🚀 go-pugleaf

dgdsk@tiac.net wrote:

: >      Not an impeachable offense.  If lying were an impeachable offense,
: > about 40 of our 43 presidents would have been impeached...if there
: > were anybody left in Congress to impeach them.

: Quite correct. However, there are two levels here. The first level is the
: level of truth. As in, what really happened. And, on that level, what a
: person like Clinton is willing to do to propagate lies. In this case, he
: got on national television, and actually remonstrated the entire
: country--the entire world--for believing that he had not told the truth
: when he said he did not have sex. 

     Not an impeachable offense.

: The second level is that of perjury. He clearly committed perjury, as
: well. Few people bother to get into the details of the perjury, since they
: are either on one side or the other, and don't want to be bothered with
: details. But I have looked at the details. THIS MAN COMMITTED PERJURY. Not
: once, but several times.

     Do you know the definition of perjury?  Hint: it's not "lying
under oath."  I'll bet the word "lie" doesn't even appear in the 
statute that defines perjury.  No ordinary citizen would ever be
prosecuted for the alleged perjury that Clinton committed.  By the 
way, if you are referring to the Paula Jones case, that article of
impeachment was defeated.
     I also maintain that "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and
misdemeanors" does not include weasel-wording in immaterial testimony
in a dismissed/settled civil suit.

: This man also obstructed justice. He tried to make sure that his secretary
: had the "same story" as he did. His secretay testified that he told her a
: version of the story, and then kept indicating "right". His next
: obstruction of justice came when he sent her to get the presents back.

     Do you know the definition of "obstruction of justice?"  You would
never get a prosecution, much less a conviction, of an ordinary citizen
for these accusations.  It would get laughed out of court.

: This man will do anything, anything.

     Not an impeachable offense.  Nor is it an impeachable offense if
some small fraction of the population believes that you will do
"anything, anything."  (Have you ever heard an accusation against
Clinton that you didn't believe, or had any reaction to anything he
said or did other than the worst possible intepretation?

: > I dare say you may have lied occasionally in your life, too.  I
: > know I have.  

: Have you ever committed perjury? Have you ever gotten on the witness
: stand, sworn to tell the truth before God, and then lied your ass off? I
: haven't, but Clinton did. And Clinton is not just any person. He was the
: highest legal officer in the State of Arkansas. He was the highest
: executive officer in Arkansas. He is a lawyer--with a sworn duty of
: upholding the law and of duty to the court to promote justice. He was a
: law professor in Arkansas. He is the highest executive officer in the
: United States. 

     Ducking in and out of a legal definition is hardly  "lying your
ass off."  It is also probably not perjury.
     And I would ask where you find in the Constitution that offenses
are more serious if committed by the governor of Arkansas or any other
official than if committed by an ordinary citizen.

: And he gets up there and commits perjury. And obstruction of justice.

     Doubtful; and in any case not "treason, bribery, or other high
crimes and misdemeanors" since they were about private acts, in a
dismissed civil suit, etc., and therefore not impeachable.
     Lest there be any doubt about where I stand--what Clinton did is
stupid and dishonorable in the extreme, but it would not be prosecuted
if he were an ordinary citizen, and is not impeachable.  I would like
for our president to set a higher standard than "not prosecutable" and
"Not impeachable," but that is where we are.