On the Clinton Videotaped Testimony

I am not a Republican. And I have been critical at times of the Republican leadership in Congress because of its tendency to compromise and cave in to the liberals and socialists. BUT, after hearing only part of President Clinton’s videotaped testimony before Kenneth Starr’s grand jury investigation – with all Clinton’s bobbing and weaving and twisting and childish word games and alleged memory lapses and weasel-wording and obvious prevarications – I now believe we owe an apology to the Republican leadership in Congress, up to and including Representative Newt Gingrich and Senator Trent Lott! Consider what they must have had to go through with this President during the budget negotiations – the same kind of deliberate ambiguities, sneaky tactics, dirty tricks, spinmeister leaks, shifts of meaning and emphasis, etc. Every time they thought they were coming close to a budget deal to cut spending and balance the budget (in the future), Clinton and his operatives would change their position and press for more and more concessions from the Republicans. They could never trust him sticking to any previously agreed upon position. The Republicans tried to deal with Bill Clinton honestly and above board. Clinton sees anyone who is honest as a sucker to fool. The indefiniteness of Clinton’s doubletalk and inconstancy is unbelievable to most people who have not encountered it. I don’t believe Bill Clinton ever was sincere about negotiating honestly on the budget or anything else.   Clinton and his party maintain their power by buying the votes of credulous people with their own tax money.  To people like Clinton, the end of fostering dependency on the political state justifies any means.

In the wake of the Republican landslide in the 1994 elections, Clinton suddenly claimed to be in favor of genuine welfare reform and spending cuts and a balanced budget and a willingness to negotiate with the Republicans. All lies. Period. And yet the media spin led most people (if you believe the polls) to blame the Republicans in Congress for the government shutdown over the budget battle. As someone who has criticized the Republican leadership over its handling of the budget battles with Bill Clinton, I now have a better appreciation for the difficulties they must have had to go through with this political Elmer Gantry in the White House; and, so, to the extent that Clinton’s wishy-washiness and dishonesty made their negotiations frustrating if not impossible, I apologize to the Republican leadership.

As far as those die-hard Clinton defenders, they are either ostriches in deep denial or reactionary left-wing Demokrats who would continue to support Clinton even if he shot up a busload of nuns.

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