Monday, September 14, 1998 -- Sex! Sex! and More Sex! The Spice Channel? Playboy After Dark? The Howard Stern Show?

Try: Sunday morning "public affairs" programming. And what affair could be more public than that which the President has admitted to?

Lets go to the pap:

Fox News Sunday

"Ken Starr provides sordid details, the President pleads for forgiveness." Thus proclaimed Tony Snow at the top of the broadcast, as he announced a change from the usual format as they "covered the Clinton crisis."

It would turn out to be one of the least effective FNS broadcasts of the year -- the transparent posturing and grandstanding about the entire imbroglio being much, much more than a sex scandal got monotonous quickly.

Sen-"neater" Trent Lott (R-MI) was the first guest, and he lived up to his reputation as a Clinton foe, but seemed strangely low-key in not going for the throat.

Tony: "Do you think the President lied about sex?"

Was there a need to ask this question, Tony? The president ADMITTED as much!

Lott: "The evidence is overwhelming."

Tell us something we don't know, Trent. In response to Tony's question about whether the President perjured himself: "It appears the evidence would support that." He went on to cite as an example a judge removed for perjury for lying to a Grand Jury about a crime he was found not guilty of.

Not so fast, Trent: that case is so circumstantially different from the President's situation that it is worthless as an example. And the so-called "perjury" in the Paula Jones case is the result of the Jones attorneys screwing up in THEIR "parsing of words." It's pathetic and would never stand up in court.

Of course, impeachment is a different story: it's a political process, so you'll do everything you can to turn the President's attempt to conceal an affair in a politically trumped-up sexual harassment suit in which the President was in fact the harassee into some kind of high crime of state.

The perjury charges were played up to the hilt by members of the GOP and key Starr allies all weekend. This appears to be the primary battleground on which any impeachment fight will be fought -- at least for now.

Brit Hume made us laugh out loud when he asserted "an ordinary citizen would go to jail." In a deposition in a civil case? Especially one that got laughed out of court after Jones contradicted her original charges -- and looks to have committed multiple instances of perjury herself? Your pap is a lie, Brit -- only a tiny fraction of instances of such perjury ever reach trial, and practically none of those who end up being found guilty go to jail.

Lott later said, "There is no Constitutional crisis... this is a Clinton crisis."

Please. It's a Constitutional crisis because your right-wing pal Starr abused his power, leaking like a sieve along with his staff in an effort to smear the President. Starr created the crisis, almost certainly by committing felony violations of rule 6(e).

Lott went on to claim that Clinton was "Aggressively attacking through his lawyers... splitting legal hairs."

Are you saying Clinton does not have a right to exercise legal defenses, especially when an out-of-control "special prosecutor" has demonstrated a pattern of abusive behavior? When Lott claimed that Clinton's team has commenced a "a process of attacks" stating "this is a smear... that is not good."

Not good for "get-Clinton" kooks who fear that the truth will turn public opinion against Starr, his allies, the GOP... and not good for you, Trent, who would be booted back to the Mississippi backwaters.

Brit Hume asked another boner: "Can [Clinton] in the eyes of Southern Baptist be repentant while continuing these attacks?"

In the words of Albert Schweitzer, "Duuuuuuuh!" We believe he is entirely sincere in his contrition -- and has every right to righteously attack those who have smeared him in an attempt to overturn the will of the people.

When asked about articles of impeachment and/or hearings before the end of this congress, Lott replied "I don't see any way"... betraying the GOP strategy to drag this out as long as possible, maybe even throwing in an expansion of an impeachment inquiry into Whitewater, Filegate and Travelgate, where Starr has apparently scored a big goose-egg after over $50 million of your tax dollars at work.

The following segment, featuring Reps. John Dingell (D-MI) and John Boehner (R-OH). It had its moments.

Boehner asserted "Starr had to go into some level of detail to prove his case" -- pure pap. This is a major OIC/GOP "spin" point on Starr's motives for going into competition with Harold Robbins -- that is at odds with a large number of constitutional scholars who have said the same in the press.

Dingell countered with his opinion that the matter can be resolved before the next Congress in both the House and Senate in a "speedy, fair and open" manner -- the key spin point of Clinton's allies.

