The New Republic

Ordinarily, a witness who changes her story in a way that makes herself an object of ridicule or disgrace is viewed as more credible rather than more suspicious: the law of evidence calls this a statement against interest. But, in May, on the basis of just such a statement, Julie Hiatt Steele will become the first and perhaps the only person to be tried for crimes arising out of Kenneth Starr's investigation of President Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky. READ MORE >>

The witnesses are coming! In their opening arguments during the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton, the House managers seemed to convince a majority of senators to call witnesses to resolve disputed factual questions. The president's lawyers responded that witnesses are unnecessary because "you have before you all that you need" to conclude that there was no basis for the House to impeach the president or the Senate to convict him. READ MORE >>

"You have no right or authority under the law, as independent counsel, to advocate for a particular position on the evidence before the Judiciary Committee," Sam Dash wrote to Kenneth Starr last week, announcing his decision to resign as Starr's $400-an-hour ethics adviser. But Dash's frantic attempt to save his tattered reputation after Starr's appearance before the House was several months too late. READ MORE >>

"It is either impeachment or nothing," Gary McDowell, the conservative legal scholar, told the House Judiciary Committee on November 9. "Thus, the current suggestion that Congress might censure the president is to assume a power not given by our Constitution." Many of the scholars who testified during the opening hearing of the House impeachment inquiry agreed with McDowell, but they were overstating the case against censure. READ MORE >>

Last weekend was the hundredth anniversary of George Gershwin's birth, and, to commemorate the event, while seeking refuge from the obscene cd-rom containing the appendices of the Starr report, I put on the Brooklyn Academy of Music's terrific recording of Gershwin's greatest political operetta, Of Thee I Sing. Far from providing an escape from President Clinton's difficulties, however, the musical eerily managed to predict them. READ MORE >>

"There is Substantial and Credible Information that President Clinton Committed Acts that May Constitute Grounds for an Impeachment," Kenneth Starr declares in his report to Congress. But the independent counsel does not explain how, precisely, he has decided to define "acts that may constitute grounds for an impeachment." Starr clearly believes that impeachable offenses are not limited to violations of criminal law, since he includes acts, ranging from bathroom trysts to more formal exercises of executive privilege, that not even he suggests are illegal. READ MORE >>

After his appearance before Kenneth Starr's grand jury, President Clinton said that he had answered "questions about my private life, questions no American citizen would ever want to answer." But, "as to a very few highly intrusive questions," his lawyer, David Kendall, declared, "in order to preserve personal privacy and institutional dignity," the president "gave candid but not detailed answers." Clinton appears to have followed a version of the strategy proposed by Nathan Lewin, who urged him in The New York Times last week to decline to discuss the lurid details of his affair w READ MORE >>

In Harm's Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings edited by Catharine A. MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin (Harvard, 496 pp., $24.95) Heterophobia: Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism by Daphne Patai (Rowman & Littlefield, 288 pp., $22.95) I. READ MORE >>

President Clinton inspired dark comparisons to Watergate last week when he invoked executive privilege to prevent his aides from testifying before Kenneth Starr's grand jury. His critics are treating the president's claim as proof that he has something to hide. "Not since Richard Nixon tried to withhold incriminating taped evidence--and was forced by the unanimous Supreme Court to respond to the subpoena of a grand jury--has a president presumed to wrap personal wrongdoing in the cloak of official business," William Safire thundered. READ MORE >>

At every stage in her ridiculous lawsuit against Bill Clinton, Paula Jones has deftly adjusted her allegations to take advantage of the peculiarities of sexual harassment law itself. When she filed her complaint in 1994, for example, Jones claimed unconvincingly that her career had suffered because she spurned Clinton's alleged advance, although she hadn't mentioned anything about retaliation in her initial interviews or press conference. Then, last week, Jones changed her story yet again. READ MORE >>