Word: legalism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...never proves that Clinton intended to lie--a requirement for perjury. One rebuttal says Starr's real complaint about Clinton's gifts testimony is that he "was not more forthcoming," which doesn't count as perjury. Perhaps realizing all this sounds like hairsplitting, lawyer Charles Ruff told reporters that "legal language" doesn't diminish the President's apologies...
...irreducibly human facts of the case, as detailed in Kenneth Starr's report, are liable to be lost as readers weigh competing legal claims or gasp at the long train of sexual detail. Of course, the report tilts heavily toward Monica's side of the tale, the President having declined to discuss the relationship with any specificity--an unaccustomed act of gallantry, perhaps. Even so, we know enough of his role to give this one passage from the report particular poignancy: "Whereas the President testified that 'what began as a friendship came to include [intimate contact],' Ms. Lewinsky explained that...
Like most marriages, the Clintons' is a mystery, only more so. How can she stand his repeated betrayals? Does she yearn for power that much, or does she, in the words of Sara Ehrman, the friend who reluctantly drove her across the country from a promising legal career in Washington to instant obscurity practicing law in Arkansas, still "love him something awful"? The Clintons nearly separated in the late '80s, after the then Governor had an affair. But several years ago, a friend noticed that the marriage was much improved. "Hillary liked living above the store. He was under...
Impeachment is as much a political as a legal process. It is where the sacrament of penance becomes politically relevant. Clinton performed miserably in his first public ceremonies of repentance, but then last Friday, at the White House prayer breakfast, delivered at last a persuasive peccavi, mea culpa. It was fascinating to watch the President's speech with a window at the bottom of the television screen showing the Dow Jones average moving like an electrocardiogram. The Dow was in losing territory when the Clinton started speaking, and rose steadily into the plus column as he went...
...scandal, even presidential scandal, is not indefinite, and after such hypersaturation, Americans may find themselves not only ultimately bored by the Clinton-Lewinsky affair but also indignant at Kenneth Starr's sadistically detailed report. Americans may conclude it was not necessary for Starr, in order to make his legal point, to engage in such a pornographic narrative...