Word: starrs
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Bill Clinton did something ordinary: he had an affair and lied about it. Ken Starr did something extraordinary: he took the President's low-life behavior and called it a high crime. Clinton argued that privacy is so sacred that it included a right to lie so long as he did it very, very carefully. Starr argued that justice is so blind that once he saw a crime being committed, he had no choice but to pursue the bad guy through the Oval Office, down the hall to the private study, whatever the damage, no matter the cost...
...rewriting the book on crime and punishment, for putting prices on values we didn't want to rank, for fighting past all reason a battle whose casualties will be counted for years to come, Bill Clinton and Kenneth Starr are TIME's 1998 Men of the Year...
...that viewed itself as the public's conscience became the object of its scorn. Hillary Clinton, who for years had been vilified for leveraging the power of her marriage, was extolled for having handled with grace its public ruin and so finds herself loved for reasons she hates. Ken Starr, who was once viewed as too moderate to beat Oliver North in a Senate race, was recast as a zealot who twisted the law into a vendetta; he finds himself hated for reasons he can't understand...
...among the players, the one who remained unchanged and unchanging was Bill Clinton. Many people had long ago concluded that he was a rogue and a cheat and impervious to pain; this year he was himself, only more so. Even people who revile his reflexes acknowledge his charm. Ken Starr marvels at how attractive the President is, like a hunter who wants to pet the lion before he shoots...
...Starr, while aware of Clinton's charm, held a different view of his conduct. Though he would never quite say so, he came to see the President as the elusive head of a vast criminal enterprise, who over the past four years of investigation would admit nothing, hold back evidence, block inquiry--all the while professing to cooperate in public while destroying his adversary's reputation in private. To the righteous defenders of law and order, Clinton's not one of us. He's one of them...