Reply #16: How’s That ‘Rule of Law’ Work Now? [View All]

[mahatmakanejeeves]

How’s That ‘Rule of Law’ Work Now?

By CLYDE HABERMAN
Published: May 9, 2008

Join us on a journey in the time machine. We’re not going back terribly far, only to December 1998, when the House of Representatives impeached President Bill Clinton for having lied about sex with “that woman.”

... The “rule of law” had to be preserved, Mr. Fossella said then. It is what “so many Americans have been willing to die for,” he said as the House began its impeachment inquiry.
....

Now, we have Mr. Fossella snared in his own sex scandal and his own rule-of-law problem. He did not lie about sex under oath. But was he, nonetheless, less than truthful about having had an extramarital affair with a woman, Laura Fay, who gave birth to their baby girl? That he most definitely was, until Thursday anyway, when he belatedly acknowledged rumors that had been percolating for days.

As for the rule of law, New Yorkers in Mr. Fossella’s district might reasonably ask themselves which is the worse violation: lying about sex with a young but adult White House intern, or being so drunk behind the wheel that you can’t even keep the letters of the alphabet straight and, far worse, you run a red light? That, the police in a Virginia suburb of Washington charge, is the crime that Mr. Fossella committed late one night while driving to Ms. Fay’s house.