Please join in the Valley of the Shadow Annual Fundraiser. We are raising $7,700. Please hit the Tip Jar here to contribute. Thank you.
----------------------------------------------
In 1998, President William Clinton was cited for Perjury during Impeachment. The word of the day back then, was "Perjury is fine," This statement was supported by the Press and academia.
Now we have a charge of Perjury against Lewis Libby. If perjury is fine against a Grand Jury in President Clinton's case, why is it wrong now?
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
5 comments:
Welcome to the Valley! Please comment about the post and keep to the subject.
There is only one person (JSF) keeping track of comments, so as long as what you write is civil and close to the purpose of the post, you will see it.
Keep this in mind: Politics should not be Personal; then you have a place here.
Write! History will remember your words!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
LinkWithin
I think what you lack here is perspective. Both men were guilty of lying under oath, and in both cases they were wrong. But there are degrees of seriousness. Clinton lied about a sex question which never should have been asked in the first place. Libby lied about playing politics with the lives of people who were telling the truth about the administration manipulating the world into going to war with Iraq. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which one of these is a more serious problem.
ReplyDeleteAnd isn't it all too typical of a republican to face a serious problem within the Bush administration with yet more of the same tired old Clinton stuff? Bush is your mess, and nothing that Clinton ever did is relevant to what a complete and utter failure you pushed upon this country.
But Jason, is Perjury a crime or not? This also goes back to the 90's where Senator Bob Packwood was accused of sexual harrasment, as was President Bill Clinton, yet Bill Clinton got a pass on all his accusations from NOW. Do the rules not apply to Democrats?
ReplyDeletePerjury was a crime then and now. I don't remember anyone saying it was fine before. I didn't and don't. But this all reminds me of my father telling my brother "You should never lie to a woman to get her to sleep with you, but you can kid them a little."
ReplyDeleteI don't recall saying that it's not a crime. I'm saying that there are degrees of seriousness and a lie about sex isn't even in the same universe of seriousness as Libby's lies.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of the nature of the perjury committed. The Constitution of the United States makes no distinctions, as Justice Harlan wrote in his powerful dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)
ReplyDeleteBut in view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful.
This view has been enshrined in American jurisprudence since the earliest days of the Republic, as asserted by Chief Justice Marshall in Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S.(1 Cranch) 137 (1803)
The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.
This ideal has endured and will continue to endure for generations to come.