Book Review: The Death of American Virtue - Clinton vs. Starr

The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr – by Ken Cormley

As a social studies teacher during the Clinton administration, I had assured my students that it would take the United States 100 years to recover from Clinton's presidency – if it ever did.

Ken Cormley's book on the evolution of scandal into scandal with its eventual climax in the impeachment proceedings has been universally (as far as I can tell) praised as being an even-handed work of scholarship. Cormley is a Constitutional Law scholar and dean at the Duquesne University Law School, and his account of this David vs. Goliath (hint: David is Ken Starr, for illustrative purposes) struggle is indeed one of the finest works of historical inquiry that I have read. And as a former social studies teacher, I have read a lot of history. It is intricately sourced and indeed, even-handed, yet reads like the finest of novels.

As one would expect from a work praised for its lack of bias, the book reflects real world realities starkly. We know who is wearing the white hats and the black hats in this story, just as anyone whose conscience has not been perversely twisted during the actual Clinton scandals. Bill Clinton is a vile, monstrous, deceiver – a man of few principles and zero conscience. What you will learn, perhaps for the first time by reading Cormley's book, is that Clinton is also a world-class coward. Ken Starr, however, is a man of impeccable character, respected as a man of integrity by everyone who was not a defendant in this case, including Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno (pp. 340ff). While Starr occasionally appears (and admits to being) somewhat befuddled by the prosecutorial task of following allegations, he is clearly a man of honesty and honor whose shortcomings are entirely human and do not affect the final outcome of the investigatory task. Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, and others, are proven repeatedly to be the liars that we all knew that they were back in the day.

Having said all that, I would say that reading Cormley's book has significantly changed my mind about a few things.

First of all, back in the day I considered it to be axiomatic that Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, et al., were obviously telling the truth about being sexually harassed, raped, and what have you, by Bill Cinton. Upon reading Cormley's book (did I mention that it has been praised for being even-handed?), I am convinced that they were not, in fact, telling the truth.

Paula Jones repeatedly expressed a desire to have her case concluded with a fair settlement just so that she could “have her life back.” Her advisors, including (but not limited to) conservative activist Susan Carpenter-Macmillan and Jones' own ex-husband, continually twisted her arm to keep the ball rolling. Had Jones actually been harassed in the way that she described, I cannot imagine her being willing to dismiss her allegations upon payment of funds to a charity, especially when the allegations of Clinton's alleged character as a rapist began to be published abroad. Further, Jones repeatedly assured various characters, including her own lawyers, that she would do certain things (settle the case) and wouldn't do certain things (pose naked in a porno spread), and reneged on those commitments. Finally, in one of the most outrageous lies ever known to man, Jones maintained to her lawyers once the said buff pictures had indeed been published that she was unaware that she was being photographed. *Ahem.* Anyone who has seen any of those pictures knows that Ms. Jones was quite aware that she was being photographed. Jones is an unstable liar, and her allegations against Clinton should be discounted accordingly.

Willey's case is, if anything, even more cut-and-dried than Jones.' Willey alleged that Clinton accosted her when she came to seek a political job from him, pinning her against the wall, biting her lip, and aggressively fondling her breasts. However, on the very date on which Willey suggests that this occurred to her, Linda Tripp maintains that she saw Willey coming out of Clinton's office appearing in an almost dreamy state, relaxed and happy – certainly not distraught in any way. Additionally, Willey's friend, Julie Hiatt Steele, denied that she had ever maintained that Clinton had misbehaved with reference to her. Willey, in fact, confessed to being behind closed doors with Clinton and willingly kissing and mutually groping him.

In short, by all evidence that exists beyond mere prejudice, it appears that these two women (and a host of others, whom I will ignore in the interests of brevity) were mere opportunists who sought to gain something – whether a Penthouse spread or a job – by the filing of false allegations against the president.

The hypocrisy which congeals around these allegations, which were simultaneously widely considered to be false among the intelligentsia and yet widely circulated by that same intelligentsia, is astounding. Ben Bradlee, editor of the Washington Post and the boss of Mike Isikoff, who broke the Lewinsky story among the “respectable” [sic] media, admitted that, while a great fan of JFK (whose credentials as a “girler” were impeccable), it was necessary to pursue and publish similar allegations against Clinton: “[Clinton] made the news.... I mean, we didn't take up with Monica Lewinsky.... Where do I draw the line? I draw the line at truth.”

