Letters to the Editor
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But who cares if he did it too anyway?
Wasn't the Bush administration supposed to bring back accountability and personal responsibility and ethics and all that other stuff they don't really give a damn about? In other words, wasn't the Bush administration supposed to be BETTER?
I'm sure someone must have already said this somewhere, but even if clinton DID commit perjury, SO WHAT?!?! What material effect does that have on THIS case?
this playground mentality is really getting out of hand.
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Criminals.gov
It amazes me, endlessly, as much as it outrages me when there are comparisons between the Clinton administration and the Bush crime syndicate. In matters of law and morality, Clinton lied about a blowjob, Bush lied about reasons for entering into a war that has claimed more then half a million lives. I could go on... but it's damn hot today, and I'm just too disgusted.
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"Clinton did it too"
...is not a valid legal defense. Are we really becoming that collectively immature?
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Irrelevant
It doesn't matter what Clinton did. This is a prime example of the "Two Wrongs make a Right" fallacy, the same one that is used to justify torture ("they did it first").
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By Noah's logic...
...we might as well just do away with the justice system itself. Is it really fair that ANYBODY should be sentenced for perjury if a sitting president was not? If the answer to that is "No", then we have to do away with the concept of perjury entirely and depend on people's innate honesty to get evidence in trials. Whether Clinton perjured himself and whether he should have been tried is a separate issue that has been debated ad nauseum. Libby was tried. He was found guilty.
If Clinton should be tried, then try him and let the courts sort it out. Saying "he did it too, and he didn't get grounded" is an ineffective argument that a 4th grader makes for playing hooky, not an argument that should apply to the most powerful adults in the nation.
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Certainly aggravating
It's certainly aggravating to hear right wingers blithely spouting off about about how "Clinton committed perjury" without the least awareness of the actual legal definitions that make the assertion so highly questionable. This is just one of countless instances of how the right wing noise machine manages to pollute our public discourse with their questionable or outright false assertions which, unfortunately, all too often are not effectively challenged.
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completely agree Oxymoron
Even if you agree that Clinton perjured himself - I do not - than all you are saying is that we have had 2 lawless administrations in a row. When you add in that this lawless administration has watched an American city be destroyed, has launched a war under false pretenses, has completely mutilated are system of government by appointing political hacks to key positions, and has use government offices for political and economic gain - there is no comparison.
But just to be safe - vote Edwards or Obama in 2008 ;)
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Any kid can tell you..
the excuse that it was ok to do something because some other kid did it, is a bad one. So as a kid, it is an excuse, as an adult it is precedent?
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Key Difference
The key difference between these two administrations is illustrated in this post, but in the subtext.
Clinton testified not just under oath, in front of a grand jury, but it was TELEVISED.
Bush and everybody else in the administration would never do such a thing. They are above the legal system, whereas Clinton subjected himself to it when it was right for him to do so. There was a joke on Conan around that time about Clinton resigning, Gore pardoning him and appointing him VP, and then resigning himself, only to be appointed VP again. Status quo isn't touched, and Clinton doesn't have to be held accountable. A great gag in the '90s.
Does anybody really doubt that this administration would actually do something like that? The only point where the logic breaks down is that Bush would never let himself get that close to accountability.
I also wonder about Ford's plenary pardon, and whether we'll see a repeat of that in Jan. 2009.
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Judge Suggested Clinton Did Not Lie; Starr Investigation Itself Criminal
During the deposition, the judge actually said the questions were so poorly and confusingly worded that Clinton did not understand them. So the issue of even lying is not entirely clear.
Also, not only did the judge declare that testimony about Lewinsky was not material to the case, she later dismissed the entire case.
The Independent Counsel statute specifies that the standards governing investigation and prosecution were those to be used in ordinary cases by U.S. Attorneys. There is no case on record of a federal criminal prosecution of alleged perjury about a non-material matter in a case that was dismissed (in effect, a non-case). This falls under the "trifles" in that "the law does not concern itself with trifles."
Starr and his minions manufactured a phony case in violation of the Independent Counsel statutes, and used government money to pursue a private vendetta against Clinton. This is itself is at best an abuse of power and at worst a criminal act. They did this because there was no real case to made.
Additionally, using public money for a private purpose is embezzling. That is a real, undisputable crime. The real criminals in the Starr investigation were the independent prosecutor and the judges who enabled him to continue this bogus case, mounted for private, not public purposes, and loot the Tresury of scores of millions of dollars.
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Accepted Wisdom
It is not only Tim Noah of Slate that is starting to pull out this argument. While the Washington Post's editorial page ultimately comes out against the Libby commutation, it uses both Clinton's alleged lies and Sandy Berger's lies about sneaking documents out of the national archives to imply that Libby's sentence was too harsh. Clinton's pardons or Marc Rich and others are also being bandied about. While none of the arguement hold up on their own, if enough scenarios are thrown around they are bound to start obscuring yet another abuse of power, which I suppose is the point.
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Argumentum ad Hominem
Any critical thinker worth his or her weight (and this should definitely include columnists/pundits--although ha! it almost never does) should know that attacking the opponent with a red herring like this one is absolutely not part of a valid argument. I mean, it's a nice diversionary tactic, but doesn't really get to the meat of the actual, existing argument.
The question to ask such a person is: "Um, okay, but we're not talking about Clinton. What did you think about what Bush did himself?"
When he or she won't answer that one, you'll have your real answer, which is that they don't have a real refutation.
It's like the first letter writer indicated. What the hell does Clinton have to do with something with that Bush just did?
Nothing, actually. It's just a spurious attack to redirect the argument away from what's actually happening. It's poor critical thinking and also kind of cowardly. Dealing with the argument at hand is much more gutsy. That columnist really should be looking for new lines of work if he can't do better.