Two Liars
Two
Liars
Of the two, Bill Clinton is
the bigger liar, we suppose, but Ken Starr may be the more brazen. Clinton's
"that woman" lie at least was a sincere attempt to keep us in the dark. Starr,
by contrast, seems to think he can mislead us about truths that are right in
front of our eyes. And maybe he can.
Wednesday's New York Times , for example, carried excerpts from Starr's
letter to Clinton's lawyer David Kendall explaining why he would not give
Kendall an advance peek at Starr's report to Congress. "As you doubtless know,"
Starr wrote, "this Office steadily has maintained the position that it would
not be appropriate to comment on the possibility that it would provide a
'report' to Congress." Naturally it is impossible to let Kendall see the report
in advance if you have a steadily maintained position that you don't even
concede the "possibility" that such a report exists.
That was on Page A18 of the national edition. Meanwhile, on
Page A1 ("Report by Starr Against Clinton Expected Soon") of the same paper,
the "possibility" of a " 'report' " from Starr was getting very different
treatment. Starr "plans to deliver a report" quite soon, and he "intends to
alert Speaker Newt Gingrich" that very day that the report contains "credible
grounds for impeachment." The report "is expected to outline ... will almost
certainly say ... is likely to include ..." and so on. Says who? Say "allies of
Mr. Starr" and "lawyers familiar with Mr. Starr's plans" and so forth.
Despite the coy labeling,
this information could come from only one of two places: someone's imagination
or Starr's office. And since the info has proved to be accurate, the first
option defies probability. Starr has said he disapproves of leaks, but leaks
have gushered out of his office before and since, and no one has been caught
and fired. So it's obvious that his "Office" did not have a steadily maintained
position of not commenting on its then-forthcoming report. It was commenting
every day and still is. Starr's letter to Kendall was, in short, a lie.
The same
Wednesday Times contained its usual daily editorial calling for more
flamboyant abjection from Clinton, adding that Starr "correctly rejected" his
lawyer's request to see the report in advance. It failed to note that Starr's
reason for rejecting the request was transparently false.
How to
Avoid Flytrap
E-mail continues to pour in
complaining about too much
Slate
coverage of the presidential
scandal. For
Slate
readers who agree with this sentiment, we have
created a special page listing and linking to all the Flytrap stories in
Slate
they may wish to avoid. They may wish to make an exception
for our two unique versions of the Starr report. One, supplied to us early in
the week by free-lance writer Art Levine, has turned out to be wildly
inaccurate. In hindsight, probably, we should have suspected that Judge Starr
would not use the phrase "fiery loins." Oh well.
At this writing, the actual
report is not yet out on the Web. As soon as it is, though, we plan to run it
through a feature of Microsoft Word 7.0 called AutoSummarize. AutoSummarize
reduces the bulk of any piece of prose by up to 90 percent while attempting to
retain the original essence.
We'll also, of course, have
links to various locations where you can read the whole thing.
--Michael Kinsley
