Word: starrs
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...rules of dueling provide that the accused party gets to pick the time, the place and the weapons. But Ken Starr and Bill Clinton have been circling each other for months; each wants the match to take place on his own preferred ground. As long as this has remained a legal contest fought with briefs and staged in a courtroom, Starr has been winning every round. And so all year long, the President's seconds have looked for a way to move the whole bout to a friendlier venue, such as the boiling floor of the House of Representatives, where...
Last week the White House was forced to spend more time shaping the strategy, because it was losing on the law. Starr has prevailed in his challenges to force presidential confidant Bruce Lindsey and adviser Sidney Blumenthal to testify, along with Secret Service agents, despite White House assertions of special privilege. And Starr asked the Supreme Court to skip the appeals process and hear arguments by the end of this month on the whole privilege question. He also went about gathering Monica Lewinsky's bookstore receipts, fingerprints and handwriting samples, amassing evidence for the day he finally confronts...
Right now, Ken Starr's probably wringing his hands and wondering whether anyone else has noticed that these days, when it comes to Truth, Justice and the American Way, Justice -- as in the Juducial Branch -- seems to be doing most of the talking. Well, Ken, it was the Supreme Court who brought you Monica, and Judge Johnson who let you get all the way up the ladder with Bruce Lindsey and the Secret Service. But SCOTUS giveth, and SCOTUS taketh away. As one lucky criminal (not a President) says with heavy irony in The Star Chamber (1983), "God bless...
...those in the White House who prefer to delay things -- and that's most of them -- this is fantastic news," says TIME White House correspondent Karen Tumulty. "Starr wanted to present an airtight case to Congress this summer; now he'll have to wait for these decisions at least until fall. And Republicans won't touch the issue anywhere near the elections; whatever case Starr had would be immediately politicized and be robbed of its credibility...
...Which leaves the President off the hook until January. Unless... "This puts the pressure squarely on Monica for now," says Tumulty. "If Starr can cut a deal with her and get her to talk, he has a shot at building a case this summer." The problem with that is that Monica Lewinsky, by herself, does not an airtight case make. It seems much more likely that Starr will wait it out -- and thus our long national nightmare has just gotten quite a bit longer...