🚀 go-pugleaf

Yes, and why not take it to co.politics in its entirety?  Thanks.

James, Dave G wrote in message
<47D861E4FA1DD2118D6500104B2C314B0789D1@dvs1.nolte.com>...
>This article appeared on MSNBC's Web site today - I have put it here in
>its entirety.
>************************************************************************
>************************
>Double standard
>for perjurors
>
>
>A serious offense for some, but
>if you're the president, not a problem
>
>
>By Deroy Murdock
>MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR
>
>
>
>NEW YORK, Nov. 30 -  Perjury is the issue before the House Judiciary
>Committee this week, as it receives testimony from two Americans who
>have suffered federal detention for lying about sex under oath in civil
>cases. President Clinton's defenders have claimed that prosecutors,
>judges and juries tend to wink at such misbehavior. Barbara Battalino
>and Pam Parsons would beg to differ.
>
> The experiences of four women convicted of lying under oath belie the
>Clintonite argument that perjury is no big deal, especially about sex.
>
>         IN A CASE with eerie parallels to the Monica Lewinsky scandal,
>Veterans Administration psychiatrist Barbara Battalino was prosecuted
>for denying that she performed oral sex on Vietnam veteran Edward I.
>Arthur on June 27, 1991. He was one of her patients who later sued her
>for sexual harassment and medical malpractice. Arthur happened to
>audiotape some 25 hours of phone conversations with Battalino, including
>one in which she scolded him for discussing the time they played doctor
>before their medical relationship had ended. As Battalino said: "the
>thing was that we were supposed to not have had sex until after...I
>can't believe you would divulge that."
>
>OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE
>       Using these tapes, the Justice Department charged Battalino last
>April with endeavoring "to influence, obstruct and impede the due
>administration of justice in connection with a pending proceeding before
>a court of the United States," namely the lawsuit in which Battalino
>falsely denied having sex with Edward Arthur in her federal office.
>       Oddly enough, no claque of Battalino groupies chanted, "So what
>if she lied under oath? She's a great shrink." Instead, she pled guilty
>and is suffering the consequences of her misdeeds. Last July, she was
>fined $3,500 and sentenced to a year's probation, including six months
>of house arrest monitored by electronic bracelet. She also was removed
>from her federal job. "I don't have the ability anymore to practice
>medicine," she told Matt Lauer on the Today show. "I have a law degree I
>cannot use...It's been very disturbing for myself and my family."
>       Battalino is not alone. Former University of South Carolina
>basketball coach Pam Parsons filed a $75 million civil suit against
>Time, Inc. - publisher of Sports Illustrated - after the magazine
>alleged in February, 1982 that she had sex with a woman's basketball
>player she coached. In a sworn deposition, Parsons falsely denied a
>sexual relationship with the athlete. After Time won the case, Parsons
>was prosecuted for perjury. In 1985, she and her lover were sentenced to
>four months in a minimum-security prison.
>       In yet another case of perjury - one that won't be heard in
>Tuesday's hearings - former postal worker Diane Parker falsely denied
>taking a personal trip with Kevin Collins, a subordinate who sued the
>Postal Service in 1992, claiming she had sexually harassed him. After
>Collins won his case, Parker's false witness in a related civil
>deposition bought her a 13-month jail sentence. "It's sad," she lamented
>in a Marianna, Fla., federal prison. "Everything you work for is gone,"
>she added, including the house she surrendered to her creditors.
>       The experiences of these four women belie the Clintonite argument
>that perjury is no big deal, especially about sex. They lied under oath
>about sex in civil cases and were condemned to between four and 13
>months in federal detention. Meanwhile, the cognoscenti demand that
>President Clinton avoid the same punishment for allegedly committing the
>same crime. The American people insist that their Rogue-in-Chief walk
>away. And, like a chorus line of Rockettes, America's feminists
>high-kick in agreement. Where is the justice? Where is the outrage?
>
>WHY BOTHER TO TELL THE TRUTH?
> Oddly enough, no claque of Battalino groupies chanted, "So what if she
>lied under oath? She's a great shrink." Instead, she pled guilty and is
>suffering the consequences of her misdeeds.
>
>         This double standard only would make sense if Bill Clinton were
>crowned King William I and allowed to serve for life in the re-named
>Royal Palace on Pennsylvania Avenue. Does America deserve a monarchy in
>which sovereign immunity would shield rulers from the laws used to jail
>their subjects? Conversely, if President Clinton gets away with
>perjuring himself in a sexual harassment case and before a federal
>criminal grand jury, why should Americans bother to tell the truth in
>divorce, paternity and harassment cases? After all, they're often just
>about sex.
>       Judiciary Committee members should consider these questions
>before they vote on articles of impeachment against President Clinton,
>most likely in mid-December. The President's evasive, often
>hair-splitting answers to 81 questions posed by the Committee apparently
>have emboldened Judiciary Republicans whose support for impeachment
>language has wavered. While some Democrats, such as William Delahunt (D
>- Mass.) are promoting a censure motion, Republicans look dimly on such
>a wrist-slap in the absence of an admission of legal deceit by the
>President. Even Virginia Democrat Jim Moran was disappointed by
>President Clinton's written responses, released the day after
>Thanksgiving. "Twenty-two times he said he doesn't recall," Moran told
>NBC Nightly News. "Well, the President has a bear-trap memory. But, you
>know, reading these answers, you'd think he's suffering from
>Alzheimer's."
>       The opposition of some Republicans makes the eventual impeachment
>of Bill Clinton unlikely by the full House, for now. If articles of
>impeachment simply emerge from the Judiciary Committee, Bill Clinton
>will have suffered an official punishment equal to that of President
>Nixon. In August, 1974, the Committee approved articles of impeachment.
>Within two weeks, Richard Milhous Nixon spared America further grief and
>resigned.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>--------
>Deroy Murdock is a marketing and media consultant and a contributor to
>MSNBC.
>
>