August 17, 1998: Bill Clinton vs. Kenneth Starr

Time magazine's end of the year cover,

showing both men as Men of the Year

August 17, 1998: Special Counsel Kenneth Starr has been gunning for President Bill Clinton for 4 years, and he thinks he's finally got him, forcing him to go under oath and testify about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Republicans think they can now impeach him and remove him from office, due to perjury and obstruction of justice.

On February 7, still in the early stages of the scandal, he was at a White House press conference with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain, and a reporter asked him, "At what point do you consider that it's just not worth it, and do you consider resigning?" Defiantly, and seemingly definitively, Clinton said, "Never. I'm going to keep showing up for work. I'm going to do what I was hired to do."

But things had gotten worse, and on August 17, Clinton testified to Starr at the White House. That night, Clinton gave a nationally-televised speech. The word I used to describe his facial expression just before he began was "grim." My first memory of any President was of Richard Nixon announcing his resignation on August 8, 1974, when I was 4 years old. I watched that speech with my father. We watched this one together, too, and we both thought Clinton might actually resign, and turn the Presidency over to Vice President Al Gore.

Instead, he explained what happened, and was regretful over the relationship; but as to the charges against him, he was defiant: He denied committing any crimes, and said of himself and his family, "It's nobody's business but ours."

And people got it: His approval rating actually went up. Once again, the man who called himself "The Comeback Kid" during his 1992 campaign proved he was at his best with his back to the wall.

Starr soon presented his report to Congress. The House of Representatives drew up 4 Articles of Impeachment against Clinton, but the evidence was shaky, and they could only approve 2 of them. Still, they were approved, and Clinton was only the 2nd President, after Andrew Johnson in 1868, to be impeached. (Nixon would have been impeached, had he not resigned first.) In reflection of the fact that, between them, they had both been the drivers of the biggest news story of the calendar year, Time magazine named Clinton and Starr as joint Men of the Year for 1998.

In the ensuing Senate trial, Clinton was acquitted on both charges. In January 2001, in the final days of his Presidency, Clinton made a deal with Starr, temporarily forfeiting his law license to avoid prosecution -- not because he thought he might be convicted, because he almost certainly wouldn't have been, but because he simply wanted to put an end to it, and, forced out of office not by his conduct or any punishment for it, but by the 2-term limit of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, he would escape with a comparatively minor penalty.

In hindsight, it might have been better if Clinton had done what Vice President Spiro Agnew  had done in 1973: Make a deal with the prosecutor, and resign his office in exchange for a minor penalty. If he had done that, the Republicans would have immediately gloated that they had "beaten" him, getting revenge for Nixon being forced out 24 years earlier.

But it would also have made Gore the incumbent President, probably boosted Democratic turnout in the elections that November (the Democrats did remarkably well for a midterm election, especially a "Year 6 election"). And Gore would have gotten the benefit of the last 2 years of the Clinton economy, and, with all the advantages of incumbency, instead of only the disadvantages of it as he actually got, would have been elected to a full term in 2000.

He would have refused tax cuts for the wealthy, preventing the 2001-04 recession. He would have read his Presidential Daily Briefing, and could have stopped the 9/11 attacks. He could have kept Clinton's environmental policies in place. And he would never have gone to war for oil in Iraq.

Resigning in August 1998 would have ruined Clinton's reputation, but America and many other countries would have been better off in the end. It would, literally, have made all the difference in the world.

In 2007, Starr joined the legal defense team for accused pedophile-ring runner Jeffrey Epstein, proving himself a hypocrite on the issue of sexual misdeeds. In 2010, Starr was appointed President of Baylor University, a Baptist school in Waco, Texas. He resigned in 2016, because he had done exactly what he tried to accuse Clinton of doing: He covered up a sex scandal -- not as a result of his own misdeeds.

In 2020, he was part of Donald Trump's defense team during his 1st impeachment trial, proving that he was a man who put ideology over country.

UPDATE: Ken Starr died on September 13, 2022, 27 days after this post. His reputation was in ashes. Bill Clinton is remembered as one of America's better Presidents, despite having a sex problem.

*

August 17, 1998 was a Monday. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Kansas City Royals, 7-1 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. David Cone, pitching in his hometown against his former team, was the winning pitcher. Bernie Williams, Tino Martinez and Tim Raines hit home runs.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Houston Astros, 4-0 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Paul Byrd pitched a 4-hit shutout.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Minnesota Twins, 3-2 at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Cal Ripken Jr. went 3-for-4.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 4-3 at Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) in Cleveland.

* The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Montreal Expos, 6-1 at Bank One Ballpark (now Chase Field) in Phoenix.

* The Anaheim Angels beat the Chicago White Sox, 7-2 at Edison International Field of Anaheim (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim).

