Alan M. Dershowitz
OPPORTUNIST I’M NOT!’
Editor's note: JWR normally doesn't print unsolicited op-ed pieces, though we do encourage letters to the editor. But when The Dersh's office calls us personally, and e-mails us twice in two days wanting to know the status of what they termed an "op-ed piece," -- count the number of "I"s "me"s and "my"s and tell us what the words below are -- well ... we made an exception. (Do you blame us?) The title of the "article" and the "bio" at the bottom are ours. (The original title simply was not up to snuff.) Other than that, we have not changed one word. So, dear reader, a Jewish World Review original from one of the keenest legal minds in the country:
(JWR) ---- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com)
IN HIS LATEST ATTEMPT to deflect criticism away from the blunders he made as President Clinton’s
lawyer, Robert Bennett now claims that the reason I have criticized his performance is because I wanted
to be the President’s lawyer. Here’s what Bennett had to say to CNBC’s Tim Russert: "Well, I’m told
he tried to get into the case." That is an out and out lie.
In telling this lie, Bennett is echoing others such as Joseph diGenova, who accuses me of "hustling the case," and told The Washington Times that I approached the Clintons "in a ploy to criticize Mr. Bennett so he could join the defense team and write yet another book about a client." Another lie. Dorothy Rabinowitz, an editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal, said in an interview that I "would have been elevated to the highest realms of ecstasy had Clinton picked [me] as one of his aides or lawyers." Attorney Theodore Olson, in a letter to The National Law Journal, said I seem "to be auditioning" for the job as counsel to President Clinton. And Richard Beckler, a former federal prosecutor, has joined this ill informed chorus.
A simple review of my writings will prove that there is no truth to these claims. In January 1994, I recommended that "a special prosecutor [be] appointed immediately to conduct a full investigation and to report his or her findings to the American public." Around the same time, I praised the Eight Circuit for allowing Paula Jones’ lawsuit to continue while President Clinton was still in office. I argued that had "the court of appeals sided with the President, it would have created a dangerous precedent" by granting immunity for the President’s "personal actions" as well as his "official actions." I later concluded that the Supreme Court "got it just right" when it ruled that President Clinton has no constitutional immunity against Jones’ lawsuit because "[o]ur American President, unlike a European monarch, is not above the law."
While I have criticized Bennett, I have always said that it is Clinton’s fault for committing the deeds that got him into trouble. After the Starr Report was submitted, I wrote that
The first and most important point was the President’s foolhardy decision to engage in a surreptitious relationship with a White House intern at a time when he knew he was under intense investigation by a puritanical prosecutor, and was subject to a lawsuit for sexual harassment by a vindictive woman who was represented by politically motivated lawyers.
I noted that there "could be little doubt that President Clinton intended to deceive, withhold information from, and mislead the Jones lawyers."
I have also attacked Clinton for his record on civil liberties. In an article entitled "How Clinton Is Worse Than Nixon," I accused him of doing "more to destroy the values reflected in the Bill of Rights than any President in recent memory." I lamented that the "First Amendment was nearly turned into a dinosaur by the Clinton Administration’s support of the Communications Decency Act." I even accused him of hypocrisy for "complain[ing] bitterly, and understandably, about invasions of his own privacy" despite presiding over an administration
that has run roughshod over the privacy of thousands of Americans by conducting wiretaps at a record-shattering pace, by authorizing random searches of welfare recipients and by threatening to seek the resignation of a federal judge who had the guts to exclude a cache of drugs illegally seized by overzealous cops.
Finally, I credited President Clinton’s administration with the "virtual destruction of the Writ of Habeas Corpus" when he "supported and signed a law limiting habeas corpus even more than reactionary [Supreme Court] Chief Justice William Rehnquist has advocated."
If I had been trying to get the President to hire me as his attorney, this would be a heck of a way to go about it. How many potential clients would hire a lawyer who has publicly called for a more thorough investigation of his actions, praised important rulings against him, and attacked his policy decisions as fundamental threats to the integrity of the Constitution?
No, my criticism of Robert Bennett is perhaps to his disappointment - entirely on the merits. I
criticized the President when I felt it appropriate, knowing full well that it would disqualify me from
joining his defense team. And I have criticized Robert Bennett for serving his client so poorly, knowing
full well that those in the White House who picked him to represent the President would become angry at
me. I call ‘em as I see ‘em. The verdict of history will look harshly on Bennett’s representation of the
President. And that reality will not be deflected by attacking the
Alan M. Dershowitz has mastered the art of self-promotion to the point that he needs no introduction. Send any opinions or comments you may have to him by clicking here.
