This is fun...
From his September 1, 1998 column in the Weekly Standard:
"Personal loyalty is an admirable trait, and so is political loyalty. Up to a point. Government officials work for the nation, not simply for the president. They swear an oath to the Constitution, not to the president. To remain loyal to a president who lies is to make oneself complicit in his lies. To remain loyal to a man who has brought shame to his office is to make oneself complicit in that shame. At some point, blind loyalty must yield to principled honor. When?"
That's right. Kristol was criticizing members of the Clinton administration for not resigning because the President lied about having an affair. Kristol wrote: "Bill Clinton is not a man of honor. But are there no honorable men around him? Can his staff and cabinet be lied to without consequence? Is there nothing that will impel them to depart? They need not become vociferous critics of the president. They need not denounce him. A quiet, principled leave-taking would suffice. But it would be refreshing if one of them refused to be complicit any longer in the ongoing lie that is the Clinton White House. Apparently, not one of them is willing to do that."
And this was about an affair. Not a war. An affair.
Where's the outrage, now?
Comments (2)
Outrage about what? Please be specific. I'm not getting it.
Posted by David Nieporent | July 22, 2003 3:48 PM
Posted on July 22, 2003 15:48
Hypocrisy about lying.
If it was a sin then, it's a sin now. If it was all about the rule of law then, it's all about the rule of law now.
To take one easy example... William Safire:
Bill Safire now:
Saddam's Guerrillas
He [Saddam] presumes that British and American journalists, after the obligatory mention that the world is better off with Saddam gone, would by their investigative and oppositionist nature sustain the credibility firestorm. By insisting that Bush deliberately lied about his reasons for pre-emption, and gave no thought to the cost of occupation, critics would erode his poll support and encourage political opponents eager to portray victory as defeat to put forward a leave-Iraq-to-the-Iraqis candidate.
Bill Safire then:
Clinton's Compulsion
We have a President who has a problem: he lies when he doesn't really have to.
This mysterious compulsion is not to be confused with the rational falsehood. His finger-wagging denial of a sexual relationship last year was designed to cut off further inquiry, and he could logically assume at the time he would not be contradicted by hard evidence. It was a calculated deception by a well-ordered brain.
The deceptions this year are different. Not only were the misleading statements made about the weightiest matters -- war and national security -- no purpose was served in uttering them.
http://billmon.org/archives/000375.html
Posted by Partha Mazumdar | July 24, 2003 2:15 PM
Posted on July 24, 2003 14:15