|
|
Bill Clinton Confronts Posterity
Ever mindful of his place in history, Bill Clinton assembled his Praetorian Guard in his Harlem office on Dec. 19 -- as The New York Times reported in a front-page story -- "to devise ways to remind the public of his accomplishments and defend his legacy."
His faithful former retainers have "agreed to compile a list of the Clinton administration's achievements that his supporters could have handy when defending the president. They hope to build a staff that will coordinate efforts to enlist former cabinet secretaries and other Clinton surrogates to appear on television talk shows and deliver speeches."
It is a daunting challenge, even though these hagiographers have had much experience in creative revisionism. They may be counting on the fact that so much has happened since the impeachment proceedings that they can slide by Clinton's artful sidestepping of the charges of obstruction of justice and tampering with witnesses.
On one of these television testimonials to the former president, some churl may bring up the fact that Arkansas Federal District Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled Clinton in contempt of court for undermining "the integrity of the judicial process" with "false answers" in his deposition in the Paula Jones case. But what did that have to do with the economic prosperity he brought us?
Despite his serial lies, it was William Jefferson Clinton, it should be remembered, who declared at the end of his first term, "One of my highest goals as president of the United States has been to protect the Constitution." Moreover, after the Senate declined to convict him of the articles of impeachment, although the evidence was clear, Clinton told the American Society of Newspapers editors: "On impeachment, I'm proud of what we did. I think we saved the Constitution of the United States."
Of course, with his wonderful sense of humor -- an asset his defense team should highlight -- Clinton also said to a dinner of radio and television correspondents: "Don't you newspeople ever learn? It isn't the mistake that kills you. It's the cover-up." His audience laughed on cue.
As for his devotion to the Constitution, the public should be reminded that it wasn't Attorney General John Ashcroft who instituted roving wiretaps in the current war against terrorism. In October 1998, Clinton signed a bill authorizing that surgery on the Fourth Amendment. And before President George W. Bush dispensed with habeas corpus in his original order setting up military tribunals, Clinton had already greatly weakened that fundamental right of judicial review in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.
That Clinton law also preceded the Bush-Ashcroft discounting of the Bill of Rights by allowing suspected terrorists to be deported without they or their lawyers being informed of the evidence against them. So much for the charge that Clinton was soft on terrorism. It was the Constitution he was soft on.
In its mission to bring The Comeback Kid closer to Mount Rushmore, his inventive band of acolytes ought to point out how he avoided excessive entanglements abroad. Like subsequent Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kofi Annan -- then in charge of the United Nations peacekeeping office -- Clinton was forewarned in 1994 of the imminent genocide in Rwanda in which 800,000 Tutsis were to be slaughtered in one month.
But Congressional elections were coming up, and the White House ordered that the word "genocide" was not be used because the president had decided not to intervene. Indeed, he delayed action by the United Nations, even though it would have taken only 5000 troops to stop the killing. A subsequent investigation by the United Nations admitted that the unfortunate situation could have been better handled if Kofi Annan had done his job. Clinton as well.
However, Bill Clinton, with an aplomb that few other presidents could have equaled, actually said four years later in Kigali, Rwanda's capital: "All over the world there were people like me sitting in offices, day after day, who did not appreciate the depth and speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror." Not even Henry Kissinger could have matched that.
It takes a person of extraordinary resilience and capacity for self-renewal to have made that speech in that place. These are qualities that should inspire the truth squad he has summoned. Also, I remember an ennobling moment on television when Denise Rich presented this jazz-knowledgeable president with a gleaming saxophone. The theme for the urgent current renaissance of William Jefferson Clinton could be that vintage New Orleans jazz anthem, "Oh, Didn't He Ramble." It was played at funerals, but the brass band swung exultantly on the way back to town
b.150m.com http://www.b.150m.com/ http://www.geocities.com/individualistanarchist/ geocities.com/individualistanarchist anarchy individualist anarchism individualist anarchist individualist anarchists libertarianism libertarian libertarians individual individualism individualists individualistanarchist@yahoo.com haarp tesla coils echelon tempest van eck hacking tools hackers hacker kevin mitnick crypto cryptographic decss software downloads denial of service attack cypherpunks cypherpunk crackers open source code linux bsd unix computer security network hong kong blondes laurie holden drool brigade blondie wong secret cells serialz death by ping cryptography exploits phreaking virus viruses herf emp electromagentic pulse electro-magnetic pulse phreaking digital millenium copy-right act copy right copy rights copyright copyrights copy-rights copy left copyleft copy-left patent patents intellectual property rights ip html computer languages personal privacy internet privacy encrypt encryption anonymity anonymous terrorism hijacking pentagon world trade center new york city anti war