As we enter the final six months of the Clinton-Gore era, it has become obvious to all but the willfully stupefied that this will go down as the most criminal, most corrupt, most cynical administration in American history. This observation, of course, will be called "Clinton-hating" by the vast conspiracy of Clinton excusers, Clinton defenders and plain old Clinton lackeys, who have become a feature as familiar to our political landscape as the Clinton ellipses, the Clinton evasions and the Clinton lies have become to our political vocabulary.
Because of them, "Clinton hater," "they all do it," "it's old news" and "it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is" -- are all terms or phrases to be forever preserved in the glossary of political deceptions, which will accompany the criminal rap sheet of this disgraceful episode in our presidential annals. (My personal favorite among these exculpations, "they all do it," was the one used by fully half of my fellow speeders in 'traffic school,' who claimed they should not have been singled out for punishment because their actions were no different from anyone else's.)
To measure what is being witnessed in these historic days, consider that Richard Nixon was removed from the presidency because of 18 minutes of erased tape that allegedly recorded his obstructions of justice. Al Gore has misplaced, or rather mis-erased, 18 months of "tape" in the form of White House e-mails, which allegedly contain discussions of various obstructions of justice. The Nixon secretary who erased his tapes, Rosemary Woods, was an overly loyal but otherwise un-noteworthy civil servant. The suspected culprit in the Gore caper had already earned fame among White House colleagues as "the mad deleter," for his zeal in eliminating hard-disk trails.
But unlike the unlucky Nixon, Gore's apparent attempt to destroy incriminating evidence has so far not even been deemed worthy of an investigation by a Justice Department, which -- because it is a Clinton department -- seems to specialize in the obstruction of justice. Like all the other good fortunes of the White House mob (for example, the disappearance of White House billing records and congressional witnesses) this one is hardly an accident. The Clinton administration began with the unprecedented firing of all 93 U.S. attorneys in the Department of Justice, who were then replaced with Clinton appointees. Now, what's most remarkable about this department, and this administration, is that Justice has produced a tiny few among all its minions unwilling to shred their public integrity and self-respect to the criminal in chief.
All three of them -- FBI Director Louis Freeh, exiled fundraising task force chief Charles LaBella, and now his replacement, Robert Conrad -- have registered their conviction that a special prosecutor should be assigned to look into Gore's testimony, mostly that which relates to his role in soliciting alleged illegal campaign contributions through known agents of a foreign power, specifically China. (Chinese agent and long-time Gore fundraiser Maria Hsia, who made the collections at the Buddhist temple, was seated at the head table at the event, flanking Gore and the head monk on one side while Indonesian billionaire and Chinese intelligence asset, Ted Sieong, flanked him on the other. Intercepted communications by Sieong to the dictatorship in China indicate that he was a key operative in their plan to influence American politics by directing illegal contributions to the Clinton-Gore machine.)
Salon columnist Joe Conason, well-known for his unflagging loyalty to every Clinton claim, argues that the failure to make the case against Clinton in matters like Travelgate and the missing FBI files is sufficient to presume that no charge against him or any member of his administration is credible. O.J. Simpson would tell us otherwise. And he only had the "dream team" to hide behind.
Dismissing the demand for a special counsel to investigate Gore, Conason says that "everything on the public record so far indicates that Gore thought he was attending 'a community outreach event.'" Well, not exactly, Joe. The transcripts of Gore's testimony to Justice Department lawyers that Gore himself has now released reveal that he understood that "finance people were going to be present at the Buddhist temple outreach." Finance people? What were they there to discuss, the federal budget? Everyone who has been in a court of law (or who has watched the tape of Clinton's Grand Jury testimony) knows that a determined liar can make hash out of the system and successfully obstruct the pursuit of justice. Everything on the public record so far indicates that Clinton and Gore are determined liars. The American people deserve the truth. One day perhaps they will get it.
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