The "Scandal" is Older Than I Am

I wish Clinton had not lied. I wish he had not done what he did. But he forced us into where we are now. Not Starr, not the Republicans. He did it himself. I wish he hadn't, but it was nothing that I did not expect from him, which is one reason why I voted for George Bush and Harry Browne.

Many people claim that we have no right to look into Clinton's private life. Well, that simply is not true. Jones' attorneys had the obligation to their client and the right under the law to look into his private, sexual life. And Judge Kenneth Starr and Attorney General Janet Reno and a certain three-judge federal panel had the right and the obligation to look into claims of perjury and obstructing justice. And when Clinton further lied about it, Starr and the U.S. Congress had the right and the obligation to publish the evidence against his claims.

For the lawyers, judges, and congressmen to do anything else would be to ignore the strong evidence that President Clinton was breaking federal law right in front of their noses. It's a long, ugly, winding road. And it is all Clinton's fault.

Now we have a Salon report about Henry Hyde's past marital infidelity (for those of you who don't know, Salon is a mostly liberal version of The Drudge Report, but done with even less care toward responsiblity to the readers and the subjects than Drudge himself).

And the question I ask is, yeah, so? This has no bearing on the man Henry Hyde. I am 25 years old. This happened before I was born. The fact that he had an affair 30 years ago has no meaning. If he did it last year, and had sex in his congressional office while talking on the phone to the CEO of a tobacco company, then yes, it might have some meaning. But it has no meaning at all. It does not make Hyde look bad in my eyes. It makes Hyde of 30 years ago look bad in my eyes. So what?

Speaking of 30 years ago and looking bad, George Wallace comes to mind. He looked bad 30 years ago, too. But in the many years since then, he had done an about-face on his racist position of old and was a man we could all look up to as a courageous figure in our struggle for freedom for all people. Ironically, he died last week, just in time to remind us that transgressions of yesterday do not make a person bad today.

People change. To think that the Hyde affair matters is to assume that he has not changed. I have changed a great deal in 25 years, and I can't assume he hasn't done the same in 30 years (of course, probably not to the degree that I have :).

So what was their motivation? Why did Salon print this? Well, they claim they did it because we have a right to know. Know what? Know something newsworthy, sure. We have that right. But this clearly does not fall under that heading. They say that, well, Clinton is in trouble primarily for lying, and Hyde must have lied too, so it is the same. Hyde did not lie under oath, he did not lie to the American people, he did not try to obstruct a lawful investigation into his lies.

When it all comes down to it, Salon admits they are trying to beat up on Hyde for no reason other than the fact that Hyde is beating up on Clinton, regardless of the simple facts that what Hyde did 30 years ago has no meaning. That's it.

We hope by publishing today's article to bring this entire sordid conflict to a head and expose its utter absurdity. Does the fact that Henry Hyde engaged in an adulterous affair, and tried to keep it hidden from his family and constituents, mean he is not fit to hold public office? Absolutely not. And the same is true of President Clinton.

If that's all that Clinton did, then we would not have a problem. Clinton did not "try to keep it hidden," he committed perjury and probably obstructed justice. Clinton did not do it 30 years ago, he did it last year. They are deliberately distorting the facts to make their point.

Of course, along the way they throw in terms like "sanctimonious" and "moralistic". If insistiting that perjury and obstruction of justice not be tolerated in our public officials is sanctimonious and moralistic, then I guess that's what I am.

So we have "journalists" who report what is not newsworthy, what is not relevant, what is not consequential, and what is slanderous, for the simple, admitted reason that they want to smear Hyde, because he is "smearing" Clinton. That is not only childish and irresponsible, but it does not make sense considering the facts of why Clinton is under investigation.

Buncha hacks is all they are. Keep that in mind whenever you hear the word "Salon" associated with the words "news" or "story" or "journalism". As I have many times mentioned, we can only trust sources, not information. And Salon has demonstrated that they are not to be trusted; not because they are not telling the factual truth, but because they are blatantly irresponsible with the factual truth.