By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources
September 22, 1998
Yesterday Kenneth Starr identified "Clinton's Three Lies" in his Videotaped testimony - three instances of perjury to the federal grand jury. All three instances involve Clinton's extraordinarily legalistic definition of what constitutes "sexual relations." It required graphic sexual language in questions by the Independent Counsel to establish the fact that the President of the United States, a man long hailed as an unusually brilliant Rhodes Scholar candidate in his youth, did not appear to have the same definition of sex as the rest of the human race.
While we did not see members of Kenneth Starr's staff, or Kenneth Starr himself as they patiently, ploddingly posed questions trying to determine Clinton's definition of sex. Undoubtedly the average American male was embarrassed and uncomfortable with the questions posed.
Lie number one, according to Starr is simply: Oral sex is not sex.
"Mr. President," Clinton was asked during his August 17th testimony, "Is oral sex performed on you within that definition as you understood it?"
"As I understood it, it was not, no," the president answered.
We had been hearing rumors that the President of the United States had said that. Monday we heard it with our own ears. The "definition" that Clinton kept referring to was what Lawyers in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case defined as "sexual relations" as engaging in or causing "contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh or buttocks of any person..."
But the president said, "If the deponent is the person who has oral sex performed on him, then the contact is with -- not with anything on that list -- but with the lips of another person."
In his opening statement Clinton gave his definition of "sexual relations" as: "These encounters did not consist of sexual intercourse. They did not constitute sexual relations as I understood that term to be defined in my January 17 1998 deposition. "But they did involve inappropriate intimate contact."
" Starr didn't buy that explanation. "That testimony is not credible. At the Jones deposition, the president could not have believed he was telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," the independent counsel wrote to Congress. The president's lawyers said in rebuttal that oral sex "plainly" falls outside the Jones definition.
The second lie, according to Starr: It was a one-way relationship. The president seemed to deny kissing Lewinsky's breasts or touching her breast or groin to arouse or gratify was "sexual relations." He appears to admit to "inappropriate intimate contact" but not a "sexual relation."
"So you didn't do any of those three things with Monica Lewinsky?" Clinton was asked. "You are free to infer that my testimony is that I did not have sexual relations, as I understood this term to be defined," Clinton answered. "Including, touching her breast, kissing her breast, or touching her genitalia?" prosecutors asked again. "That's correct," Clinton said.
The third lie, Starr says, is implicit, not explicit: When did the "sexual relations" or "Inappropriate intimate contact" begin? Monica Lewinsky says it began November 15, 1995 when she was an intern. Clinton said in the prepared statement he read to the Grand Jury: "When I was alone with Ms. Lewinsky on certain occasions in early 1996 and once in early 1997, I engaged in conduct that was wrong," Clinton admitted in a prepared statement he read during his grand jury testimony.
Monica Lewinsky said the president tugged at her intern credentials saying that could be "a problem." She said only by their third encounter, on the last day of 1995, was she a full member of the White House staff.
Starr claims the president lied about the dates to cover up the fact that the affair began when Lewinsky was a 22-year-old intern.
Clinton's lawyers call that allegation "frivolous" and said the discrepancy in dates is "an utterly immaterial statement."
The questioning attorneys seemed genuinely baffled by these answers. They clearly did not fit into their legal definitions and the discrepancies present legal problems. Did he or did he not commit perjury or obstruct justice? Undoubtedly that will be resolved in the Congress of the United States. It is a legal and a political problem.
However, the bombshell in all this is the cultural implications if the President's definition is widely adopted in our culture. At stake in our culture's definition of sex, and its legal and cultural value. What's it for? What exactly is our current culture's role for men and women? Is there one? Does is matter whether or not one gender uses another merely for physical gratification - without love, without appreciation, accountability or responsibility?
In effect, according to the President, Monica was performing a sexual service. By his own statements, he was treating her as a sex slave. Anything he did was for HIS arousal or gratification - not hers - therefore it was not "sexual relations." It was entirely one-sided. There was no "relations" because, in Clinton's mind, there was no connection or meaning in the act. He was in no way treating Monica as a person. She was an object for his gratification.
Obviously, Monica had a different view, although by now, if she watched his testimony, she may be beginning to comprehend how Clinton used and degraded her. Her feelings, her foolish infatuation, are of no consequence.
