Had Another One of Those Interesting Which is Worse Lie Conversations

[Solomon]

with a democratic friend. She's true blue democrat, and even used to work in democratic campaigns back in the late 60's and 70's. There's only one thing we argue about so badly that it often threatens our friendship.

She just can't let the Clinton/Lewinsky thing go. It's the only thing that her voice level immediately goes up when she talks about it. The issue comes up from time to time and last night it came up again when she was talking about how bad Bush was messing things up and how it is he gets away with it. I said he gets away with it because as long as he doesn't pork an intern in the white house, he can do anything, ANYTHING, and people will say well at least he didn't get caught in the white house with an intern.

This put her in a frenzy. She started bashing Clinton again and I said that what Clinton did was nothing compared to what this guy is doing. She tore off again into Clinton about how "concerned" she was that a president could be so stupid as to get caught messing with an intern. That it was a legitimate concern. I asked her whether she had any "concern" about a president sending us off to war on lies. Getting thousands of people killed. She barely heard the question as she continued to vent her spleen over Clinton. She couldn't answer as to why she was more angry at Clinton lying about sex, than Bush lying about war.

Sigh. This is one phenomenon I don't think I will ever understand.

[truthspeaker]

1. Arg. Clinton is sort of a sleaze but let's be realistic.

What REALLY torques me off is when people (usually baby-boom women IME) try to paint Lewinsky as some kind of victim. She was 24, she knew what she was doing, she wanted to have sex with the president. She was not expecting him to marry her and she was not taken advantage of.

People have sex. Get over it. Sometimes they cheat on their partners and people's feelings get hurt. It sucks, but I voted for Clinton for president of the United States, not husband of the year.

[mopinko]

2. if it is any consolation

this is my most popular and beloved button-


most of the sane world agrees with you. but this button was also the subject of my first hate mail, so your friend is not entirely alone.

[JuniorPlankton]

3. I agree with you!

It's very frustrating to hear this. /*Another sigh*/

[snippy]

4. Some presidents fuck interns and some presidents fuck the American people.

It is a question of values.

[BOSSHOG]

5. How did Clinton get "caught?"

Not because he was stupid, but because of a scum, garbage human being named linda tripp. And, oh how those sexual encounters effected our national security!?!?!?!

How did bush get caught? Lying on public TV before millions. An act, thought by conservatives to be a noble undertaking.

Get a new friend.

[reprobate]

9. Clinton got caught because a billionaire paid for it.

Richard Mellon Scaiffe spent millions to be sure clinton would be pilleried. First the open zipper when he was governor. And the whitewater thing. Then the special prosecutor, Ken Starr, whose job it was to follow every trail until he could catch clinton in something illegal.

And then the only thing they could accuse him on was lying in a deposition. And there is real dispute as to whether what he said was a lie.

The republican party was out to get clinton in any way they could. There was no public support for impeachment but the did it anyway. Their intent was to keep him so distracted that he would be unable to lead effectively. They were succesfull.

[sendero]

6. My personal belief....

... is that your friend and millions of other Americans have been trained by the right-wing media whackos to have a pavlovian response to the name Clinton.

Never mind that more than half of the crap spewed about him was just plain lies, the intern deal allowed the final phase of the brainwashing to take place.

Don't expect your friend to regain sanity in the near future.

[polmaven]

11. But Solomon said she is a "true blue" Democrat..

I think it is more likely she has in her past been terribly hurt by someone who betrayed her.

She probably know in her head that Bush's lies are so much worse, but her broken heart won't let her let go.

I may be completely off base, but I just don't see a "true, blue Democrat" who was very active in the party for 2 decades as being brainwashed by the right wing that easily.

[Solomon]

12. Pollmaven. You really hit on something there. Thankyou for your

insight. I truly believe this is what it is. I've known this person for more than twenty years now and there are signs that I never put together that indicate clearly that what you have said is true.

Thank you. I think I get it now. It really has nothing to do with Clinton, more of what happened to her. In fact, she was quite young herself when she worked for the democratic party, and was a few years ago, subpeonaed in the Wells case, the democratic secretary who sued G. Gordon Liddy over his allegations that this Wells woman, who was a secretary for some democratic organization was actually a hooker or something. There's other indicators too.

I'm glad I posted this. I can leave it alone now. I have seen the light.

[polmaven]

13. Glad I could be of assistance.

:D

[Devlzown]

7. I never understood why anyone cared

who Bill Clinton fucked. I can understand someone bitching about some of his policies, but I don't see how blow-jobs affect the average American. And frankly, I think anyone who believes Clinton's lying about sex is as bad as the shrub's lying us into war has a screw loose.

[beyurslf]

8. I don't understand why we had to sped

40 million bucks to find out he got a blow job but we can't simply WATCH TV and LISTEN to Bush to know he lies.

[Solomon]

10. My personal belief is that it was the republicans who put this matter

before the media. Clinton was trying to hide it. It was the republicans who publicized it and then turned around and hollered, "what do we tell our children"? I blame the publicizers, she blames Clinton for putting himself in that situation.

The rules have clearly changed. I believe all president's had their little indisgressions. I don't believe in the myth of the perfectly moral president. I don't think Clinton did anything more heinous than all of them. The rules changed when republicans decided to publicize things that in the past were off limits.

There's huge difference between private morality and public morality. I know there's a lot of people who disagree. Like the crowd that argues that pot leads to heroin, I guess they believe that personal indisgressions leads to public immorality.