Starr Inquiry Is America's Shame

by Walter M. Brasch

When President Abraham Lincoln suspended several Constitutional rights, no one required him to testify before a special inquisitor.

When President U. S. Grant pleaded ignorance that his own cabinet was one of the most corrupt in history, no one required him to testify before a special inquisitor.

When Rutherford B. Hayes and the Republicans in 1876 stole 20 electoral college votes from Samuel Tilden, who had a 250,000 popular vote plurality, no one required the newly-elected President to testify before a special inquisitor.

When President Warren G. Harding was embroiled in the Teapot Dome Scandal that involved land theft, no one required him to testify before a special inquisitor.

When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to hide the Constitution and pack the Supreme Court, no one asked him to testify before a special inquisitor.

When Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops into Laos and Cambodia, against federal law, no one required him to testify before a special inquisitor.

When Richard Nixon knew about the break-in at the Watergate and the subsequent cover-up, then lied to the public, no one required him to testify before a special inquisitor.

When Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush skirted federal law and became involved with what became known as Irangate and the selling of American arms to hostile foreign countries, no one asked them to testify before the special inquisitor.

In fact, not one president has ever escaped scandal, and not one president has ever been called to testify in a judicial proceeding.

And now comes the Grand Inquisitor himself, nerdy Kenny Starr, who has violated innumerable freedoms in his quest to become more famous than the Spice Girls. In his warm-up, he threatened and harassed witnesses who didn't tell him what he, and he alone, believed was the truth. He has decided he has a right to know what witnesses are reading, and who journalists who don't agree with him are talking to.

The violation of human rights by a zealot who believes his own foam was put there by his enemies is being done because he has determined that the President of the United States may have committed a grievous felony by possibly having oral sex with a willing and socially well-connected intern. The intern, whose name is now more famous than that of any cancer researcher, says if she's guilty of anything, it's only of having bad judgment in whom she selects as a friend to talk with over the phone.

Because Starr drowned in his campaign to sink the President and his wife on Whitewater issues, and because his investigations on the Paula Jones almost-sex case also sprung leaks, he now believes that 40 million taxpayer dollars aren't enough to stop him froim being a peeping tom, and demands that the Secret Service and the President himself testify before the Starr-Chamber.

So far, the Republican-dominated federal courts have agreed that sex is a greater felony than ripping apart the Constitution, election fraud, theft of public money and federal land, and even treason.

When Kenny and the Inquisitors play the tune, the media salivate all over their newsprint and videotapes to make sure they catch every note of the concert, even tossing natural disasters into the second section. It isn't any different from the shameful waste of paper and air time they displayed during the O.J. embarrassment, which involved sexual and celebrity issues as much as the slash-and-choke murder of a former wife and a guy who was just trying to do a good deed.

Sexual issues drive the media and the public. The public, if it's honest, will admit it won't elect lesbians because they are "too masculine." It won't elect gays because they are "too feminine." The public won't elect straight women because they "act just like a woman." The public doesn't like Hillary Clinton because, as brilliant as she is, she's "a bitch."

And, as far as the President is concerned, he's a hormone-driven maniac, apparently not unlike John F. Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson, or even Dwight D. Eisenhower, all of whom had "trysts." Of course, we refuse to accept the reality that in his six years in office, President Clinton has done more than Reagan and Bush did in 12 years to move the economy and vital social issues forward.

Since we have given the Starr Chamber our money and our time, perhaps we should require candidates for office to be eunuchs.