The left had their eagerly awaited Fitzmas, and now the Freepers have their own version of a similar holiday:
A long-awaited report detailing an independent counsel investigation of a former secretary of housing and urban development, Henry Cisneros, outlines a coordinated effort by Clinton administration officials to first block and then limit the probe as a way of taking pressure off an administration that was already beset by scandals.
The report, by independent counsel David Barrett, is scheduled for release on January 19. Details of it have been disclosed to The New York Sun by persons familiar with its contents.
Will this be the equivalent of GUT for the Freepers in the never-ending anti-Clinton crusade? Will all of the paranoid accusations be confirmed? Or will they, as I suspect, wake up to a lump of coal?
Nikki
Only a Freeper would care. Cisneros is old news.
Mr Furious
Ancient. History.
Ozymandius
I heard that Clinton wiretapped the entire HUD office.
And then personally strangled Vince Foster with tinsel.
chopper
jesus, someone needs to tell these people that clinton isn’t president anymore.
Pb
Wow, lying to the FBI is a crime? It’s a wonder no one in the current administration has gotten pegged with that one…
Paddy O'Shea
ZZZzzzZZZZzzzzzzz zzz zz zz z….
You mean to say we aren’t going to get to discuss the other big Weepie Freepie issue of the day, Hillary Clinton referring to the GOP Congress (AKA as a “plantation?”
C’mon! I have all these quotes from Republicans making similar use of the p-word, and I can’t wait to post them.
Oh, and allow me to encourage all my Republican friends to invest heavily in the stock market today. Big things are happening!
Hans Sprungfeld
I’m sure that after Bush retires in ’09, the Democrats will never bring up his name again, because he will be old news (just like they never bring up Nixon). The GOP should do the same with the last Dem to hold the office. Fair’s fair.
The Other Steve
Finally the truth is out!
Vince Foster didn’t commit suicide.
The anti-Clinton freepers bored him to death!
Mr.Ortiz
If my paranoid accusations aren’t confirmed, that will only prove that the independent counsel is part of the conspiracy.[/DougJ]
TM Lutas
I don’t give a hoot about Cisneros’ mistress but I do think that some of the Democrat efforts to suppress the report should raise real questions of what exactly was going on in the Clinton administration and allow a reasonable examination of how the system failed. Let’s be clear, the system *did* fail when the only thing stopping prosecutions is that a politically led effort to limit and delay the investigation runs out the clock on prosecution.
This time it was the Dems. Next time it might be the Reps. In any case, Cisneros’ investigation is to be an instruction manual for officials evading responsibility for their venal acts. That’s something that should be fixed no matter what party you adhere to.
Paddy O'Shea
Hans: You’re probably wrong about that. I suspect the Democrats will be bringing up the name of George W. Bush as a warning to faithless voters of the consequences of voting Republican for decades.
Freepie Political Dialogue Made Simple:
– If it is something to the detriment of Georgie, then it is the result of a conspiracy headed by Move.org, Michael Moore, Barbra Streisand, George Clooney, Al Gore and the Howard Dean headed DNC.
– If it is to the detriment of the Democrats, then it is solid proof that treason is taking place on a daily basis, and it is time to fill up the concentration camps.
Best understood after taking 10 OxyContin tablets washed down with scotch, reinforced with an 8 hour session with your favorite AM radio talk show hosts.
Lines
You know the great thing about Fitzmas? More presents than anyone could have expected.
Just look at the bounty:
Frist – insider trading
Bush – warrentless wiretapping of American citizens
Delay – Fraud, money laundering
Ney – Which laws is he going to break next?
Abramoff – which Republican wasn’t in his pocket?
West – diddling little boys
Cunningham – diddling himself with wads of bribary cash
And more. But we didn’t quite get what we all wanted for Fitzmas, and that is Rove’s piggish head on a platter served up with the apple in his mouth. But give it time, the best meat is that which is slow roasted.
How soon before Blackwell, Harris and Schmitt self-destruct? And all that Republicans got was Nagin being stupid. Sounds like coal of the bitterest kind.
ChristieS
Exactly.
Angus
Frankly,
I don’t see why there is all this fuss, or even a special prosecutor in the first place. Cisneros right off the bat admitted that he paid hush money to a mistress to stay quiet. His lie was about the amount. Who cares?
Ancient Purple
That’s Ancient Purple. No period. Thanks. :o)
This is truly old news. I swear, in 100 years, some radical right winger is going to say, “Well, sure my president has his problems, but look at what Clinton did 100 years ago!!!”
Yawn.
Steve
This investigation essentially transformed a relatively minor offense into a 10-year cash cow for lawyers. All you have to do is look at the costs of this investigation compared to the costs of Fitzgerald’s investigation to realize that the lawyers investigating Cisneros viewed it as a golden opportunity to whack the file for years.