Dingell also recalled the last impeachment crisis: "I have only had to confront this once before Watergate" and the present situation is a matter of "official wrongdoing vs. personal peccadilloes" -- a position very much in line with the Ruff/Kendall rebuttal issued Saturday.

Boehner returned to the issue of perjury allegations, saying two things are troubling -- in the Paula Jones case "[he] rose his hand and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" [lawdy, those GOPers love to invoke oaths -- I'd love to see them tell nothing but the truth to their constituents. That'll be the day!], and in January he said " 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman...' He could have told us in January... he undercut his ability to lead this nation."

Right, sure, Boehner. He could have been a cad and humiliated Lewinsky and her family -- not to mention the pain he would have publicly caused his family. And when he "rose" his hand at the Jones deposition, he should have extended his middle digit to the neo-fascist Rutherford cult creeps, the Jones attorneys, Susan Carpenter McBimbo and Jones herself, who we believe committed enough perjury in her own testimony for a full season of The Practice.
We had another fit of laughter over Boehner's boner: "His paid attack dogs have done everything to delay."

Another silly spin point -- especially when you consider Starr, a part-time prosecutor, seems to be in no rush to exonerate the Clintons on Whitewater or any of the other so-called "scandals" he has been accused of, and when five out of every six pundits on the all-news cable spew are blonde attack dogs saying the same spin lines paid for by Richard Mellon Scaife.

But don't count on any of the network Sunday shows telling you this. Ironically, if it were said, it would be more likely to be heard on Fox News Sunday.

The best segment on FNS featured Cheryl Mills, Deputy White House Legal Counsel. The segment was supposed to focus on the President's rebuttal -- but Tony and Mara had other ideas.

Tony asked Mills a provocative question right up front: "Is Starr guilty of malfeasance?"

We think he's guilty of far worse than malfeasance, Tony. Mills handled the question by getting on message, saying "I don't think this is about Judge Starr, I think this is about the report." The real question, she continued, is whether this referral supports charges rising to high crimes and misdemeanors -- that is, crimes of state.

One of Tony's favorite questioning tactics is to put words in the interviewee's mouth. Check out the following exchange...

Tony: "Do you accept [the sexual episodes in the Starr report] as factually accurate?"

Mills: "Well, we haven't actually seen all of the facts; what we have, actually, is an edited version of the facts. The facts are all the information that support what is in Mr. Starr's report. And this report is a piece of..."

Tony (interrupting): "But surely if it was false, the President would just say it was false. You would be able to do that [Tony's predicate to setting up Mills]."

Mills: "No... [The president] does not want legal language to obscure the fact that what he did was wrong, and he is acknowledging what he did was wrong and he sought forgiveness. But there are particular standards that have to be met as to whether or not there is the groundwork that that's been laid for initiation of proceedings of a type that everyone has been discussing -- and that groundwork is what we are looking at. And we don't believe that that groundwork has been laid. That doesn't mean the President's behavior wasn't wrong and that he's not intensely remorseful for what has happened."

[Here it comes!] Tony: "So all those things are true?"

Mills: "No. I think that's different. You keep asking what's true -- I can't possibly know what's true. I haven't seen all of the evidence."

Our "Spin-terpretation" of Mills's answer: "You bonehead! You and your right-wing pals keep trying to imply that the Starr referral is true with spin lines like 'the facts in the Starr report yadda yadda.' YOU can't possibly know what's true yet are all too eager to pass on any leaks you read in The Drudge Report. Oh, yes... you also look like a JERK putting words in my mouth. I thought you were smarter than that, Tony."

Tony and cohort Mara Liasson dragged on for too long trying to make a "point" about the President using verbal gymnastics to avoid admitting sex during his deposition in the Paula Jones case. Mills wisely and cleverly used the opportunity to turn the issue around -- that the President had admitted to improper conduct and has sought forgiveness. Toward the end of the exchange, Tony asked "Legally, you're saying, according to the law, he didn't have sex with Monica Lewinsky?"

It was uproarious -- Tony and Mara trying at every opportunity to make Clinton's legal defense look like some sort of crime, and Mills telegraphing a message these two don't want to hear -- Clinton's come clean.

Eventually, talk turned to Monica, the goal being to set up a "he said, she said." Again, a big goose-egg for Tony and Mara.

Mara: "...The president, when he testified in August before the Grand Jury, says no, we didn't engage in those kind of activities. Does that mean Ms. Lewinsky is lying?"