anti-war antiwar isolation isolationism isolationsist isolationists neutral neutrality peace du depleted uranium lysander spooner benjamin tucker mark austin murray rothbard george orwell max stirner david friedman nessie mikhail bakunan pierre-joseph proudhon william godwin josiah warren wendy mcelroy walter block thomas szasz brian caplan albert henry david thoreau j nock ayn rand ludwig von mises henry hazlitt milton friedman adam smith john locke frederic bastiat aristotle aristotelian aristotelians lao tsu patrick henry thomas jefferson george mason samuel adams george washington barry goldwater charles beard karl marx aldolf hitler nazi nazis nazism pol national socialism national socialist national socialists anti communism anti communist infiltration anti communists marxism marxist marxists anticommunist anticommunists anticommunism anti-communism anti-communist anti-communists altruism altrist altruists collectivism collectivist collectivists racist racism racists state statism statist statists liberalism liberal liberals liberalist neo-liberal neo-liberalism neo-liberals conservatism conservative conservatives neo-conservativism neo-conservative neo-conservatives national nation nations nationalism nationalist nationalists tradition traditions traditionalism traditionalist traditionalists revolution revolutions revolutionary revolutionaries reaction reactionary reactionaries democracy democracies democratic democrat democrats republic republics republican republicans republicanism progressive progressives progressivism progress radical radicals radicalism extreme extremism extremist extremists new right old right far right new left right wing fabian socialism fabian socialist fabian socialists fabian society fabians utilitarianism utilitarianist utilitarianists pragmatism pragmatist pragmatists pragmatic utopia utopias utopian utopians utopianism politics political party partiesenvironment environmental environmentalism environmentalist environmentalists ecology ecological ecologist ecologists global warming greenhouse green-house green house effect carbon dioxide cfc cfs ozone layer ozone hole science scientist scientists scientific physics sociology sociologist sociologists sociological psychology psychologist psychologists psychological anthropology debate debating discuss discussion discussing argue argues arguing argument arguments argumentation news papers individual rights individual freedom right natural rights natural law common law natural laws legal system private property personal property civil liberty civil liberties human right human rights constitution constituional right constitutional rights constitutionalism constitutionalist constituitionalists injustice injustices justice bill of rights free market free-market freemarket free-trade free trade commerce laissez-faire laissez faire economics economic economical economist austrian school of economics ethic ethics ethical moral morals morality virtue philosophy philospher philosophers ancient classical modern post-modern modernism subjective subjectivity subjectivism subjectivist subjectivists real reality realism realist realists ontology ontologies ontological epistemology epistemologies epistemological meta-physics meta physics meta physical meta-phyisical cosmology cosmologies cosmological analytic synthetic logic logical facts factual a priori a posteriori emperical empericism rational rationalism tabula rasa causality proposition propositions plato idea ideas ideal idealism idealist idealists ideology ideologist ideologists ideological theory theories theorist theorists religion religions atheism atheist atheists marijuana cannabis hemp lsd drugs drug war drug prohibition minarchism minarchist minarachists capital capitalism capitalist capitalists robert bob murphy jeremy sapienza rob moody justin raimondo alan bock brad edmonds lew rockwell lewrockwell lewrockwell.com gene callahan stephan kinsella david dieteman john stossel harry browne joseph sobran charley reese vin suprynowicz joseph farah world net daily alexander cockburn ralph raico paul craig roberts hans-hermann hoppe thomas sowell gore vidal joel miller ego egoism egoist egoists atlas shrugged the fountain head anthem john galt objective objectivism objectivist objectivists self selfish virtue of selfishness right to bear arms 2nd amendment second amendment militia citizen miltias gun control gun rights guns rifles firearms arms weapons m-16 sks ar-15 m-16 m-60 ak-47 pro anti abortion abortions pro-abortion anti-abortion pro-choice anti-choice choice woman womans rights fetus feteus unborn children unborn babies illuminatti cia central inteligence agency nsa national security agency fbi batf atf mi5 twa flight 800 crash waco janet reno bill clinton al gore george w bush jr alan greenspan jfk assassination politics david rockefeller henry kissinger zbigniew brzezinski cfr council on foreign relations trilateral commission secret societies bilderberg round table carroll quigley new world order world government un united nations wto world trade organization world band imf nato federal reserve central banking gold standard fiat currency fractional reserve banking fed cointelpro conspiracy theories government conspriracies undercover covert operations government secrecy infiltrate infiltrates infiltration weather warfare mind control microchip implants secret experimentation information disinformation john birch society new american senator joseph mccarthy joe mccarthy okc bombing ok city bombing tim mcveigh conspiracy? the oklahoma city bombing timmothy mveigh tyranny oppression emergency rule martial law fema federal emergency management federal government executive dictatorship police state military rule oppressive government posse comitatus act pcivil disobedience pearl harbor ron brown why anarchy requires private property the problem with socialist anarchism
