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Comment by joshuaheard | Hacker News Reader

Bill Clinton was not impeached for a blow job. Bill Clinton was impeached for committing perjury in a sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him by a former employee, and trying to convince other witnesses to commit perjury as well, obstructing justice. In addition to the House of Representatives impeaching him, he was found in contempt of court by the judge presiding over the lawsuit and had his license to practice law suspended for violating ethics rules.

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That's all well and good, but the scandal part of it that captured the public's interest was certainly because of the blowjob/where'd the cigar go aspect of it. And I wasn't even referencing Clinton in particular--I'd put things like Anthony Weiner's sexts and Larry Craig's foot tapping in the same category. In the sense, they're on the trivial side of things and mostly get the public attention because of prurience, not salience for good governance.

The public was so interested in the "blowjob/cigar" aspect of the story that the Republican party suffered a historic defeat in the midterms that were seen as a rebuke to the GOP's attempt to make hay out of the story, and ended Newt Gingrich's career.

> ended Newt Gingrich's career

Apparently not.

He resigned in disgrace.

That ended his job, not his career. He's been relatively politically active since then, being one of the top contenders for the presidential nomination from the exact same party despite other scandals of a sexual and moral nature. Definitely not a career-ender, apparently.

At no point has Gingrich ever been a contender in any Presidential race. Getting on TV doesn't make you a contender. Even Herman Cain managed to do that.

There is a non-zero chance Gingrich gets a substantial appointment.

There is a non-zero chance you get a substantial appointment.

Okay, then, the almost $500k/yr he was making a year in speeches and his active involvement and relative success in politically oriented consultancies. Take your pick. He's still being pretty damn successful in political spaces.

edit: ha - misspoke, it was actually almost $5M / year

Hate to break it to you, but Gingrich is near the top of Trump's short list for Secretary of State:

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/gingrich-...

According to click bait media outlets with nothing to base it on.

The Larry Craig story had legs because he's a member of an anti-gay political party.

> The Larry Craig story had legs

...or at least feet.

My point is that, his hypocrisy notwithstanding, it has maybe one millionth the importance of the fact that a foreign strategic competitor has significantly influenced American democratic processes in order to extract more favorable policies from the USA.

Republicans use state powers, law enforcement and the judiciary, to criminalize and oppress their opposition and to promote their own interests. I don't see Democrats doing the equivalent of any of the following. I'm not saying that to be partisan, but to point out a very serious situation that has become normalized - I would say the same if the Democrats were doing it. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it is semi-authoritarian.

* Bill Clinton was impeached. As you point out, he did commit perjury. However, the legal standard for impeachment is high crimes and misdemeanors; it was one of only two impeachments in 240 years (EDIT: Plus a third, Nixon, who IIRC would have been impeached if he hadn't resigned). Those are very high standards; obviously if Bill Clinton's wrongdoing was the standard far more would have been impeached. In fact, perjury is very rarely prosecuted for anyone. For example, GW Bush ran an illegal surveillance program - a far more serious crime - and there were no consequences.

* The 2000 Presidential election was decided by Republicans on the Supreme Court. Arguably it may also be a legally legitimate decision, but it was apparently a political one, as the vote was party-line.

* Democratic voters are accused of criminal fraud, with no evidence, and the GOP uses the government to suppress their voting.

* Organizations that register Democrats to vote are criminalized and shut down. Acorn is one prominent example of many.

* Organizations that promote Democrat-favored causes are criminalized. Planned Parenthood is one.

* The GOP used state powers to investigate Hillary Clinton endlessly, on Benghazi and her email server (note that nothing was found for either). Trump is still leaving open the possibility of continuing to investigate her. It cost her the election. Compare that to Trump, for whom there are no known investigations despite brazen sexual harassment, sexual harassment of minors, tax fraud, and much more.

* The FBI openly took actions, contrary to its rules and traditions, that undermined Clinton and probably cost her the election.

The list goes on and I think the pattern is clear.

Didn't the Democrats use the IRS to target Republican politicians?

A good point and I'd forgotten about that allegation; thanks. My thoughts:

My memory is that the IRS was legitimately investigating illegal campaign finance, which happened to be among some Republican groups. GOP members of Congress used their power to shut down a legitimate law-enforcement investigation. (Note that the GOP has a history of this: They also have effectively disabled the Federal Election Commission by appointing members who veto almost every enforcement action against Republicans.) If my memory is accurate, it's further abuse of state power for the party's interests.

As a result, the U.S. has no campaign finance enforcement AFAIK. The IRS won't get near it, fearing Congressional Republicans, and the FEC has been hobbled.

Finally, even if my memory is false, it doesn't match up to the GOP pattern of behavior.

> it was one of only two impeachments in 240 years

Technically true, but there was that other time when the President resigned rather than face impeachment, which should be counted. If anything, both times that the President was impeached shouldn't count since both were politically motivated. In our country's history, only Nixon--the one you didn't mention--committed crimes that warranted impeachment.

> there was that other time when the President resigned rather than face impeachment, which should be counted

Agreed. I'll update my post to reflect it. Thanks.

> both times that the President was impeached shouldn't count since both were politically motivated

True in a way, but I don't think it changes the evidence (it's very rare).

> In our country's history, only Nixon--the one you didn't mention--committed crimes that warranted impeachment.

Let's say he's the only one who was caught and investigated.

For what it's worth, both parties and various non-party-affiliated interest groups use the government to suppress opposing votes. See http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-democrats-suppress-t... (from a year ago, note).

I don't say this to excuse this sort behavior on the part of Republicans; it's utterly despicable in both cases.

> it's utterly despicable in both cases.

I absolutely agree. It should be anathema; people of all parties should unite to vote out anyone who tries.

However, the article talks about Democrats scheduling local elections (e.g., school board) at times when fewer people vote (e.g., odd years). If true (FiveThirtyEight is credible and the article seems well-reseached), I oppose the practice but I don't think it is at all equivalent to widespread programs intended to actually stop people from registering or voting.

Is there evidence of Democrats doing something more substantial?

The article talks about Democrats deliberately scheduling local elections at times when it's harder for people to make it to the polls: a weekday that's a separate day from a national election when people might be taking time off work to vote anyway. I would call that fairly substantial; that sort of "make it hard for people to get to the polls" thing is _exactly_ what lots of people rightly complain about Republicans doing. And it is in fact quite widespread; as the article notes it's going on in 44 out of our 50 states.

Update: For the rest, if you're looking for exact counterparts to your list of talking points, I don't have the time to look up references right now.

If you just want a general example of malfeasance, look no further than the systematic way the Democrat-dominated Illinois legislature discriminates against third-party candidates by requiring different numbers of petition signatures for different parties to get on the ballot at all. I have no doubt whatsoever that they'd do this for the Republican party too if there were just slightly fewer Republican voters in the state.

This sort of thing varies by location, of course; my experience in Massachusetts has been that there is a lot less of that sort of thing going on than in Illinois. We do have the election-scheduling thing in Massachusetts, though...

I agree the Democrats do things I don't like, and they should be addressed. Again, I don't think it's at all comparable to what I posted above and I think false equivalencies, often in the name of non-partisan 'fairness' (I don't know if that applies to you), are dangerous.

... but later the whole line of inquiry and interview of him was ruled in court to be immaterial to the case. So there's some disagreement with the perspective you're outlining.

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