Mills: "Well, look, we haven't attacked Ms. Lewinsky in seven months and we're not about to start now. We haven't seen the evidence, we don't know what she said and we don't have a way to evaluate what she said." She followed that up with her two points: the President admitted personal misconduct, and it does not rise to a crime of state.

Tony looked ridiculous when he pulled up one of Fox's suspect polls that asked "Given recent developments, what was the truth in the Jones' case?" Result: "Now that American people -- up to 60 percent said he propositioned her." Which 60%? Bet they're all holy rollers in Virginia and North Carolina who watch the 700 Club -- and have no clue that it's been reported Clinton attorney Bob Bennett has convincing evidence that Jones's story is bogus.

Mills's final comment pretty much summed up Tony's impertinent poll: "We have his report, we can challenge his report, and we can let his report speak for itself."

Panel time was an orgy of Clinton-bashing and prognostication of doom for the President. Choice chunks o' pap:

Juan Williams: "Kendall is skating on the thinnest of ice and in danger of sinking deep any moment. But his argument is that the President didn't intend to lie, that he just didn't quite understand the parameters that had been set by the judge from Arkansas, Susan Webber Wright."

Surprise -- we think the President may well "reassign" Kendall once his team to combat impeachment on the political front is in place. It's also refreshing to see Juan say -- if only implicitly -- that Clinton was not the only party "parsing words' during the Jones deposition.

He should have mentioned Jones's semi-competent attorneys, who were stupid enough to agree with the definition. Of course, the punditocracy still blames Clinton.

Hume on the issue: "If this were in a court of law, and he tried to make a distinction like that, they'd have to, there'd be a ten minute recess while they got the jury's laughter to stop. I mean, this is absurd."

Right, Brit... but they'd be laughing Starr and the Jones defense attorneys out of court, along with the "high crimes" arising from a trumped-up, politically-motivated suit that got laughed out of court itself.

Hume had another shining moment: "If you decide to do censure, which is a humiliating expression of disapproval, a rebuke, whether that will be enough when the Kelly Flynns of the world, who lie to their superiors and lie, are cashiered out of their jobs."

Hey Brit, Clinton does not fall under the military's Uniform Code of Justice.

If Starr weren't busy engineering a constitutional crisis out of pure pornography, it would have been hilarious.

Lousy show, Tony. We deserve better. And, right-wing bias and all, you and your gang are capable of far better.

McLaughlin Group

John and the gang were a near-complete waste this week, taking every possible opportunity to kick Clinton where it hurt in the most slanted and mean-spirited way possible.

"Issue One: It Hits the Fan!!" John threw in everything but the kitchen sink to bend the facts with lines like "damning catalogue of illegalities" [they're ALLEGATIONS, John], "new national security risk" [huh???] "fallout on international markets" [yeah, like corrupt banking practices in Asia, Russian socioeconomic chaos and currency speculation have NOTHING to do with it] and "analysts say US markets will drop erratically until Clinton is gone" [as if Clinton is factor one on market fluctuations]. John even implied Clinton is a mental case, using a Pat Moynihan clip:" If he has a disorder he has to go." Of course, Moynihan loathes Clinton and is taking every opportunity to pummel the President, turning up on the tube more times in the last week than he had in the previous year.

Impeachment is too slow, said John, and Clinton is resisting resignation

Michael Barone dived right in with one of the snidest, cheapest shots he has taken: "One is tempted to say 'she won't resign'," a dig at the First Lady. He also referred to the Starr report as a "catalogue of lies."

Need we use the "A" word again, Michael?

Eleanor Clift fired back: "The public has drawn a line between personal life and public positions." We would add that poll numbers from the weekend bear this fact out.

Tony Blankley, the porcine former Gingrich spokesman turned pundit -- wearing the most hideous gold-and-orange color combination we have yet seen on a Sunday morning -- said that there would be no resignation until "impeachment orders" are passed. Blankley no doubt is hoping for a "payback" from Congress for that censure of his former boss.

John. ever sarcastic, asked the panel to "parse" a portion of Clinton's emotional speech before a prayer breakfast last week.

