MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (EP) — Finally, a scandal in the Clinton Administration has captured the public’s imagination. Turning the White House into a high-rent “Motel 6” for wealthy contributors didn’t do it. Selling foreign policy to the highest bidder couldn’t hold our attention. All that real estate law and banking policy stuff in the Whitewater scandal was just too hard to follow. But sex with a 21-year-old intern? Now that’s news!
Despite the extensive coverage of this scandal, there are still more questions than answers in the “fornigate” scandal.
How will it end? Although there is widespread talk of a “threat” to Clinton’s presidency, resignation and impeachment seem to be equally unlikely scenarios. Clinton has raised the concept of a “teflon presidency” to new heights.
Did Clinton have sex with Lewinsky? It seems very likely. Even without his track record, Clinton’s own behavior would be more than suspicious. He waited days before issuing his denial with welll-rehearsed outrage—hardly the actions of an innocent. Meanwhile, his staff can’t get its story straight. Some say Lewinsky was a mediocre worker who couldn’t spell, had trouble with computers and wasted her time with chit-chat and personal calls. But others say she was an extraordinary worker whose great potential led to personal gifts from Clinton and a series of job interviews arranged by Clinton’s high-powered lawyer friend.
Did Clinton tell Lewinsky to lie about their affair? Again, almost certainly. Although her sworn affidavit said there was no affair, she has talked about an affair to friends. She said Clinton had urged her to lie in conversations secretly recorded by Linda Tripp, and I she also shows a knowledge of legal precedents in perjury cases surprising for one who had not been briefed by the powers that be. Suborning perjury and obstruction of justice are the sort of thing that brought down the White House.
Will Lewinsky testify? Sure she will. The real question is what she will say. If she testifies that Clinton told her to lie, it could spell real trouble. If she merely says that they had an affair, Clinton will weather the storm, explaining that he believed that what they were doing didn’t technically count as sex. There’s a third option as well, one that some clever White House aide has almost certainly laid out for her: she says that she told the truth in her affidavit and lied to Tripp. It’s already clear that Lewinsky lied to someone. If she maintains r that she invented the whole affair to impress a co-worker, she’s off the hook for perjury and the whole problem disappears.
These are all good questions, but the question that may matter the most is this: Why don’t the American people care?
Despite evidence suggesting that Clinton is a lying philanderer, polls show the President with his highest job approval ratings of ever—73 percent according to a CBS poll; 68 percent according to the Los Angeles Times. How can this be?
Quite simply, we’ve lost our moral compass. The idea that our own private lives should be ignored is so appealing that we’re abortions willing to pay for it by ignoring the private lives of our leaders. If there was any question that we are living in a post-Christian era, it should now be erased.
OLYMPIA, Wash. (EP) — The State of Washington is the 27th to pass a law which denies same-sex unions the single legal status as marriage. Like the federal Defense of Marriage Act, the law defines marriage as a union of one man and one woman. It also denies recognition to same-sex “marriages” performed in other states. The law was passed by the state legislature and vetoed by the governor, but the veto was over-ridden within just a few hours.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (EP) — The American Bar Association voted Feb. 2 to indefinitely postpone plans to formulate a policy on the legal status of frozen embryos. “It’s a tough issue I urge you to put…[it] in the deep freezer,” attorney Kenneth Young told the ABA’s policy making House of Delegates. The proposal under consideration would have urged judges in divorce cases to grant custody of a frozen embryo to a spouse who favors bringing it to term, rather than to a spouse who wants to destroy the embryo or store it indefinitely. An estimated 10,000 frozen embryos are created in the US each year.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (EP) — Minors would find it harder to escape restrictive abortion laws by going to another state, under a bill proposed by Rep. Heana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Miami). The “Child Custody Protection Act” is the companion bill filed in the Senate by Sen. Spence Abraham (R-Mich.). “This legislation would make it a federal crime for an adult to transport a minor across state lines for an abortion so as to circumvent state parental consent laws regarding abortion,” said Ros-Lehtinen. At least 22 states have parental notifications or consent laws which restrict availability of abortions to minors.