Ahhhh, but there is the rub. Any time Bill Clinton is involved, the lines between truth and falsehood become marvelously blurred, don't they?

While it is true that Clinton is among that vilest of the class of human beings – those who treat their marriage vows as if they were clauses in a contract riddled with exceptions – and is singularly the most perverse and shameful politician to have ever inhabited the national stage (BHO44 notwithstanding), and while it is true that Clinton had (shall we say?), an extremely full social calendar, while broadcasting abroad the truth that Clinton was a devilish adulterer whose compulsion apparently exceeded that of one Tiger Woods, the press simultaneously broadcast the known falsehoods of the myriad of empty pockets, heads, and lives who swarmed around the Starr investigation like sharks around chum, seeking Warhol's proverbial 15. In short, the truth that Clinton was (and still is) an adulterer is not an excuse for knowingly accusing him of nonconsensual antics – including rape (Exodus 20:16).

But when lies are being tossed around, Bill Clinton is in his element. He is not just a Master of the Lie, in fact he is The Ringmaster of the Lie. Kevin Ohlson, a Justice Department appointee under Clinton, expressed fear when Janet Reno recommended handing off the Lewinsky matter to the Office of Independent Counsel (and by the way, contrary to the insane warblings of the Clinton administration, the investigation into the Lewinsky matter had nothing to do with sex – it was rather an investigation into obstruction of justice and the possibility of bribery being passed through Vernon Jordan in the form of a jobs-for-silence conspiracy): “Oh my God, this could lead to the president's resignation... out of sheer and utter embarrassment” (343). Of course, Ohlson can be forgiven for the unprovable assumption that Bill Clinton possesses enough conscience to feel embarrassment about anything. It is a common trait among sociopaths, of course, that they display no capacity for shame....

And so the false allegations against Clinton produced, not the truth, but rather an engorgement on falsehood that resembled, spiritually, the chaos present whenever my mother-in-law and a buffet are in the same room. Clinton was more than happy to engage in denials of the truth (one of which had his law license permanently revoked in Arkansas), character assassination (“Drag $100 through a trailer park and who knows what you'll come up with?”), and a scorched-earth policy of mudslinging (as successive Republican Speakers of the House resigned under the assault emanating from the Clinton White House through model citizen and *Hustler* publisher, Larry Flynt). Because Bill Clinton is a liar deep in his soul, he is in his element when the lies are flying fast and furious. And if winning counts, then he won. But if someday one is held to account for *how* one wins, there may be a somewhat different verdict before a slightly more majestic bar than the impeachment panel rightly convened against him.

So yes, it is quite an even-handed treatment of a chaotic period of American history. Cromley's objective treatment show Bill Clinton to be the vile criminal that he actually is in real life – a man so alienated from truth that he is destined to be remembered primarily for lies. Both the lies that he himself told, and the slanders that were proffered against him.

What has not been discussed in Cormley's book, or any other, of course, because the topic is expressly *verboten* among polite society (luckily, I do not consider myself to be polite at all), is the nexus between the Clinton scandals and feminist doctrine.

First, one may justly wonder, though Ben Bradlee seemed not to do so, why it is that the philandering of JFK, FDR, and (possibly) other presidents were largely covered up by the media, while Clinton's were declared, as it were, from the housetops. Now, liberals have their own explanation as to why this occurred (a “vast right-wing conspiracy,” but then paranoia is a natural aspect of the mental disorder known as liberalism), but liberals are always wrong, and have been proven so by history. So what is the real reason?

One word: court. Court documents. OK, that's really two words.

Marcia Lewinsky, Monica's mom, essentially paints her daughter as the victim of a perjury trap, noting that EVERYBODY'S first reaction when caught in adultery – even when you have got “the goods” on them – is to deny it. She makes the point that Paula Jones' public display was voluntary (though Jones herself would deny this, saying that she was thrust into the spotlight by *The American Spectator*): “Just because Paula Jones may have thought it was her right to make a public spectacle... I think Monica [similarly] thought it was her right to keep it private. And not to tell anyone about it, and to deny it, which is exactly what she did” (p. 399).