We would, but we were too busy parsing John's own more-hard-right-than-usual spin this week. We think John's sponsors at GE are desperate to see Clinton out of office so that the GOP vision of "free markets" devoid of all those nasty ideas like decent health care for Joe Average, social security, and public education can finally be jettisoned and GE's bottom line can be even bigger.

No mercy from any of the group. Even Eleanor Clift said "He should have delivered that speech on August 17th."

In another dig at Clinton, John had the cover of this week's The Economist ("Unwanted: Slick Bill Clinton") thrown up on the screen. Clift almost seemed angry at this ploy, responding that "Women and minorities love him [and] will feel he is being stolen away from them on a trumped-up sex charge."

She followed up with the single most important statement of the entire weekend: "The commingling of the Jones and Starr cases merits investigation."

It's about time SOMEONE said it.

Unfortunately, we feel she's about eight months to the day late on making this assertion. And we doubt anyone in the corporate media or the federal government is willing to pick up on this.

She also set off an effort to put out the fire she started --

Michael cut in: "The Jones case.."
Eleanor: "Which was THROWN OUT!..."
John: "Let's move on!"

Right, John... before you give GE chairman Jack Welch a heart attack for so much as letting those words having been uttered on the Mc-Laugh-In Group. The horror... the horror...

Final question of the segment: 1 (no) to 10 (yes) does he stay?
Michael: 7
Eleanor: 7 or 8
Tony: 4.95
Lawrence O'Donnell [who was a complete bore during the first segment]: 6
John, in his most grave and dramatic voice, ended the segment without the usual preview of the next, saying "I think we are at a ZE-RO -- that he GOOOOES."

Issue 2: President Albert Gore Jr.! This one was brief and wonk-oriented. Michael was actually complimentary, calling Gore "more engaged in foreign and defense than Clinton... better for long-term [policy] strategy than Clinton." Lawrence O'Donnell caught us off guard with his praise: "...the most effective vice president in this half-century."

Predictions
Michael: Primakov will eviscerate trade sanctions.
Eleanor: Impeachment hearings in the next congress end in censure.
Tony: A Gore/Richardson ticket [but when, Tony?]
Lawrence: The next big speech -- forgiveness from Hillary.
John: At least four more indictments from Ken Starr.

Which we alerted you to yesterday!

This Week: The Starr Report - Fact and Fallout

Yes, that was the title. "Fact and Fallout."

Did we miss something on our way to the right-wing coup? Since when are allegations in a summary referral report facts?

Guest one -- and the only significant guest on the entire show -- White House counsel David Kendall in an exclusive appearance.

Jackie Judd laid out the Starr case in his impeachment referral -- presenting every allegation as if it were an irrefutable fact and, of course, without the first scintilla that evidence that refutes Starr's allegations and arguments that refute his conclusions even exist.

Cokie immediately tries the same tactic Tony and Mara did on FNS, citing Kendall's rebuttal of the Starr report (one of the very few we heard in any news coverage this weekend) as "salacious for the purpose of embarrassing the President... Are you saying Monica Lewinsky lied?"

Kendall was on target in his reply: "Not at all -- the President did not commit perjury. Our point is that the Starr report is full of graphic and unnecessary salacious detail. It’s not relevant to any of the charges. The inclusion of all that is only meant to harm the President."

Cokie kept pushing her he said - she said line of questioning regarding Lewinsky, which Kendall shifted onto a different playing field: "It doesn't necessarily mean because people recollect things differently that either one of them is lying. The Jones' deposition testimony is a mess. The President did not perjure himself there. He had complicated definitions. The questions were vague and ambiguous. There were objections. There was no follow—up. He was giving responses to a very narrow and technical definition of sexual relations."

Kendall was clearly trying to put the blame for "parsing" on the Jones attorneys. On that issue we agree with him -- but Kendall handed Clinton's most shrill critics an opportunity to play up the argument that the President is relying on "legalisms." It's his right, that's true -- but Cheryl Mills took a far better, more "high-road" approach to going on offense for the President.

We feel Kendall blew a chance to light into some of Clinton's harshest critics by playing defense counsel. It made his few shots at prosecuting Starr sound weak. The closest he got to going for the jugular played into the hands of right-wing spinmeisters:

Cokie (sounding like a secret member of the Independent Women's Forum) :"Was the President telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"

Kendall: "Cokie, in the January 17th deposition, the President did not perjure himself. He did not volunteer information. He did not—I’ll agree, try to help the Jones lawyers. This was an arena in which his political enemies were out to destroy him in a frivolous case that was then dismissed."

