A L S O+T O D A Y Starr Wars By Joan Walsh The Democrats strike back Nothing has changed Compiled by Lori Leibovich and Fiona Morgan The consensus of political experts is that no minds were changed by Starr's day in court Starr on the stand An uncut transcript of Thursday's sometimes rancorous and often bitterly partisan congressional impeachment proceedings Dear Ken The full text of ethics advisor Sam Dash's letter of resignation to Kenneth Starr Starr speaks The full text of independent counsel Kenneth Starr's House Judiciary Committee testimony A dozen questions Congress should ask Kenneth Starr By David Talbot, Murray Waas and Joan Walsh (11/18/98)   T A B L E+T A L K Discuss Ken Starr and his testimony in the Politics area of Table Talk   R E C E N T L Y Same Old Party By Joshua Micah Marshall New leadership can't mend the rifts among Republicans in Congress (11/19/98) Reply to C.D. Ellison By David Horowitz It's time for blacks to have a two-party system, too (11/19/98) Toppling Saddam By Frank Smyth Clinton wants a new government in Baghdad, but he and the Iraqi opposition are unlikely to be up to the task (11/18/98) Brother on brother By Murray Waas Whitewater witness David Hale attempted to suborn perjury by his own brother by asking him to falsely corroborate illegal acts by President Clinton (11/17/98) The mark of Cain: a tale of two brothers By Murray Waas Though they traveled the same path from the family dirt farm through law school, the Hale brothers turned out different as night and day (11/17/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.
		DR. JEKYLL AND MR. STARR | PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - The day started out as if there would be major fireworks. Shortly after 10 a.m. EST, it looked like the whole carefully choreographed theater of impeachment might blow up and keep on blowing, like an out-of-control performance art piece where the actors beat up passersby and piss on each other for the edification of the audience. Henry Hyde, the ringmaster of the House Judiciary Committee who seems to control the animals with quips rather than the lash, rolled up his sleeves and prepared to deliver his "our-grave-constitutional-duty" speech. He was just getting going when William Delahunt broke in and brought out the circus. The Democrat from Massachusetts moved that Starr should be questioned by the White House for two hours, rather than half an hour. Hyde denied the request and returned partisan fire, rebuking Clinton for not answering the 81 questions Republicans had sent to him. Delahunt went back on the attack, saying the time limit was unfair. Then Democratic Rep. Melvin Watts barged in, saying, "We're disrupting a railroading." Food fight! Rumble in the jungle! Democrats emboldened by election results assault Starr, Barr -- seven hospitalized in wild brawl on floor of House! Sensing pandemonium, Hyde chastised, "The gentleman will observe decorum." But before decorum had a chance to congeal upon the august members, Jerrold Nadler of New York piled on, followed by Sheila Jackson Lee. "Justice should be blind, but we've never argued that justice is gagged," Jackson Lee said. She actually invoked the Chicago Seven. "The chair doesn't intend to bind and gag anyone," said Hyde. In a no-holds-barred statement delivered in an amiable drawl, John Conyers called Starr a "federally paid sex policeman" and said "a sense of desperation is palpable." In the words of Beatrix Potter, "There were very extraordinary noises overhead, which disturbed the dignity and repose of the tea party." The angel of Bronx-cheer kookiness threatened to spread his wings over the proceedings, and that particular bird, in this case, is definitely a Democrat. Alas, the mania passed. Starr read his leaked statement, which calmed everyone down to the point of deep sleep and convinced anyone not disconnected from higher brain functions that Clinton had sex with Monica Lewinsky and then lied about it under oath, but didn't convince a lot of people that he obstructed justice or misused the powers of his office. And then the ritual beatings and exaltations began. The Democrats immediately attacked Starr everywhere they could hit him. They pummeled him for his association with Richard Mellon Scaife, his representation of tobacco firms antagonistic to Clinton, his leaks, his long ties with the Paula Jones camp. At first, as his Democratic interlocutors tried to press these points home, his bland, just-the-facts demeanor seemed to work. He was immeasurably aided by the five-minute time limit, which ended all interrogations before they got anywhere and allowed his Republican henchmen to jump into the ring like tag-team wrestlers, pull him off the mat, call him "Judge" to the point of honorary-title sensory overload and pretend the previous unpleasant exchanges hadn't taken place. Minority counsel Abbe Lowell asked Starr why he didn't tell the Justice Department about his previous ties to Jones when asking for expanded jurisdiction to investigate Lewinsky. Draping himself in the lofty robes of constitutional scholarship, Starr pooh-poohed his amicus brief on behalf of Jones as completely irrelevant and explained that his involvement was so well-known he didn't think to bring it up. As for bullying Lewinsky and keeping her from calling her lawyer, those were all well-known prosecutorial tactics. And so on. It was all so reasonable and vanilla-tasting, and interposed with so many other adulatory and accusatory episodes -- to which Starr responded in the same calm, helpful-but-firm way -- that whatever Starr might have done wrong began to seem beside the point. The man with the well-modulated voice and the squishy-lipped, vaguely menacing mouth began to seem like a rock of judicial reasonableness in a sea of squabbling political hacks. The stage managing was working the Republicans' way. But then, once you got used to this peculiar type of theater, Starr's "I'm just trying to do my job" act began to wear thin. The cuts began to mount up: The failure to include the Filegate exculpation. The unadmitted Jones contacts. The tendentious referral. The harassment of Lewinsky (Starr stumbled badly in his defense of his misleading press release, bringing down the house when he said, "Let me explain what press releases are designed to do"). As a TV personality, Starr continued to play his role impeccably -- he didn't start sweating and acting Nixonian (or Clintonian). But the gulf between his super-judicious demeanor and his actual judicial actions began to become uncomfortably apparent. Finally, Democrat Zoe Lofgren drew real blood. She asked Starr if he first learned in November of the existence of tapes concerning a woman who had a sexual relationship with Clinton -- a crucial question, because it cut to the heart of his murky relationship with Linda Tripp and the Jones lawyers and raised the specter of improper collusion and the secret creation of a perjury trap. Starr's lofty rhetoric about the seriousness of perjury as a high crime and misdemeanor would begin to smell a bit off-color if there were reason to think he helped engineer that perjury. Shockingly, Starr couldn't answer. He mumbled something about not having a clear recollection. Suddenly we were back in the days of old owl-face Adm. Poindexter saying, "I did not micromanage Oliver North" and "to the best of my recollection, I can't recall" and Clinton's immortal excursion into Jesuitical ontology, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' means." Starr may have proved to the world, as his defenders were saying in advance, that he doesn't have horns. But he may yet be shown to be a prosecutor who didn't play by the rules. If that turns out to be the case, all the bland geniality in the world won't help him. SALON | Nov. 20, 1998 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.