norm Ornstein of the conservative think-tank the American Enterprise Institute, said yesterday that some Washington insiders knew privately that Clinton held a low regard for Rehnquist but his views had never been expressed publicly and were "extraordinary things for a former president to be saying".
"I have no doubt the private thoughts of George Herbert Walker Bush or any other president about their opponents and other people, if made public, would make your hair stand on end," he said. "But even after you have left office, to actually say these things to a reporter is very unusual."
Ornstein said he believed Clinton had good reason to be unhappy about Rehnquist's appointment of Sentelle, and the resulting selection of Starr.
The appointment of Sentelle over more senior and less partisan judges was "at a minimum utterly insensitive to the intent of the law" governing such appointments, he said.
Ornstein said Clinton was also correct in saying some Republican leaders were prepared to use racist appeals to win elections.
Mr Bush's supporters, for instance, used "an utterly sleazy smear" against John McCain during the 2000 Republican primary race by highlighting the fact the Arizona senator had adopted a child from Bangladesh, Ornstein said. Peter Wilson's full interview with Clinton appears in The Weekend Australian Magazine
"African-Americans watch the same news at night that ordinary Americans do." - President Clinton on Black Entertainment Television, November 2, 1994
"Speaking before his recent health scare, the former president accused Rehnquist, the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, of deliberately politicizing the system of appointing independent investigators, leading to years of relentless, politically motivated inquiries into his presidency."
We need to stop waiting for the 2nd American Revolution and start DOING!
..to accuse both men of deliberately using racist electoral appeals to win the White House.
****
A racist appeal? Like telling to blacks that Bush is responsible for the James Byrd killing? Or that Black churchs will burn if GWB is elected? That what you mean,Bubba?
Time for the Dem-rats to get blacks whipped into a frenzy. Only 52 days till election. Black turnout crucial...........
Democrats are racist whores.
Wonder what comments he would have for Hillary? She of the F@#!#@ Jew B@$^@3 remarks.
Hmmm...any comment on Sen. Fullbright, your own boyhood friend and idol, Mr. Clinton?
Didn't think so.
Wrong!
Sen. Byrd & Fmr. Sen. Gore prove that the Dems are not only heirs but current members of this racist class!
Republicans are the Party of Lincoln!
Meaning........?
That "African-Americans" are NOT 'ordinary Americans'??????
Talk about having underlying racist tendencies!
African-Americans watch the same news at night that ordinary Americans do." - President Clinton on Black Entertainment Television, November 2, 1994
FOX?! That whacha mean, Bubba? God. Isn't this supposed to be posted with some sort of alert.
the dems have been using "divide and rule" while mouthing "unity" for decades.
they are masters of division.
Two weeks ago, ,Clinton hauls himself upo a pulpit during a church service, and deliveers a thoroughly despicable diatribe against Republicans, the religious right,a nd people of faith in general. A week later, he has a cardiac episode..Who says GOD doesn't exist?
the dems have been using "divide and rule" while mouthing "unity" for decades.
AND PREACHING TOLERANCE WHILE PRACTICING INTOLERANCE. PHONIES.
They have a nice room reserved for him at Belleview Mental hospital.
Classic DemonRat projection. Geezzzzzz.
Well - Here's to hoping for a loose stitch in an aorta?
Seems Bubba hasn't taken that message to heart about moving on.
Bitter is as bitter does.
OH, for pete's sake......someone tell ME which Blacks in the US do NOT have CIVIL RIGHTS......and I'm also thinking.....who in their right mind would spend much time reading his crap!
Did you REALLY expect anything different?;)
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