Heck, Kendall should have answered: "That's not the issue -- the question is WHY enemies of the President fought so fiercely to depose Clinton -- they were out to get him. Tell me, Cokie, do you think Jones HERSELF was telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in her contradiction-ridden depositions?"

Instead, his answer opened up an opportunity for Sam Donaldson, who fancies himself a hard-hitting political reporter but has never adequately accounted for his own ties to the right, to get into the matter of allegations of perjury against the President based on the specific wording of his deposition testimony.

He did get back on point toward the end of the exchange:

Kendall: "No prosecutor in the United States on the basis of this interchange would bring a perjury prosecution. But the important thing is, Sam, is that he has acknowledged wrongdoing. My point about the graphic detail in the Starr Report, is that it’s wholly unnecessary at that level of detail..."

Sam (cutting in as Kendall gets back on the key points): "Mr. Kendall, since you and he will not acknowledge, and of course that is your right [Sam presumes guilt until innocence is proved -- typical Donaldsonian arrogance], and it may be the truth that he did in fact touch her -- for Mr. Starr to put in her testimony is not a smear, is it? It is an attempt..."

Kendall: "It is, Sam. At that level of detail it is a smear of both the President and Ms. Lewinsky. He has acknowledged wrongdoing."

Sam: "Well, look what he has said to the Grand Jury..."

Kendall [tersely cutting off Sam, for once]: "What is surprising -- look, he has acknowledged wrongdoing. It should not be surprising that there are graphic details. Nobody should be surprised to find gambling in a casino. The question is, was it necessary to do and allege in this detail? Any fair reader of the report and our rebuttal is going to conclude it was not."

This is the point Kendall should have maneuvered Cokie into discussing in the first place. Why do I get the feeling that Cheryl Mills would have thought to do this?

George Will pulled one of the sleaziest stunts we have ever seen him attempt. framing his first question in the argument that "[t]here are two ways this could be a smear: one is stating facts that are not facts; the other -- I don’t want to deal with the second one [probably because Kendall would chew Will up and spit him out in Sam and Cokie's face] -- that is drawing improper, reckless illegal conclusions from them, which I gather you’re saying they do... Let's stick with the first one... You clearly are saying there could be a lack of memory or a mistake here. Now, essentially you’re saying one of three things. One is that Monica Lewinsky imagined, for example, the incident with her, the President, and the cigar. Or that Monica Lewinsky lied about the cigar. Or third, that Mr. Clinton forgot about the cigar. Which is it?"

Nice move, George. Publicize the single sleaziest allegation in the entire summary report. But it's no surprise -- it's no secret that you're an expert on illicit affairs from first-hand experience! Kendall should have asked you about the allegations that your first wife tossed you out of your own house for philandering, depositing all of your property on your front lawn with a sign saying something to the effect of "Find somewhere else to sleep tonight, Buster."

I hope we didn't get any of the details wrong -- we'd hate to smear you!

Not much later, Cokie sounded like Phyllis Schlaffly: "... and in his seven months of nonstop attack on the judicial system, has he faithfully executed the laws of the United States?"

Nonstop attack on the judicial system? What about Starr's nonstop attack on the power of the Executive branch? Or his unrelenting attacks on such individual rights as attorney-client privilege?

Kendall: "Cokie, he has indeed. First of all, the Paula Jones case was a political attack, which the judge threw out."

Cokie: "But it was a legal case."

Not when you start to examine the FACTS, Cokie. But we're sure you haven't had the time -- you've probably been too busy listening to Jackie Judd and your other trusted "sources."

Kendall smiled in his reply: "It was, and the judge has now thrown it out."

We think he should have said "Legal? Jones's story has more holes in it than a ton of Jarlsberg. The judge kicked the phoney-baloney suit into oblivion. And there's clear evidence that her lawyers were making fraudulent motions to discovery in order to dig dirt on Clinton."

Kendall took up literally over half the show. The second segment featured Reps. Vic Fazio (D-CA) and James Rogan (R-CA). it was boring -- not the fault of the two congressmen, but the questions were nothing we hadn't already heard dozens of times since Starr dumped his report.

