Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 13:24:50 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Edward W. Said: The president and the baseball player  (fwd)


Am I the only one to notice a strange parallel between Ken Starr's
investigation of Clinton and arms investigation in Iraq? Both Clinton and
Sadaam Hussein claim that they are being pursued by over-zealous
prosecutors who are intent upon bring down their respective regimes (and
both are no doubt correct...if anyone seriously believes that the US will
put an end to sanctions before Hussein is removed from power is as naive
as anyone who believes Ken Starr will quit before Clinton is impeached).
Both Clinton's and Hussein's detractors claim that the unending
investigations have been prolonged by obstruction and other acts of
deception and delay (and again, no doubt both are correct. Clinton has
lied, hid documents pertaining to Whitewater and Monica-gate; Iraq has
lied about weapons programs, hid documents from investigators, etc.) If
one substitutes Clinton's claims to privacy with Iraq's claims of national
sovereignty, the parallels are even more striking. My hopes are that
Clinton's run-in with Starr will allow him to recognize that Iraq may have
some legitimate concerns about the vagueness of UN resolutions (how on
earth is it possible to verfy that Iraq has absolutely no weapons of mass
destruction?)and the prospect of a protracted (and ultimately inhumane)
sanctions that only harm the Iraqi people.

By the way, I can't believe people can say that the relationship between
Lewinski and Clinton is a "private affair." Whether Clinton has sex with
someone other than his wife is, of course, between him and her. As soon as
he has sex with an employee at work during business hours, threatens to
fire anyone who talks about the affair, asks his secretary to come to work
on weekends so that he can deny meeting his mistress, seeks employment in
the private sector for someone he has had sex with, it is no longer a
private but a social issue. Even if Lewinski "consented" to the affair,
what about the others at the workplace (including those interns who
naively believed that work performance was a better avenue for advancement
than sexual performance) who hardly "consented" to become Clinton's
"enablers." 




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