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THE OTHER NIXON

by Mia T

 

 

Hypocrisy abounds in this Age of clinton, a Postmodern Oz rife with constitutional deconstruction and semantic subversion, a virtual surreality polymarked by presidential alleles peccantly misplaced or, in the case of Jefferson, posthumously misappropriated.

 

Shameless pharisees in stark relief crowd the Capitol frieze:

 

Baucus, Biden, Bingaman, Breaux, Bryan, Byrd, Cohen, Conrad, Daschle, Dodd, Gore, Graham, Harkin, Hollings, Inouye, Kennedy, Kerrey, Kerry, Kohl, Lautenberg, Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Mikulski, Moynihan, Reid, Robb, Rockefeller, Sarbanes, Schumer.

 

These are the 28 sitting Democratic senators, the current Vice President and Secretary of Defense -- clinton defenders all -- who, in 1989, voted to oust U.S. District Judge Walter Nixon for making "false or misleading statements to a grand jury."

 

In 1989 each and every one of these men insisted that perjury was an impeachable offense.

(What a difference a decade and a decadent Democrat make.)

 

Senator Herb Kohl (November 7, 1989):

"But Judge Nixon took an oath to tell the truth and the whole truth. As a grand jury witness, it was not for him to decide what would be material. That was for the grand jury to decide. Of all people, Federal Judge Walter Nixon certainly knew this.

 

"So I am going to vote 'guilty' on articles one and two. Judge Nixon lied to the grand jury. He misled the grand jury. These acts are indisputably criminal and warrant impeachment."

 

Senator Tom Daschle (November 3, 1989):

"This morning we impeached a judge from Mississippi for failing to tell the truth. Those decisions are always very difficult and certainly, in this case, it came after a great deal of concern and thoughtful analysis of the facts."

 

Congressman Charles Schumer (May 10, 1989):  

"Perjury, of course, is a very difficult, difficult thing to decide; but as we looked and examined all of the records and in fact found many things that were not in the record it became very clear to us that this impeachment was meritorious."

 

Senator Carl Levin (November 3, 1989):

"The record amply supports the finding in the criminal trial that Judge Nixon's statements to the grand jury were false and misleading and constituted perjury. Those are the statements cited in articles I and II, and it is on those articles that I vote to convict Judge Nixon and remove him from office."

 

* * * * *

 

"The hypocrite's crime is that he bears false witness against himself," observed the philosopher Hannah Arendt. "What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core."

 

If hypocrisy is the vice of vices, then perjury is the crime of crimes, for

perjury provides the necessary cover for all other crimes.

 

David Lowenthal, professor emeritus of political science at Boston College makes the novel and compelling argument that perjury is "bribery consummate, using false words instead of money or other things of value to pervert the course of justice" and, thus, perjury is a constitutionally enumerated high crime.

 

The Democrats' defense of clinton's perjury -- and their own hypocrisy -- is

three-pronged.

 

ONE:

clinton's perjuries were "just about sex" and therefore "do not rise to the level of an impeachable offense."

 

This argument is spurious. The courts make no distinction between perjuries. Perjury is perjury. Perjury attacks the very essence of democracy. Perjury is bribery consummate.

 

Moreover, (the clinton spinners notwithstanding), clinton's perjury was not "just about sex." clinton's perjury was about clinton denying a citizen justice by lying in a civil rights-sexual harassment case about his sexual history with subordinates.

 

TWO:

Presidents and judges are held to different standards under the Constitution.

 

Because the Constitution stipulates that federal judges, who are appointed for life, "shall hold their offices during good behavior,'' and because there is no similar language concerning the popularly elected, term-limited president, it must have been perfectly agreeable to the Framers, so the (implicit) argument goes, to have a perjurious, justice-obstructing reprobate as president.

 

clinton's defenders ignore Federalist No. 57, and Hillary Rodham's constitutional treatise on impeachable acts -- written in 1974 when she wanted to impeach a president; both mention "bad conduct" as grounds for impeachment.

 

"Impeachment," wrote Rodham, "did not have to be for criminal offenses -- but only for a 'course of conduct' that suggested an abuse of power or a disregard for the office of the President of the United States...A person's 'course of conduct' while not particularly criminal could be of such a nature that it destroys trust, discourages allegiance, and demands action by the Congress...The office of the President is such that it calls for a higher level of conduct than the average citizen in the United States."

 

Hamilton (or Madison) discussed the importance of wisdom and virtue in Federalist 57. "The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust."

 

(Contrast this with clinton, who recklessly, reflexively and feloniously subordinates the common good to his personal appetites.)

 

Because the Framers did not anticipate the demagogic efficiency of the electronic bully pulpit, they ruled out the possibility of an MTV mis-leader (and impeachment-thwarter!) like clinton. In Federalist No. 64, John Jay said: "There is reason to presume" the president would fall only to those "who have become the most distinguished by their abilities and virtue." He

imagined that the electorate would not "be deceived by those brilliant appearances of genius and patriotism which, like transient meteors, sometimes mislead as well as dazzle."

 

(If the clinton debacle teaches us anything, it is this: If we are to retain our democracy in this age of the electronic demagogue, we must recalibrate the constitutional balance of power.)

 

THREE:

The president can be prosecuted for his alleged felonies after he leaves office.

