Clinton should have fired Ken Starr

[bluestateguy]

Seeing the video with Chris Wallace, turned on a light bulb for me. Whenever Clinton proposed legislation, took military action or did anything having to do with terrorism, all the Right ever did was whine and complain about "Wag the Dog" and demand that he focus on the real issues: what did he say about Monica and the Blue Dress? Starr harassed the Clintons endlessly for 5 years, demanding documents, depositions and grand jury testimony. How much of his time was wasted by all of this nonsense? Time that could have been spent on pressing domestic and foreign policy issues? Clinton should have fired Ken Starr, abolished his office, told him to buzz off and threatened him with criminal prosecution for obstruction of the president's foreign policy.

[zaj]

1. Link to the video?

[notadmblnd]

4. here's some info w/ links

There's a trailer interview over at Youtube if it's the one the OP is talking about

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UwJabtvSUQ

and a rough transcript over at crooks and liars. I believe this interview is going to be aired on sunday morning.

Here's a snip of the transcript

CW: …but the question is why didn’t you do more, connect the dots and put
them out of business?

WJC: ok, let’s talk about it. I will answer all of those things on the merits but I want to talk about the context of which this…arises. I’m being asked this on the FOX network…ABC just had a right wing conservative on the Path to 9/11 falsely claim that it was falsely based on the 911 comission report with three things asserted against me that are directly contradicted by the 9/11 commission report. I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative republicans who now say that I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was obsessed with Bin Laden. All of President Bush’s neocons claimed that I was too obessed with finding Bin Laden when they didn’t have a single meeting about Bin Laden for the nine months after I left office. All the right wingers who now say that I didn’t do enough said that I did too much. Same people.

They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day after we were involved in black hawk down and I refused to do it and stayed
6 months and had an orderly transfer to the UN. Ok, now let’s look at all the criticisms: Black hawk down, Somalia. There is not a living soul in the world who thought that Bin laden had anything to do with black hawk down or was paying any attention to it or even new al queda was a growing concern in October of 1993.

snip:
WJC: It was a perfectly legitimate question but I want to know how many
people in the Bush administration you asked this question of. I want to know
how many people in the Bush administration you asked why didn’t you do
anything about the Cole. I want to
know how many you asked why did you fire
Dick Clarke. I want to know…

plenty more at; http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/09/22/president-clinton-blasts-chris-wallace/#more-10457

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

2. Ken Starr also spent 50 million + in taxpayers dollars.

What a waste.

[Lex]

3. I thought Starr was appointed by Congress so he couldn't be

fired by Clinton anyway.

[Garbo 2004]

9. Appointed by 3 judge panel, not Congress. Under the statute President

couldn't fire Starr.

[radwriter0555]

12. That's correct. Like Fitzgerald he was independent council and not

under the aegis of the President.

[rhiannon55]

5. When Bush loving pundits say that Clinton was "distracted"

and didn't do enough about terrorism, it makes my blood boil. Distracted by whom? And who's fault was that? From before he took the oath of office, there was a "vast right wing conspiracy" (Hillary was right!) to discredit and destroy Bill Clinton. Ken Starr was the public, self-righteous face of that conspiracy and he relentlessly hounded Bill all the way to impeachment. And now they have the audacity to blame him for being distracted. What evil, lying hypocrites those people are.

[Garbo 2004]

6. Clinton didn't have the authority to fire Starr or abolish the statutorily

established Office of the Independent Counsel.

[bluestateguy]

7. So what?

Half the things Bush gets away with he does not have the legal authority to do. He just does them anyway.

If the president does it than it is not illegal (even if it is).

[Lex]

8. Simply, Clinton is the not the criminal that Bush is. nt

[Garbo 2004]

11. That too. n/t

[Garbo 2004]

10. Clinton had a Repub congress that opposed him. Remember that impeachment

thing? Bush on the other hand has a Repub Congress that has ceded its power to the Executive Office, supports his lawlessness and refuses to hold him accountable.

Oh and Nixon, whom you quote, had occasion to learn otherwise. He didn't resign because he just wanted an early start on his retirement.

[JI7]

13. if Clinton fired Starr the right wing would have complained about it

it wasn't just starr, but the Republicans overall. the media also. they would be going on about how Clinton is covering up some other sex .