If the President of the United States is traditionally a role model, exactly what is the role he modeled in that video to teen-age boys of America? What was he telling the boys of America to expect of girls? What was making the men so uncomfortable as they watched was the ownership and degradation of women as a legal "right" for a man.
There was no feeling for Monica, for Paula Jones, for Kathleen Willey, for Gennifer Flowers - or for his wife and daughter displayed anywhere in his testimony. Monica, Paula, Kathleen and Gennifer were each portrayed by Clinton, in turn, as political enemies that were trying to destroy him.
Rep. Dick Armey, speaking over the week-end to a gathering of the Christian Coalition addressed this degradation of women in a story he credited to his wife. "I knew I was in trouble when she started out, 'Listen, Buster.'" Armey told the group. "I think she was speaking for the women of American when she said, 'If you ever do anything like that, you will wake up in a pool of blood with me asking you, How do you re-load this thing?" The audience, especially the women in the audience, enthusiastically applauded.
With each question about gifts given, notes written, ties worn that Monica gave him, asked by the Independent Counsel, Bill Clinton showed his utter disinterest and disregard for the emotional aspects of his "inappropriate intimate contact." Monica thought she was in love. And, she thought Bill Clinton cared about her. Alas, Monica, lust is not love. Predatory males like Bill Clinton won't even remember your name a week or so after their last sexual use of you.
Most women, at some time in their lives, run into a shallow, selfish, dangerous men like Bill Clinton. If they are lucky, they will spot them before the are used by them. Obviously, Mrs. Armey is a woman who can spot them. Unfortunately, the majority of the women of America, who voted to put Bill Clinton in the White House, failed to spot the cad beneath Bill Clinton's smooth words.
The hour is late, but in a few weeks, women of America, you will have an opportunity to vote. If you are tired of being manipulated by men like Bill Clinton who use women as sex toys and by so-called "feminists" who excuse the kind of sexual manipulation practiced by Bill Clinton and his supporters, check out the Congressional and State candidates running in the November General Election. (See candidates and issues in your State at: http://www.originalsources.com) Vote for honorable men and women who stand for principles and who show by their actions, not their rehearsed words written by spindoctors, that they respect women and that they care about their families.
And, men of America, speak up! Many of you are. Without putting your finger on the core issue, you have sensed that there is far more to this issue than legalistic wrangling over the words "sexual relations." What is at stake is the family and your important role in it. Boys who grow up with the kind of example shown by village chief Bill Clinton, become the gang rapists and people users we are finding in growing numbers in many of our cities today.
President Gordon B. Hinckley, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said it well a couple of weeks ago on CNN in response to Larry King's question: Larry King asked, "What does this tribulation the President is in say or do to children?"
Hinkley responded, "It has a corrosive influence on almost everybody. It's damaging to children. They can't watch television without bumping into it. Children need help these days. Families need strengthening." He went on to say, "The greatest problem facing this nation I believe is what's happening to the American home. It's falling apart. Families are falling apart all over the world." He urged that fathers take their rightful place as head of the family which prompted Larry King to ask, "You mean that fathers should be the boss?"
"No, I don't mean they should be a boss! No!" President Hinckley shot back, "I've been a father. You've been a father. Did you run around bossing people?"
"No," Larry King responded meekly.
"Of course not!" President Hinckley said. "You acted with love and appreciation ...."
Larry King interjected, "Family unity."
Gordon B. Hinckley replied, "Family unity. People have abdicated their responsibilities. Fathers have."
Love and appreciation. That a far cry from the lurid sex for sex's sake we are being subjected to in the Clinton videotape. Love and appreciation, guys, is what the women wish they could find in men. Love and appreciation is what is totally absent in the treatment of women, both public and private, by William Jefferson Clinton. The women's agenda for the 21st century has to be more than the right to kill the fruit of our wombs to let the guys off the hook. It's got to begin, as Gordon B. Hinckley said, with love and appreciation among husbands and wives - in the home.
(For complete article go to: http://originalsources.com/OS9-98MQC/9-9-1998.1.shtml - Bill Clinton and the Mormon Prophet)
To Comment: mmostert@originalsources.com