The Quad City Times (QCT) ran a masthead meathead editorial today about the recent indictment of former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert for lying to the FBI regarding withdrawals of his own money. Contained in the editorial were some points castigating Hastert which we would agree with but repetition of leftist saws about hypocrisy and the Clinton impeachment are wrong or do not apply.
The QCT also ran a companion editorial by John Kass who writes for Town Hall a conservative publication. The QCT probably thinks it is being clever or doing a bit of balance or even CYA by running a conservative’s castigation of a Republican as if such occurrences were something unique or reinforce all of their points. In fact Kass has been on Hastert’s case before, when the QCT was not, and conservative publications regularly go after Republican frauds, weak hitters, wrongdoers and apostates on policy. Kass grandly castigates Hastert for ignoring, if not being part of, Illinois corruption. We find Kass’s comments more compelling and pertinent.
However we wish Kass or the QCT would have raised the issue of the propriety of government needing to know the reasons of every citizen making substantial withdrawals of cash. Certainly no open-ended question should be allowed. If drug enforcement reasons or anti-terrorism efforts are the justifications to know of such withdrawals then the questioning should be limited to uncovering that purpose. A fishing expedition line of questioning is a violation of privacy rights and only relevant matters to lawful inquiry should be admissible in a judicial proceeding.
The QCT wrote:
Hastert’s indictment provides another sorry distinction. He succeeded Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston as House Speaker. All three men pushed hard to impeach President Bill Clinton. Both Gingrich and Livingston later admitted to being engaged in their own extramarital affairs while prosecuting Clinton for his.
Now Hastert appears to have kept his own secret while vigorously pursuing Clinton’s.
But Hastert’s indictment is not about sex. It’s about lying to federal investigators.
The first paragraph implies strongly that Hastert, Gingrich and Livingston pushed for impeachment charges against Clinton’s for having an extra-marital affair. No such charge was brought. In fact there were four impeachment charges Hastert, Gingrich and Livingston would have voted on:
- Article 1: Perjury before Independent Counsel Ken Starr’s grand jury.
- Article 2: Perjury in the Paula Jones civil case.
- Article 3: Obstruction of Justice related to the Jones case.
- Article 4: Abuse of Power by making perjurious statements to Congress in his answers to the 81 questions posed by the Judiciary Committee.
Only articles 1 and 3 passed the House for trial by the Senate. Simply stated they relate to perjury and obstruction of justice . . . as in . . . “it’s not the underlying thing its the cover-up.”
Stipulating that all three engaged in extra marital affairs (at this writing no definitive report states exactly what Hastert did but we will assume it was “about sex”) there is no hypocrisy in referring perjury and obstruction charges against Clinton unless they were engaged in legally actionable instances of perjury and obstruction themselves at the same time.
Unfathomably the QCT then goes on to state “But Hastert’s indictment is not about sex” Then why the reference to extra-marital affairs (sex) implicating him!? Further, by suggesting the distinction that Hastert’s case was about lying as if Clinton’s was not is the height of self-assured ignorance, boobery, or lying to their readers.
R Mall
* As an aside and as a philosophical exercise let’s engage the QCT rewrite of history, accept the false lessons they would like to impart that the Clinton impeachment trial specified an extra marital affair as the actionable charge (disregarding that when such an event involves a young subordinate in the corporate world or the military it would be grounds for firing / court martial).
We wonder, by the QCT standard, does any congressperson who is otherwise designated to vote on such a matter who has had an extra marital affair in any circumstance, whether or not it involves a subordinate, have to recuse themselves lest they be hypocrites? Does a conflict only pertain to those who vote for impeachment (to be tried by others by the way, a sort of grand jury indictment, not a statement of guilt)? But what of those congresspersons who had affairs but voted not to impeach for such reasons? Are they not just as conflicted toward an interest in having such matters diminished as inconsequential? Did the QCT ever suggest that, say Democrat congressmen who had affairs and voted against impeachment, were self serving hypocrites? Should such affairs with presidential subordinates be ignored? The world awaits the QCT answer.
