By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, www.originalsources.com
October 20, 1998
Senator Orrin Hatch, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday there was not enough bipartisan consensus to impeach President Clinton, even though he believed there was enough evidence.
Sen. Hatch said "I'd like to resolve it in the best interests of the American people. That may be impeachment, it may not be. But you cannot have impeachment without a huge bipartisan consensus and right now there is no bipartisan consensus on impeachment that you consider significant enough to do it," Hatch, a Utah Republican, said on "Fox News Sunday."
Earlier this month the House voted 258-176 to launch an impeachment inquiry, which will focus on three core charges of lying under oath, witness tampering and obstruction of justice stemming from the investigation of Clinton's relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Hatch said the evidence pointed to impeachable offenses by Clinton. "I do believe that he will be impeached by the House of Representatives. The question is will the Senate do it ... but based upon what we have currently I cannot name one Democrat who is going to vote for impeachment." Impeachment requires a two-thirds Senate majority.
"If you look at the totality of the evidence that Ken Starr put forward there's enough here to impeach. You do have what appears to be perjury; you do have certainly lying to the court; you have (evidence of) witness tampering; you have evidence of obstruction of justice. Any one of those is an impeachable offense."
Just to recap how we got to this point, Paula Jones charged that Clinton exposed himself to her and asked her for oral sex inside a Little Rock hotel room in 1991. Clinton denies the allegations. When the story first broke in the press, before Paula Jones filed her lawsuit, she was almost universally trashed by the media - from both the left and the right. In fact, the story became public, not through Paula, but because of a story in the Conservative American Spectator, written by David Brock, which spoke of a "Paula" who was cooperative with a horny Governor Clinton. Paula Jones, determined to clear her name, filed a lawsuit against both the American Spectator and Bill Clinton.
Because she was the only woman other than Gennifer Flowers to go public with allegations against Clinton, Paula Jones was singled out for special venom by what appears to be a well developed Clinton attack machine. James Carville set the tone. "Drag hundred-dollar bills through a trailer park, there's no telling what you'll find," he said in 1994. For the better part of three years, Jones was dismissed in the mainstream press as a goldbricking stooge for Clinton-haters. The offensive worked so well that the Clinton attack machine became a bit over-cocky. They couldn't resist one more slam, even though in 1994 Jones' and Clinton's lawyers seemed to be on the verge of a settlement that would have had no money in it for Paula, only for her lawyers, and would have included a very vague statement about Paula having done nothing wrong.
At that point no one was actually taking Paula Jones seriously. Clinton's lawyers, and the media, and the public who were being misled by the media, never seemed to comprehend that there actually ARE people who care enough about their reputations to fight against a powerful political leader to clear their name - and that Paula Jones was one of them. The Clinton Attack Machine over-reached themselves, torpedoed the deal by leaking a false story to the media that Jones "knew she didn't have a case" and was settling. Again, both sides criticized Paula Jones when she got her back up and filed suit against Clinton.
That lawsuit led to Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky surfacing in the story. When her "friend" Monica began to pressure Linda Tripp to lie to the court when asked to testify in the Paula Jones case, Linda Tripp refused to do so. However, she also knew about the Clinton Attack machine and knew that it would be her word against the word of both Monica Lewinsky and the president of the United States. To be able to prove her statements, she began to secretly record conversations with Monica on the phone. It was those tapes of Linda Tripp that brought about the expansion of the Starr investigation into the Monica Lewinsky story.
_ And, of course, the lies, the obstruction of justice and abuse of power impeachment charges being considered now by the House of Representatives arose from actions of two ordinary women, Paula Jones and Linda Tripp, trying to defend themselves from the onslaught of both the national media and the Clinton Attack machine. Monica Lewinsky would have never agreed to tell the truth, had it not been for Linda's tapes.
At this point in time the Clinton Attack machine has moved to trying to trash Judge Kenneth Starr and to trying to convince the American people that since it is "only about sex" that it is not an "impeachable offense." That is tantamount to saying, it is "only about women" and therefore it is not an impeachable offense. Polls indicate that the attack machine again has been quite successful. Certainly the ploy has been successful among the Democrats if, as Orrin Hatch states, not one Senator is at this point willing to consider impeachment based on the story thus far.
There are Democrats in the Senate who believed, 24 years ago, that a president lying to cover-up a third rate burglary he knew nothing about, should be impeached. Bill Clinton himself, at the time a law professor in Arkansas and a candidate for a congressional seat, believed that lying to the media - not to a court of law - to the media - was an impeachable offense. But, there were no women involved in the Nixon story. It was the president lying to other men. If the lies are only about women, and destroying the reputation of women, we are told, they are of no consequence.
Yet, the feminist leaders, who claim to speak for all women, continue to support Bill Clinton because, they claim, they support his "policies." The most ardent supporters of Clinton we see in the media are females who seem to not only have PARTICIPATED in the trashing of two women who refused to lie for Bill Clinton, but have LED the trashing attacks. Greta Van Susteren of CNN immediately comes to mind.
One third of the Senate it up for election in just a couple of weeks. What happens after the election may very well depend on what women do in the polling booth on November 3rd. Most polls indicate, amazingly, that the majority of Clinton's support still comes from women. Yet, any woman who has read the Starr report, if she has any self-respect, will be outraged at the picture that it reveals of a 52 year old man using a 22 year old girl as a sex-slave. Perhaps, one might say, a foolish, amoral Monica Lewinsky deserved the treatment. But, what about women who wouldn't cooperate and whose lives have been trashed by the Clinton and his attack machine?
If there is no consequence for the President of the United States lying and obstructing justice in efforts to destroy women who ARE taking a moral stand and who ARE telling the truth, and only rewards for women who permit themselves to be sexually used and abused, and then lie in a court of law - just where does that leave thousands of women each year who find themselves having to depend on a court of law? Does it mean that men lying to courts in say, divorce cases, is OK, since it only involves women and sex? Aren't the Clinton supporters REALLY saying that women can be lied to and lied about - and it doesn't matter? Even when lives are destroyed?
In a word, when are women going to wake up in this country and understand that Clinton and the feminist leaders they are slavishly following him are treating them like dirt, while claiming to be concerned for their welfare?
Hopefully, enough will wake up between now and November 3rd to vote for candidates who believe that men lying to women is perhaps as important, or nearly as important, as men lying to men in a court of law.
To comment mmostert@originalsources.com