Tuesday, August 18th 1998 -- New York (APJP) -- The President of the United States, uncomfortable in the Map Room of the White House, sat for four hours of harassing questions from Independent Prosecutor Kenneth Starr and his cohorts yesterday as hundreds of reporters from around the world swarmed around the diplomatic entrance of the White House, eager to claim ratings points at the expense of both the presidency and common decency.

Most cable television stations devoted more than 70% of their time covering what was a no-information story yesterday. Men and women who call themselves "journalists" engaged in discussions that were so pathetically hilarious, in the context of this complex legal and personal situation, that one could only dream what might come next. CNN led the pack with a ridiculous time clock in the upper right hand corner of the TV screen, counting up the minutes that the President had been on the "hot seat." They later removed it when they realized that the President was taking breaks -- one reportedly for an hour -- making their silly stopwatch inaccurate literally from the get-go.

Anyone hoping for what GOP "Theme Team" and Republican Pundit talking points dictated -- a "Mea Culpa" -- were pre-disappointed when David Kendall, Bill Clinton's counsel, appeared after the testimony concluded and began an attack on Ken Starr for wasting forty million dollars (an underestimate by half, we believe) on an investigation which has thus far yielded nothing but severe personal pain for Hillary, Bill and Chelsea Clinton. Among the disappointed were neither the mainstream press nor the 'cable aces,' whose entire careers rest on the purported shenanigans of the Clintons. Neither were members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, who have risen to national prominence on the backs of the Clintons. Add to these groups the fair-weather friends of President Clinton -- people like George Stephanopoulos, who has built his own multi-million dollar bankroll by stabbing an old friend and boss in the back with the razor-sharp knife of betrayal.

Starr, as he departed the White House, didn't appear pleased in the least with whatever he "bagged" in testimony yesterday. Therefore, we can be sure that the nightmare for Bill Clinton is hardly over and is perhaps just beginning. Next on the Starr agenda? Perhaps a subpoena to force the President to answer his queries more specifically so that leaked transcripts of the interview can be "edited" in as lurid a manner as possible.

Within moments, Starr subpoenaed master of treachery Dick Morris, who himself was zipping around the cable talk show circuit yesterday. The oily ex-presidential advisor was insulting the Clintons while pretending to defend them. The encampment in front of the Prettyman Federal Courthouse continued to circle -- and is now waiting for Morris in hope of more titilating
news.

In short, all the profiteers -- political and financial -- were salivating, fangs out, curled to strike.

But they held their tongues until 10:04 PM EST and then began yet another frontal assault -- which anyone following the Clinton presidency from the beginning could have easily predicted. The President had spoken. He had humiliated himself and told the world about the most private aspects of his life. He had blamed himself first, although all people know that it takes two to tango -- and that fewer men than most readily reject the advances of young woman smitten by power. But he blamed others as well and called the attack on him "political."

"It was not enough. It was too much. It was scripted. It was another lie..." they chanted like an eerie Shakespearian chorus.

Within seconds one could watch Senators John Ashcroft and Orrin Hatch sputtering with frustration and condemning the President for his quiet tongue-lashing of Kenneth Starr. This President wasn't supplicative enough. He wasn't contrite enough. He didn't speak from his heart. He has used his aides and his family. In short, he was a hairs-breadth away from impeachment.

And indeed he may be, for that has been the aim of the Arkansas Project and thousands of other stooges who signed on with the ultra right the day after election day 1992.

Their goal? Destroy Bill Clinton, no matter what it takes, no matter the truth.

Monitoring the three networks and four cable franchises we heard nary a critical word about Kenneth Starr, a politically tainted "independent" counsel who seemed to take on almost a heroic veil last evening among the pundits and political murderers. Traditional defenders of the President seemed hard-pressed to defend him. They too seemed disappointed -- save for James Carville who sputtered and steamed as always -- a champion for his president, seemingly alone in the night defending Clinton.

Where was Vincent Bugliosi, one of the most famous and accomplished prosecutors in the nation who said, "I can't think of any adjective strong enough to indicate my displeasure with what Starr has done. I think his conduct has been a disgrace to prosecutors everywhere. He has no business conducting this investigation into the president's private sexual life. This would not be going on in any other country in the world. He is treating this case like a murder case. The whole thing is absolutely outrageous."

Bugliosi knows that Starr was biased from the start. He had a conflict of interest as a sworn enemy of the President.

Starr, who was appointed as the Whitewater prosecutor, has gone where no responsible prosecutor would dare to tread. His charge? Smear Bill Clinton and destroy his credibility. Bugliosi calls his conduct "a disgrace to prosecutors everywhere."

Like our editors, Bugliosi calls the right wing Clinton Hunters "the most un-American, unpatriotic people that there are. They've caused more damage to the Republican Party than the Democrats could ever dream of doing. An example of a true conservative would be John McCain, whose first words after he learned about the Monica Lewinsky allegations were 'I hope and pray that the charges against the president are not true.' You know what the right wing said? They said, 'We hope the charges are true and that the president will be humiliated in front of the American public and the entire world.' "

Bugliosi is right. Perhaps there is no unified "right wing conspiracy," as Hillary Clinton called the attack on her and her husband over the past five years -- but there ARE assuredly several groups of conspirators, fueled by electoral and monetary greed, who have learn to pass signals and feed off each other.

Now where might you guess the press will turn during the next few days?

Here's your answer: Hillary and Chelsea Clinton.

Up until now, only passing interest on the impact to the family has been evident. All of a sudden, one can't turn on the tube without listening to some preachy commentator talk about how the First Lady and Chelsea will cope with "The Monster." The one-two punch. Their goal: let's see if we can stir her up to make a public statement. Let's sneak into the family's private conversations and pretend we know that Bill Clinton's wife helped him plan his five minute speech. Let's psychoanalyze her. Let's revel in her -- and his -- personal misery, offer "advice," call for their separation and then burn him at the stake.

Let's use the wife and daughter to disgrace him and bring him to his knees.

"If he lied about that, he could lie about anything." The new right wing mantra. As if no one has ever lied. As if no family confronted the infidelities of each other and their friends. George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, LBJ, Jack Kennedy and George Bush -- all have been accused by history of philandering. All are national heroes. Even Ronald Reagan left his wife and children in midstream for his beloved Nancy. Should all these men have been impeached? No. But the cornerstone of Christian "fundamentalism" so carefully and hypocritically set by right wing zealots has taken hold in America. No longer can we tolerate
the flings of those with super-egos inflated by our system.

No slack. No forgiveness. Only destruction.

Now we hear Helen Thomas, a sane voice in the senior ranks of the White House press corps, talk of the "quality of mercy" and conservation of personal dignity. She asks why Americans are being so tough on Bill Clinton -- did they expect him to throw himself on the floor and beg forgiveness?

We ask a similar question: just who do these pundits and politicians think they are to foist their self-serving ideal that we somehow must "forgive" Bill Clinton for protecting his private life? He did not come to the stage to announce his fidelity or lack thereof. He was forced -- not from fear of legal reprisal but by nothing less than political terrorism -- to lie about that which all of us might lie. He may have broken faith with his wife, but that is not our concern, nor should it be.

It is clear that Bill Clinton will fight for his presidency. It may be that he will lose because our only sources of information fuel the attack on him for profit, entertainment value and avarice.

But perhaps somewhere within the political leadership, there is one man in the opposition who will rise and say "Enough is enough." Perhaps there is one man who knows well the quality of mercy.

-- The Editors