Fazio called the report "Unnecessarily salacious... the bigger question is whether we're going to undo an election over an illicit sexual relation."

Rogan, on the other hand, sounded ridiculous: "This is about sexual harassment: a federal judge said that the President had to testify about his conduct with subordinates in the Paula Jones case."

Hilarious! If it's about sexual harassment, then we might as well cancel Judiciary Committee hearings, because the case is DEAD. Or are you saying that Clinton harassed Lewinsky? You haven't read Starr's report, then. If you think feminists are going to come flocking your way because this is an "harassment" issue, maybe you should join Bob Barr and Helen Chenoweth as a third Congressperson from "The Twilight Zone."

Fazio retorted with the view of two well-known Republicans -- John Dean and Elliot Richardson -- that the allegations do not even come close to rising to those of Watergate.

The roundtable was mostly ignorable, short of two truly stupid comments.

George Stephanopoulos on the Starr Report "revelations": "It was a letdown for me because I learned the affair started in my office!"

A letdown? Or maybe dappointed she wouldn't flirt with you? A little jealous, George?

William Kristol on the Starr Report: "It's not true. It's not pornographic."

Yeah, Bill. Tell that to school internet administrators who now have to block portions of government and media web sites because the content is not suitable for kids. This is about the stupidest thing you have ever said on This Week. Which is, by the way, saying a lot.

Finally, we turn to "Brother" George Will for today's lesson on Conservative values: "The very definition of immorality is to treat a human as a means, not an end... [Clinton] has done things that Madison never imagined presidents doing."

Right, George. Let me quote one of the internet's most astute political observers, Terry Coppage: " 'High Crimes and Misdemeanors' is what they wrote in the Constitution. The Founding Fathers never messed with their interns, no. When they wanted sex, they just raped their slaves."

Meet the Press

Tim Russert -- now the putative Himmler of the ultra right wing faction of the Republican Party -- began Meet The Press in his now completely predictable manner, not skipping a beat in the continuation of his leadership of the "mainstream" telepundit lynch mob that his been lying in wait for President Clinton for more than two years.

"The President Repents," said Russert, "but is that enough to overcome Ken Starr's charges? Can the President survive politically? Can the President survive impeachment? Did the President commit impeachable crimes?"

Charles Ruff, White House Counsel, was the first guest. Russert, in an attempt to embarrass Ruff, pulled a ploy he uses practically every time a Clinton ally is on -- he played a tape clip to lead into a cheap-shot question. The clip: Clinton wagging his finger (to the press, not the people), adamantly denying he had sex with Monica Lewinsky.

Ruff agreed the president had lied to him.

Then Russert asked if Clinton lied in the Jones deposition and, therefore, committed perjury.

Ruff, going straight to the core of the defense, believes that is no basis for impeachment.

Of course, Russert -- thinking he can undo Ruff's composure -- then shows the President's testimony on Lewinsky, again denying a "sexual affair" with Lewinsky. Ruff rounded the question again into whether the American people want a president removed for a sexual impropriety.

Russert said that the people (meaning him) "warned" the President not to lie again and that the president wants us to believe that it was not a sexual relationship because he did not touch Lewinsky. Ruff said that is was unnecessary for the President to go into the sexual detail that the Independent Counsel tried to get out of him to explain to the Grand Jury his problems with the Jones deposition questions.

But Russert kept it up: when the President is asked specifically if he had sex, Russert asserted, he says that's Monica having sex, not him having sex (in the strictly legal context of the way that the incompetent Jones legal team defined sex). Ruff said the President did answer narrowly and legally in the Jones case.

Russert again asked whether the President lied to the Grand Jury. Ruff replied with a firm "Absolutely not" -- and added that the American people have yet to see the totality of his and Monica Lewinsky's testimony.

Russert then all but called Ruff a liar and said the "total" testimony is in the Starr Report. This, of course, is a lie, and Russert knows it. Nobody has yet seen the total transcripts of both the President's and Ms. Lewinsky's testimony.

What is obvious is that Starr selectively put SOME of the testimony of both parties in his 450 page document (which you can read on this web site).

Russert then attempted to smear the President by implying he is a "psycho": he asked Ruff if the President is seeking "professional help," a buzzword for psychotherapy which feeds GOP whispers about his "obvious" psychological problems.

