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Benefit of the Doubt

© Frank Monaldo

Mr. Tim Russert:     If on Wednesday the president of the United States came home and said, "Saddam Hussein will not comply with United Nations inspections. We must attack him militarily today" would you take him at his word that it was necessary to do that on the day before the impeachment vote?

Representative Tom DeLay:     No, because he hasn't done that all this year. Remember about the time he was supposed to give the deposition in January, he sent the troops and rattled his sabres at Saddam Hussein? Nothing happened. Remember in November — I mean, in June he went to China after moving that trip from November to June, when he thought he was going to be in trial with Paula Jones? And then again in August he starts rattling his saber again and backs off. That's what's happening.

Mr. Tim Russert:     So you're suggesting the president of the United States would use the military of this country in order to distract from his difficulties?

Representative Tom DeLay:     I'm suggesting that the president of the United States cannot be believed, and I think it's reflective in his foreign policy.

— From the transcript of Meet the Press on December 13, 1998, three days before President Clinton launched an air attack on Iraq.

This exchange is terrifying. A high-ranking Congressional leader is seriously and soberly suggesting that a President of the United States would commit troops to thwart attempts to impeach him.

We can be confident to a moral certainty that this President was willing to, at best, be evasive and misleading in a deliberate effort to deny a plaintiff in a federal civil rights case her day in court. We can be confident to a moral certainty, that in order to protect his legal liability this President will tell falsehoods to a federal grand jury. We can be confident to a moral certainty that even while under oath in his deposition to Congress, this President has chosen to prevaricate.

This week Charles Krauthammer publicly questioned why, after 400 days of provocation, Clinton decided to commit American forces the day before the impeachment debate on the floor of the House. Krauthammer argues that the excuse of trying to launch the attack before Ramadan was flimsy. For Muslim nations the imperatives of war often outweigh religious sensibilities. The Yom Kippur War against Israel is called the Ramadan War by Arab states because it was launched at Ramadan. The strictures of Islam were not sufficient to prevent Iraq and Iran from battling viciously through many years of Ramadans.

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