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Oakland Athletics, 4-2 at the Oakland Coliseum (then named the Network Associates Coliseum). Rickey Henderson went 1-for-3 with 2 walks and 2 stolen bases.

* And the Seattle Mariners beat the Detroit Tigers, 3-1 at the Kingdome in Seattle. Ken Griffey Jr. went 2-for-4 with 2 RBIs.

January 21, 1998: The Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal Begins

January 21, 1998: The Washington Post prints a story that, from late 1995 to early 1997, President Bill Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern, 22 years old at the time it began, and used the power of his office to cover it up, in the hope the general public wouldn't find out.

Five days later, after many calls for his resignation or impeachment, Clinton made a very firm denial: "I want to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never asked anybody to lie, not a single time, never. These allegations are false, and I need to get back to work for the American people."

Nevertheless, Kenneth Starr, who had been appointed as a Special Prosecutor to investigate Clinton's pre-Presidential activities in the Whitewater housing development in his native Arkansas, had expanded his investigation into Clinton's personal life, which was, by the definition of his office, none of his damn business.

He seemed particularly interested in a charge of sexual harassment made by an Arkansas woman, Paula Jones. One thing led to another, and Lewinsky's name came up. Ironically, part of the charge Jones made was that Clinton's dick had what was listed in Starr's report as "a distinguishing characteristic." Lewinsky never mentioned it. Therefore, either she forgot a detail that would have enhanced her credibility, or she was lying, or said characteristic did not exist, which would mean that Jones was lying. By definition, Jones and Lewinsky could not have both been telling the truth. Of course, that also meant that one of them was.

Five days after the scandal broke, on January 26, Clinton gives a press conference in preparation for the next day’s State of the Union Address. That morning’s Washington Post included a column by James Glassman – “Liberal media”? Yeah, surrrre – recommending that Clinton begin the speech with, “My fellow Americans: The State of our Union is strong, but the state of the Presidency is not,” and resign.

He would have none of it, and angrily denied not only the nature of the relationship, but also the most serious of charges, the one that actually could have ended his Presidency before the 2-term limit had it been true. Wagging his finger at the media, and pounding his fist on the podium at the same time, he said:

I want to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never asked anybody to lie. Not a single time. Never. And I have to get back to work for the American people.

It was about as believable as Richard Nixon's 1973 statement, "I am not a crook." About 24 hours later, interviewed on The Today Show on NBC, First Lady Hillary Clinton said, "There is this vast right-wing conspiracy that is out to get my husband." And, 13 hours after that, the President delivered the State of the Union as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening, and the Democrats in the House chamber cheered him on the same way.

On April 1, Jones' lawsuit against Clinton was thrown out of court. Therefore, legally, any court development from it was inadmissible in court. Therefore, legally, Starr could not continue. So even if Clinton was guilty of every crime Starr could even remotely justify, Clinton couldn't be charged. If Starr had gone forward, it would have been judicial misconduct, and grounds for disbarment.

Starr didn't care. He went forward. On August 17, he forced Clinton to testify, and Clinton had to admit that he did have an affair with Lewinsky. And on September 21, Starr presented his report to Congress, complete with the video of Clinton's testimony, which Congress, controlled by the Republican Party, released to the public.

They did this to embarrass Clinton, in the hopes of shaming him into resigning; or, failing that, making him so repulsive to the American people that, in the Congressional elections of November 3, they overwhelmingly voted Republican, making his impeachment and removal a near-certainty.

The American people were repulsed, all right -- by the Republicans' efforts to make Clinton's life miserable. And they were impressed by the fact that, through the entire scandal, he kept right on governing, making the American economy grow, and even doing something no President had done since Lyndon Johnson, 30 years earlier: He balanced the federal budget.

On Election Day, the Democratic Party gained 5 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and broke even in the U.S. Senate. Someone did resign in shame: Newt Gingrich, the Georgia Republican who was Speaker of the House. Privately, it was known that Gingrich had had his own affairs, including originating the legal idea that oral sex was not "sexual relations." He should have filed that under, "Don't give them any ideas."

The House impeached Clinton anyway, on December 19, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. A real court would have thrown those charges out immediately, because there was no admissible evidence for them. Even the evidence that did exist was ridiculous.

But the U.S. Senate is not a real court, and an Impeachment Trial is not a real trial. In the end, despite the Republicans having a 55-45 majority, they could not get a true majority, 51 members, to admit that Clinton was guilty of either charge, much less the 2/3rds majority, 67 Senators, necessary to convict him and remove him from the office. He was acquitted of both charges on February 12, 1999, and served out the last 2 years of his Administration.