This is part of the GOP/Russert plot to push the president toward resignation through humiliation, much as Starr set up and proceeded with a plot to entrap the President using Linda Tripp's illegal tapes of her conversations with Ms. Lewinsky, then going one step further in his Gestapo-like tactics by "wiring" her to tape Lewinsky further.

But Ruff declined to jump on Starr.

Ruff, we feel, is a real diplomat. He claimed that he is now limiting his attention to convincing the House Judiciary Committee that the President did not commit impeachable offenses -- and he feels that the Committee will conclude that Congress will be convinced, and not move toward impeachment.

Ruff, thus far, was the best spokesman we have heard from White House legal team.

Russert then moved toward the second arrow in his quiver of the Meet the Press assassination mentality, which has pervaded the airwaves on every station with the exception of CNBC's Rivera Live. Say what you want about Geraldo -- he has gone out of his way to consistently present a balanced approach to the White House and the President's tribulations.

He welcomed guests David Bonior and Tom DeLay.

DeLay said we have to ask if Bill Clinton has the "moral authority" to lead -- this from a man who fights practically every legislative initiative which will help people in his own district and who hobnobs with Chinese sweatshop owners during a Pacific junket, bragging to them about how he'll fight to keep the minimum wage in American territories -- well below that of the 50 states, by the way -- at $3/hour as he looks the other way while these foreign "entrepreneurs" import what amounts to practically slave labor, denying American citizens jobs.

DeLay, hypocrite extraordinaire, is in no position to lecture anyone on moral authority. We'd like to know if he's laundering foreign contributions through "American" companies in our Pacific territories.

He says he thinks the president has lied and stonewalled and that he is "trying to remain open." Russert reminded DeLay that he was running around calling for impeachment and resignation well before the Starr report came out.

Kudos for the first time in months to Russert.

DeLay, in typically reptilian fashion, then pretended to have the wisdom of the sages and acted reserved.

Russert then showed DeLay a poll which shows 66% of the American people feel the President should remain. DeLay says -- lying -- that this is not a political issue to be judged by polls.

Russert then turned to Bonior, claiming that if one reads the report "it is clear" that the President lied to the Jones extortion team and to the Grand Jury. Of course, Russert again fails to remind viewers that Starr merely presented the best "lines" of the testimony to support Starr's "theories" of impeachable offenses.

Bonior came across badly. Russert asked why Bonior had called for the Gingrich's resignation as Speaker of the House.

Bonior pointed out the obvious reason: he did not ask Gingrich to resign from office, only as Speaker. Russert looked the fool.

DeLay said no one knows whether the President's apologies were real or not. "Only the Lord knows," he said condescendingly. He claims that lawyers defending a lie is not contrition. We suppose DeLay wants him to hang himself. DeLay said he hopes that impeachment hearings should be held as quickly as possible.

DeLay was also the first to point out that a small paragraph in the Starr report points out that Starr is NOT finished and that other reports are coming.

Bonior said the report was written to shock people and focus their interest. Bonior (we think stepping in it) reminded people that Whitewater and other matters were not in the report. But we know that these other matters WILL be addressed later -- and probably when the GOP needs a "boost" to bring down the President's favorable numbers.

DeLay said the President needs to fire his lawyers! What a dolt. He claims the President should simply ask the American People for justice. yeah -- wouldn't DeLay just love this.

Russert shifted gears, asking if it isn't true that the President's conduct was "reckless" and "disrespectful" to the American people. Of course, both DeLay and Bonior agreed.

What else could they do?

Russert then moved to the "psychiatric" aspects of the President's womanizing. He again asked whether the President should take a six or eight week leave of absence -- we assume to go to a 12-step dryout program for sex addiction. DeLay jumped to say that the President was not doing a good job and began enumerating a list of things the President's failure to do things about the stock market jitters.

What a joke -- as if a single statement from the President could jack up DeLay's stock portfolio..

Tom DeLay said he felt that Clinton would not serve his full term and that he will "wake up and resign." If he doesn't, said DeLay, he'll be impeached. Bonior, of course, felt the opposite.