I would be happy if we exercised a tenth as much diligence in investigating the Bush Administration as the Republicans exercised during the Clinton years. Somehow, the rules changed, and not to the public’s benefit.
Andrew
Didn’t Cisneros already plead out and pay a fine?
Blue Neponset
Should we impeach Clinton again?
Sock Puppet
There you go, it’s all about Dems and their motel broads again. Why can’t they be more like Republicans and just take some bribes?
Oh, wait. Most Republican politicians don’t sleep with women.
Was I being homophobic?
jcricket
Sorry, too funny not to pass on: Iraqi Invasion: A Text Misadventure
Like every false equivalency the Freepers try to create (“Kerry was once wrong when he said a new law would cost $5 billion and it cost $6 billion, therefore the president shouldn’t be held accountable when he said there were WMD in Iraq”) this will turn out to be a big nothing.
Cisneros was guilty, that’s bad, I’m unhappy with what he did and he should be punished. What Clinton did was legally (the lying) and morally (the lying and the affair) wrong. I condemn him for it and he deserved to be punished.
If some Democrat is, right now, using money from a lobbyist to fuel their lifestyle in exchange for legislation, that’s wrong.
But the idea that there aren’t major differences in degree between these scandals is just bullshit. Just like when you get a stiffer sentence for murder than for shoplifting. If you get censured for lying about your affair, then you get impeached for spying on American citizens sans warrants, lying about your spying, continuing to spy and asserting your right to continue to spy sans warrants.
Even better are things like the Abramoff scandal, Delay, etc. that are part of a larger pattern. To argue that a single Democrat taking a bribe (which the Republicans haven’t been able to produce yet relating to this scandal) is the same as 10-20 Republicans, including several in the leadership of the party and possibly the White House itself is bullshit.
tb
That’s never going to happen. By any rational standard, Bush is disastrously bad President, and none of us are going to have the luxury of forgetting him anytime soon. I could give a shit if your people want to keep fighting the “battles” of the 1990’s.
Sojourner
How many people died because of Cisneros’s activities?
What’s that…?
None?
Go away.
Ross
It seems like the whole concept of degree has been dissolving from our public discourse. It doesn’t matter how much weight of evidence piles up on one side; if there is another point of view it deserves equal voice. The first examples that come to mind are evolution vs Intelligent design and the debate over the mere existance of global warming.
The Other Steve
Let me get this straight.
A Politically led effort to limit and delay a politically motivated investigation is wrong?
Really?
I wish the Bush administration had to put up with as much bullshit as Clinton did.
Jorge
“Hans Sprungfeld Said:
I’m sure that after Bush retires in ‘09, the Democrats will never bring up his name again, because he will be old news (just like they never bring up Nixon). The GOP should do the same with the last Dem to hold the office. Fair’s fair.”
Wow – that’s a new standard. 4 years from now, the Democrats will most likely do something so its only fair that the Republicans do it now. Its pre-emptive fair play.
BadTux
I don’t get it. Clinton isn’t President. He hasn’t been President for 5 years now. Why in the world do we care about what Clinton did? And why are the Freepers so concerned about the evils of the Clintons? For the sake of argument I will state that the Clintonistas were evil. But does that mean it’s okay for the Busheviks to be evil? Is that what the Freepers are saying — that it’s okay to do evil things, as long as the Clintonistas did the same evil things?
– Badtux the Puzzled Penguin
Steve
Let’s put it this way. If a Democrat is elected in 2008, I sure hope I don’t find myself defending him (or her, heh) against accusations by saying “Bush used to do that same thing.”
SheRa
A long time ago, I worked with David Barrett’s daughter–a true believer in her father’s cause–who assured me that there was big news about the horrors of the Clinton administration from her dad’s investigation. Little did I know I would have to wait about eight more years to find out what the hoopla was all about!!
Steve
The sideshow to the 10-year investigation has been that every so often, Democrats in Congress say, “Can we stop spending millions of dollars on that investigation and get a final report, already?” and Republicans scream bloody murder about how Democrats are trying to pull a cover-up, etc.
Darrell
Unlike the left making unsubstantiated claims over Plame and Fitz-mas, not many on the right are getting too worked up over this one. Given that he had given his girlfriend tens of thousands of dollars in gifts per MONTH for a period of years when he was reporting to the IRS an income of less than $100k/year, it not only looks like possible tax fraud, but also raises reasonable doubts as to whether lobbyists helped him foot those bills which he doesn’t appear to have been able to afford based on his reported income
HH
Actually Christmas would be the full report which was blocked by the Democrats.
HH
And yeah we were still hearing about Iran-Contra in 2001 from the left.
HH
Er Lines, which of those things has to do with Fitzgerald? No one’s even talking about Libby anymore.
Andrew
Not only that, you half wit, but he was pardoned by Clinton too!
Steve
Did someone really drop by just to equate Henry Cisneros with Iran-Contra? Sheesh.