Fred Thompson, John McCain, and the trial of Bill Clinton

Clinton was already impeached. The question before the Senate was conviction (and thus removal) on the two articles of impeachment. Fred voted to convict on obstruction of justice, and only one conviction is needed to remove the President from office.

That is all well and good, but the question before the Senate was whether in fact Clinton was guilty of perjury (certainly true, as the judge in the case finally ruled) and - in a jury nullification sense, since the Grand Jury (i.e., the House) had already indicted (i.e., impeached) - whether perjury was an impeachable offense.
IMHO this case illustrates why the Senate is the wrong venue to make that determination. Governors are much more equivalently "peers" of the president than any other public official. And in that sense, their judgment of what constitutes a "high crime or misdemeanor" should be more valid than that of a bunch of legislators, House or Senate. I put it to you that the governors of the several states should constitute the Grand Jury in the impeachment of a president, and the House should have to apply to them for an impeachment just as the prosecutor applies to the Grand Jury for an indictment.
Only if the governors agreed to indict should there be a trial in the Senate, and senators should be triers of fact rather than judges of the "impeachability" of the offense alleged.
I mean to imply that no self-respecting governor would admit that he claimed the right to go into court hoping that the judge would get the facts of the case wrong. Never mind proving that by actually committing perjury in the courtroom. The POTUS is supposed to "see that the laws be faithfully executed" - and going into court to try to get the judge to misrule so that you will escape the legal consequences of what you know you actually did simply doesn't fit that bill.
That is not to say that I agreed that the case should have come to trial during Clinton's term as POTUS. Being POTUS is an exceptional circumstance - out of all the hundreds of millions of adult Americans, living and dead, there have up til the present time only been 43 people who have been president. And I just think that the POTUS has the right and the duty not to submit to examination by a court during his term of office. Clinton chose to enter that courtroom, though - it would have been standing on principle to do otherwise, and Clinton is just not a standup guy - and, having done so, his duty was to tell the judge the facts of the case, warts and all.
But of course, the right thing to have done would have been to settle out of court, which was in fact an option. Except that the person who is now the front runner for the Democratic nomination for POTUS vetoed that. Which is just one more reason said individual should not be nominated for POTUS.
All of which should have been moot because when Congress learned that Craig Livingstone had perpetrated hundreds of counts of a felony with political implications in the White House, and the Clinton Administration did not prosecute Livingstone, Clinton alone was responsible for those felony counts, and should have been impeached, convicted, and prosecuted for that.

That amounts to a jury nullification argument. And it is one in which the composition of the Senate - no longer representatives of the states (state governments, that is) but representatives of the people of the states. Which, all socialist protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, is a different thing.
Self-respecting governors would not admit that they reserved the right to behave as Clinton did in that courtroom and still hold their office - and therefore it was an impeachable offense, period. Senator Thompson held otherwise, which he had the authority to do. And I hold that he was wrong to do so, which is the the only thing I have the authority to do.
IMHO the Constitution should be amended to make the House majority the prosecutor not only in the Senate but also in the impeachment phase - that is, actual impeachment should only occur when a majority, perhaps a 60% majority, of governors concur in secret ballot that the offenses alleged by the House majority do in fact constitute impeachable "high crimes and misdemeanors." That is actually a judicial function of sorts, like the Supreme Court deciding what the law is as it relates to the facts alleged.
But to say that the standard of behavior acceptable in a POTUS includes trying to con a judge for self-interested personal reasons is to say that self-government is not a serious endeavor. And that is what Senator Thompson signed on to. The implication is that if he found himself in the same position that he might act the same way as POTUS - and that is a blot on his escutcheon when he now stands for nomination to that very office.
Look, it's not as if we had the second coming of Ronald Reagan in the lists for the nomination. Guliani is liberal on the social issues, and his behavior as US attorney had a whiff of Nifong to it. McCain is the author of McCain-Feingold, and has gratuitously diss'ed Christian conservatives. Romney has his record in MA to defend, and he says he was just representing what the majority there wanted not what is right. Huckabee is a nanny-state guy. And the rest are one-percenters. So Thompson has a certain appeal to me, I'd prefer him to about anyone in the field other than possibly Romney. Just forget the notion that I have to agree with Thompson's stand on perjury. I don't.
The reality is that the Republican senators voted overwhelmingly that the perjury Clinton committed was and impeachable offense, and therefore for Republican presidents it is one - given that Democrats would hold future Republican Senators to their position on it, and yet would not hesitate to hold the Republican president to a higher standard than they held the Democrat to.

Do not try to change the subject. That is not the issue. What IS the issue is politicians who want to have it both ways, for it and against it. In this case, sanctioning the appalling low standards that have evolved in Washington.

I'm not changing the subject. You said that Thompson gave the 'toon a "get out of jail free" card;" you also said this:

"The point is that the reasoning that gives Clinton a pass on the perjury charge is the same reason that keeps scumbags like Larry Craig in office, overly legalistic to the point of obsuring justice. In a sane society, these clowns would be run out of town on a rail."

My response is that Thompson did vote to remove the 'toon from office, and indeed voted for running him out of town on a rail.

I’m not changing the subject. You said that Thompson gave the ‘toon a “get out of jail free” card;” you also said this:

“The point is that the reasoning that gives Clinton a pass on the perjury charge is the same reason that keeps scumbags like Larry Craig in office, overly legalistic to the point of obscuring justice. In a sane society, these clowns would be run out of town on a rail.”

My response is that Thompson did vote to remove the ‘toon from office, and indeed voted for running him out of town on a rail.

Good, I am glad we agree, Fred Thompson voted to impeach Bill Clinton on obstruction of justice and Fred lowered the ethics of sexual conduct in Washington, Fred lowered the standard on the perjury charge, which in effect gives a shred of cover, and precedent to scumbags like Larry Craig, who can now say, “Hey, so I lied about a little toe tapping in an Airport men’s room, this in no way effects my ability to be Senator of the United States.”

If Fred had stood with the commonly accepted standard, that sex with an intern is gross malfeasance, then the rehabilitation of Bill Clinton would be one step harder to accomplish.

Make no mistake, the Presidency of Hillary is the return, and full vindication of Bill Clinton.

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