Late in the 2016 Presidential campaign, in which Hillary was running against Donald Trump, an audiotape was released in which Trump confessed to multiple sexual assaults, something far worse. It didn’t end his chance of becoming President. In 2018, it was revealed that Trump had an affair with a stripper, using the stage name Stormy Daniels, and paid her $130,000 in hush money. And not one “family values” or “evangelical” Republican has demanded his resignation, or his impeachment and removal.

Somebody said that Trump paid $130,000, and Bill Clinton got what he wanted for free, so not only is he the better President, but he's the better businessman.

Lewinsky became a psychologist and an anti-bullying activist, especially opposing cyberbullying. She never called for Donald Trump, who has been proven to have done far worse than Clinton, to face the same kind of scrutiny. But at least she hasn't publicly supported Trump, who is not only a confessed sexual assaulter, but the ultimate bully, cyber- and otherwise.

In contrast, Paula Jones and other some women who had accused Clinton, without proof, have supported Trump. As a result, I have no sympathy for any of them -- and still wouldn't if I believed their claims against Clinton.

In hindsight, Clinton should have come clean immediately. He should have told Starr about the "affair," but also that he hadn't broken any laws in the process. Then he should have told the American people the same thing.

There would have been nothing to impeach him for, he would have survived it, it would have been over faster, and Vice President Gore would have been able to ignore it in his 2000 run, and run as "Bill Clinton's 3rd term" instead of as "Al Gore's 1st term."

Gore would have won, he would have paid attention to a key intelligence briefing, the 9/11 attacks would have been prevented, there would have been no Iraq War, he probably would have been re-elected, he would have replaced William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court (meaning no John Roberts and no Samuel Alito), and while there might have been a recession at the end of his 2nd term in 2008, there wouldn't have been a crash.

But Clinton didn’t want people to know about the affair, and so he covered it up, and he nearly lost everything. In the end, the winners were both Clintons, Dennis Hastert and George W. Bush; while the losers were Starr, Lewinsky, Newt Gingrich and Gore.

And, of course, even if Clinton were guilty of everything he was accused of in this case, he would still have been less worthy of impeachment and removal than was Trump, 20 years later.

Because, 18 years after the Lewinsky scandal, the "vast right-wing conspiracy" against Bill that Hillary exposed, having significantly deepened, finally got its revenge: They couldn't get it on him, so they got it on her.

*

January 21, 1998 was a Wednesday. It was the off-season for baseball. Super Bowl XXXII was played the following Sunday, and the Denver Broncos beat the Green Bay Packers, 31-24. But there were 12 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Indiana Pacers, 97-89 at Madison Square Garden. Reggie Miller scored 21, and no Knick scored more than John Starks' 17, but the Knicks still won.

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Houston Rockets, 117-112 in overtime at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands. Jayson Williams led the Nets with 25 points, while Clyde Drexler scored 28 in defeat for the Rockets.

* The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Washington Wizards, 100-87 at the MCI Center in Washington (now the Capital One Arena).

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Orlando Magic, 91-84 at the Orlando Arena.

* The Miami Heat beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 92-87 at the Miami Arena.

* The Toronto Raptors beat the Sacramento Kings, 99-98 at the SkyDome in Toronto (now the Rogers Centre).

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Charlotte Hornets, 110-79 at the United Center in Chicago. Michael Jordan scored 33 points.

* The Minnesota Timberwolves beat the Boston Celtics, 104-95 at the Target Center in Minneapolis.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Atlanta Hawks, 90-76 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Denver Nuggets, 87-67 at the McNichols Arena in Denver.

* The Utah Jazz beat the Golden State Warriors, 98-85 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Phoenix Suns, 119-109 at the AmericaWest Arena in Phoenix (now the Mortgage Matchup Center). Shaquille O'Neal scored 26, and Kobe Bryant scored 25.

There were 8 games played in the NHL that day, none of them involving any of the teams in the New York Tri-State Area:

* In "Original Six" matchup, the Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 4-2 at the Molson Centre in Montreal (now the Bell Centre).

* The Buffalo Sabres beat the Carolina Hurricanes, 2-1 at the Marine Midland Arena in Buffalo (now the KeyBank Center).

* In another Original Six matchup, the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-0 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

* The Washington Capitals beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 3-2 at the Ice Palace in Tampa (now the Benchmark International Arena). This was the only game on the day that went to overtime, and Kelly Miller won it for the Caps, with 2:28 left before it would have been a tie. (No shootouts at the time.)

* The Dallas Stars beat the Colorado Avalanche, 3-2 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* The team then known as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim beat the Florida Panthers, 8-3 at the Arrowhead Pond (now named the Honda Center) in the Los Angeles suburb of Anaheim, California.

* The San Jose Sharks beat the Calgary Flames, 7-1 at the San Jose Arena (now the SAP Center).

* And the team then known as the Phoenix Coyotes beat the Vancouver Canucks, 6-1 at General Motors Place in Vancouver (now the Rogers Arena).