Russert then moved to a panel made up of House Judiciary Committee members who will decide whether the President will be "tried" by the Republican controlled Senate.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) was first. She said she was not sure the President lied under oath because she did not have the facts. She said she could find them through getting the facts during the Committee hearings. Rep. John McCollum (R-FL) -- a lead Clinton lynch-mobber -- said he was shocked and disgusted by what Starr charges. Then he said he could not make up his mind, of course, until everything is in. Again, we witnessed a Republican leader enumerating all the charges in the most vicious possible way -- then saying that he "has to wait" to read and interview witnesses (maybe) to see if they are true.

Waters, also the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, urges that there be justice and equality. "We cannot allow people to be railroaded and rush to judgment... We are not going to let Ken Starr get away with this... We are not going to give subpoena power to one side."

She added that the Republicans say they want fairness yet have begun the attack based merely on a one-sided report from Starr: "He [Starr] is on trial as much as the President is." Waters said she didn't know whether Starr had a political agenda -- and must have been biting her cheeks when she said it. McCollum said Starr was not on trial, but they "might" look into it. If the President is found to lie just in the Paula Jones matter, McCollum said he should go.

Russert said that two congressman were recently discovered to have had sex with congressional pages, and they were not tossed. McCollum jumped in to say that "This is not about sex, it's about lying under oath." Waters said that it's as if Starr has written a novel to see, if in fact, these charges have any basis in fact.

Surpisingly to us, Russert was quite balanced during this segment. But then, as he so often does, he turned to another panel, made up of Stuart "Odie Colognie" Taylor. Odie was the first to tie the noose around the President's neck, claiming that Paula Jones was a credible plaintiff -- even though he knew that she and her people were funded by ultra-right operatives. Since glomming onto the Jones case as a "journalist", Taylor has made a career of attempting to destroy the President, and is seen by Democrats as one of the most vicious and despicable members of the Richard Mellon Scaife Patrol.

Also on the panel was Richard BenVeniste -- a Democrat counsel -- who said that this report is a flagrant and arrogant misuse of the Independent Counsel's power -- Starr has now set himself up as judge and jury and has the arrogance to have written a set of indictments, both of which went far beyond his legal charge.

BenVeniste felt that the President himself engaged in activity that allowed Starr to find this ONE issue after years and tens of million dollars that would have resulted in nothing.

Then Russert turned to ultra-fruitcake and new father "Professor" Turley, who himself has emerged from total obscurity by appearing on every tabloid television show he could get booked onto. "If [Clinton] could lie about these subjects, how can we know what other subjects he can lie about?" He suggested that the ultimate punishment might be impeachment and not removal.

Stuart Taylor, trying to regain some credibility, said that Starr may have gone too far -- but then goes right on to STATE AS FACT that the President lied in the Jones AND the Grand Jury testimony. Taylor, a swinish caricature of a "legal analyst", went further then any GOP member of the Judiciary Committee itself. An operative for the hard right, Taylor has no credibility whatsoever -- and it defies reason that any reputable public affairs program would have this skunk as a guest.

Finally, Russert turned to Lisa Myers -- the NBC White House reporter who spreads filth around the network's newsrooms with glee. Myers said that this could go on for a year -- we bet she hopes it does. Then she said that Starr was going to indict some people possibly involved in witness tampering -- not news to us -- but did not give any names.

BenVeniste made clear that Starr has shown what he wants: "the removal of the President." He said generally that the President will be tested and he will prove his superiority in handling both domestic and foreign affairs. Finally, BenVeniste said that lives will be lost on foreign soil if this charade is allowed to continue.

That's the one prediction of the week we will keep a close eye on. Starr and his pals had better be praying that it does not happen -- and end up with blood on their hands over a sex smear.

Overlooked or Nearly Overlooked

Practically everything else: another volatile week for world markets, a possible breakthrough in Russia's political crisis with the nomination of Primakov as new Prime Minister, troops massing on the Iran/Afghanistan border, more post-El Nino flooding in Asia and the American southeast, and a dozen other stories.

But the single most egregious omisson of the week was the near-failure of any of the chat shows to analyse the two highly detailed rebuttals issued by David Kendall and Charles Ruff -- rebuttals which indicate far more than a "legal" strategy in dealing with the charges surrounding the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, including
not-so-subtle hints that Starr may be in hot water himself.

Line of the Week

Rep. John Dingell gets our Line of the Week award for his reaction to Starr's Beyond the Valley of the Intern: "I read that disgusting document... it should have been delivered in a brown paper wrapper."

-- The Editors