Hi all
I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder.
All I could find on the web site was stuff like this.
Anyone have the dates of the Hillary stories?
Regards
Tim Stewart
Agana, Guam
ISSUE 1215 Tuesday 22 September 1998
Starr stages a costly flop as chutzpah carries the day
By Charles Spencer, Telegraph theatre critic
President awaits video verdict
IT WAS billed as the grand climax of the show that
has America and the rest of the world hooked - President Clinton sweating it
out in front of a television camera as he was asked intimate questions about
his torrid sex life with Monica Lewinsky.
Unfortunately, like so much that is heavily hyped in
both showbiz and politics, the Starr v Clinton confrontation proved a
distinct let-down. There appeared to be nothing here that we didn't know
already. Worse still, the great philanderer looked like getting away with it
yet again.
We'd been told in advance that Clinton seemed
sweaty, furtive, bad-tempered and guilty. In fact he was remarkably calm and
reassuringly presidential. An expert with all sorts of props, not least, we
understand, cigars, he made particularly good use of a pair of half-moon
glasses that made this undoubtedly dodgy character look wise and benign. Far
from opposing the release of the video, one wondered why the White House
hadn't raced to put it out.
He treated the questions from the Starr team with a
mixture of weary patience and at times barely-concealed contempt for his
unseen interlocutors and one could readily understand why. The questions
were repetitive, unfocused, obscurely detailed, and almost entirely lacking
in tenacity and bite. During the grinding four hours of the testimony, which
will have reduced most to a state of bewildered narcolepsy, one kept wishing
that Kenneth Starr had co-opted Jeremy Paxman on to his team.
As Clinton droned serenely on, citing convenient
memory lapses whenever the questioning got remotely close to the bone, one
longed to hear Paxo's impatiently drawled "Come off it, Mr President".
There were times when you had to rub your eyes and
forcibly remind yourself that you were watching the unravelling of a quite
extraordinary farce. Who could ever imagine that a President of the United
States would actually appear on television to define just what he meant by a
sexual relationship?
What's more, could anyone make up a more bizarre,
indeed positively surreal definition of what constitutes rumpy-pumpy? In ol'
Clint's book touching or kissing a woman's breast is definitely a sexual
relationship, and so is genital stimulation, at least when these are done
with the specific purpose of arousing or gratifying your female partner.
She, however, can administer oral sex on you and suddenly it isn't a sexual
relationship any more. It is merely inappropriate.
So that's got that sorted out. Provided your
21-year-old intern doesn't enjoy herself, the President can have as much fun
as he likes. The feminist lobby's support of the man with the zipper problem
remains as baffling as ever. The interrogation momentarily perked up when
the now legendary cigar was mentioned. The President suddenly stopped
looking suave and appeared slightly sick but it was characteristic of the
fuzzy interrogation that the stogie's status in a sexual relationship
remained undefined.
There is something spooky about President Clinton.
We all know in our heart of hearts that he is a despicable man with a huge
gap where his morals and even his heart ought to be. Yet watching him on
television, in the most humiliating circumstances, one began both to feel
sorry for him and to admire his sheer chutzpah.
"I think he's gorgeous," observed a female colleague
I've always regarded as admirably hard-bitten at the end of his testimony.
An "inappropriate" response, certainly, but one knew what she meant.
Certainly the idea of impeaching Clinton on the grounds of this video tape
seems absurd. If this is the best Starr and his team can do, his $40 million
investigation is beginning to look like a risible flop.
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