(Nota bene ROBERT RAY.)

 

This clinton-created censure contrivance -- borne out of what I have come to call the "Lieberman Paradigm" (clinton is an unfit president; therefore clinton must remain president) -- is nothing less than a postmodern deconstruction in which the Oval Office would serve for two years as a holding cell for the perjurer-obstructor.

 

Such indecorous, dual-purpose architectonics not only threatens the delicate constitutional framework -- it disturbs the cultural aesthetic. The senators must, therefore, roundly reject this elliptic scheme.

In this postmodern Age of clinton, we may, from time to time, selectively stomach corruption. But we must never abide ugliness. Never.

 


1 posted on 11/17/2002 6:18:22 AM PST by Mia T
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To: Gail Wynand; looscannon; Lonesome in Massachussets; Freedom'sWorthIt; IVote2; Slyfox; Registered; ..
Democrat Debacle of '02

Q ERTY8 PING!

 

 

Thou art arm'd that hath thy crook'd schemers straight.
Cudgel thy brains no more, the clinton plots are great.
 

Mia T, On Neutered and Neutering,

by Mia T and Edward Zehr (EZ)

 

 

IT IS OBVIOUS

 

By Mia T, 3-3-02

 

It is obvious to anyone who bothers to remove his political blinders. It is so patently obvious that even those whose political blinders are a permanently fixed fashion statement -- that is to say, even Hollywood -- can see it. (Just ask Whoopie Goldberg...or Rosie O'Donnell...) Bush's poll numbers are a reflection of this self-evident truth.

What is manifestly obvious and confirmed on a daily basis is the plain fact that Democrats are, by definition, constitutionally unfit to navigate the ship of state through these troubled, terrorist waters. Democrats were unfit pre-9/11, but few could see it then. It was 9/11 and its aftermath that made this truth crystal clear even to the most simpleminded among us.

The unwashed masses, the uninformed, the disinformed can see it now. All America can see it now. Self-preservation is kicking in, trumping petty politics at every turn.

And this is why Democrat demagoguery and stupidity and sedition are achieving new lows...

 We are witnessing the last gasp of a political relic. The Democrat party is not merely obsolete. As 9/11 and clinton-clinton-Daschle action and inaction have demonstrated, the Democrat party is very dangerous.

 We must now make sure that this fact, too, is obvious to all...

Clinton's failure to grasp the opportunity to unravel increasingly organized extremists, coupled with Berger's assessments of their potential to directly threaten the U.S., represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures in American history

Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize

 

Bill Clinton may not be the worst president America has had, but surely he is the worst person to be president.*

---GEORGE WILL, Sleaze, the sequel

 

Had George Will written Sleaze, the sequel (the "sequel" is, of course, hillary) after 9-11-01, I suspect that he would have had to forgo the above conceit, as the doubt expressed in the setup phrase was, from that day forward, no longer operational.

Indeed, assessing the clinton presidency an abject failure is not inconsistent with commentary coming from the left, most recently the LA Times: "Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize."

When the clintons left office, I predicted that the country would eventually learn--sadly, the hard way--that this depraved, self-absorbed and inept pair had placed America (and the world) in mortal danger. But I was thinking years, not months.

It is very significant that hillary clinton didn't deny clinton culpability for the terrorism. (Meet the Press, 12-09-01), notwithstanding tired tactics (if you can't pass the buck, spread the blame) and chronic "KnowNothing Victim Clinton" self-exclusion.

If leftist pandering keeps the disenfranchized down in perpetuity, clinton pandering,("it's the economy, stupid"), kept the middle and upper classes wilfully ignorant for eight years.

And ironically, both results (leftist social policy and the clinton economy) are equally illusory, fraudulent. It is becoming increasingly clear that clinton covertly cooked the books even as he assiduously avoided essential actions that would have negatively impacted the economy--the ultimate source of his continued power--actions like, say, going after the terrorists.

It is critically important that hillary clinton fail in her grasp for power; read Peggy Noonan's little book, 'The Case Against Hillary Clinton' and Barbara Olson's two books; it is critical that the West de-clintonize, but that will be automatic once it is understood that the clintons risked civilization itself in order to gain and retain power.

It shouldn't take books, however, to see that a leader is a dangerous, self-absorbed sicko. People should be able to figure that out for themselves. The electorate must be taught to think, to reason. It must be able to spot spin, especially in this age of the electronic demagogue.

I am not hopeful. As Bertrand Russell noted, "Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so. "

Mia T, hillary clinton blames hubby for terrorism

(SHE knew nuttin')

Meet the Press, 12-09-01

 

 

 

 

 

*George Will continues: There is reason to believe that he is a rapist ("You better get some ice on that," Juanita Broaddrick says he told her concerning her bit lip), and that he bombed a country to distract attention from legal difficulties arising from his glandular life, and that. ... Furthermore, the bargain that he and his wife call a marriage refutes the axiom that opposites attract. Rather, she, as much as he, perhaps even more so, incarnates Clintonism

 

Q ERTY3 co-rapist  bump!

2 posted on 11/17/2002 6:21:44 AM PST by Mia T
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To: Mia T
Please remove my name from your "ping" list!
10 posted on 11/17/2002 11:02:32 AM PST by Chapita
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