Word: mea
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
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...
...President did a poor job of expressing remorse over the Lewinsky affair to the nation, he's trying to do better with members of his own party. As TIME reports Monday, Clinton spent much of his Martha's Vinyard vacation dialing up top Democrats and piling on the mea culpas. Another public act of contrition is unlikely -- suggestions to that effect from top aides were shot down -- but Clinton does wish he'd been on the ball first time around. "The President admitted to us that the timing of his speech was probably not the best," Rep. Jim McGovern...
...angry? Too brief? Not repentant enough? Everyone's got an opinion about Bill Clinton's five-minute mea culpa, but a sharp divide is beginning to emerge between outraged pundits and the scandal-fatigued public. "The President was angrier and less contrite than anyone had expected," says TIME Washington correspondent Jef McAllister. "Most commentators were surprised that he didn't really apologize, went out of his way to deny committing perjury and attacked Ken Starr. Many people inside the Beltway will see his performance as almost arrogant, but the public is sick enough of the whole thing to accept...
WASHINGTON: At last, Bill Clinton came out and said it. "Indeed, I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky that was inappropriate. In fact, it was wrong." But that was as detailed as the President's five-minute mea culpa was going to get Monday night -- and by all accounts, not even his grand jury testimony mentioned the specifics. He came out fighting too. Attacks on the independent counsel peppered a speech that was "surprisingly defiant," according to TIME Washington correspondent Jay Branegan. "He's daring Ken Starr to subpoena him to get the rest of the testimony...
...That mea culpa would take some of the drama and steam out of the Aug. 17 appearance. It would affect public opinion, which would affect congressional opinion, which would affect the chances for impeachment and possibly Starr's own calculations. If any President has the communication skills to pull off this high-wire act, Clinton does. But that assumes that he and his wife could muster the will to set aside their loathing of Ken Starr long enough to ask for his mercy...