And I would agree, except for one thing: feminists generally, and Bill Clinton specifically, not Paula Jones, long ago made the decision for all of us that sex was going to be a public matter to be wielded like a weapon whenever it stood to benefit a woman to do so (and with so-called “rape shield laws,” feminists similarly established that feminism is not really about equality, but about enacting a series of double standards, when they also devised evidentiary standards in legal cases which kept relevant information about a so-called “victim's” past out of evidence, thereby reducing all rape, domestic violence, child abuse, and sexual harassment claims to “he said/she said” status).

In 1994, Bill Clinton signed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) as a sop to the feminist movement without whose devotion he would not have been elected (and, as subsequent events would confirm, as a sop to his wife as well). VAWA contained several provisions that were designed to promote the filing of false charges by women against men:

• VAWA removed the possibility of perjury charges for any testimony that a woman makes in a Domestic Violence Protective Order (DVPO) hearing.

• VAWA lowered the standard of evidence for obtaining a DVPO from the “likelihood of imminent harm” standard, which has been the standard for obtaining restraining orders in English Common Law since prior to the establishment of the American experiment, to the much more mushy “subjective fear of the woman.” In practical terms, this means that traditionally, in order to get a restraining order, a person had to prove that absent such an order, there was an imminent probability of harm. Under VAWA, however, any woman willing to manufacture false allegations (and nearly all DVPO proceedings are merely a convenient venue for the airing of generic grievances which have nothing to do with “violence” - it is estimated that false DVPO proceedings drain the economy of $20 billion annually, see http://www.mediaradar.org/docs/RADARreport-False-DV-Allegations-Cost-20-Billion.pdf), against a man need only convince a judge that she possesses fear of that man (and not even that such fear is justified!) in order to be granted a restraining order. Obviously, it is exceedingly rare for a requested DVPO to not be granted, on even the flimsiest of evidence. I have seen DVPOs granted by courts because the husband was an evangelical Christian or, in one case, because a husband canceled an insurance policy – which caused his wife to very dramatically intone in her testimony, “I just don't know who he is anymore. That is not the kind of thing he would do. I feel naked and exposed – I am SO SCARED.” Subjective fear of the woman requirement satisfied: DVPO granted.

• VAWA further continues to corrupt the judicial system by controlling the continuing education classes taken by judges and attorneys on the topic of “domestic violence.” Of course, all such continuing ed courses are taught either by doctrinaire feminists, who view the breakup of the family as a part of their ongoing political project, or by representatives of women's shelters, whose funding depends on an ever-expanding definition of and finding of “domestic violence.” Lawyers and judges at the district court level, where these matters tend to be disposed of, are now thoroughly brainwashed by feminist dogma, which has no relation to facts.

Clinton had, then, as one of his first major triumphs of policy, signed into law a piece of legislation that was designed to produce false allegations. It has done so in spades. This is entirely consistent with everything that we know about Bill Clinton, because the one reality that history will inevitably connect with his name is "liar." A man who lies as much as Bill Clinton always has, would certainly be a man whose alienation from truth is so complete as to desire to encourage lying in the general populace.

Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones were hardly the first females to use... uhhhhh... "creative" interpretations of sex to accomplish their purposes, whatever they were. In the book of Genesis, we see that false allegations are second only to seduction in the female weaponry utilized in the war against men (Genesis 39:7-20).

But the United States, under the tutelage of Bill Clinton, the notorious liar, and consequent to the Violence against Women Act, is the first society in all of human history to actively encourage these false allegations. Bill Clinton signed VAWA with the full knowledge that false allegations would ensue, that innocent men would be separated from their children (at least) and unjustly convicted of crimes (at worst), and that the American family would experience incomprehensible carnage. And that is exactly what has happened.

The purely karmic reality, however, is that Clinton was one of the very first to suffer under this regime.

God does exist.

And He has quite a sense of humor.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, there is nothing funny about the carnage that has been wreaked on the American family by Bill Clinton's signing of VAWA. It will, indeed, be 100 years before America recovers from the Clinton administration.

If it ever does.