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Jewish World Review /Jan. 11,1999 /22 Teves, 5759

Don Feder

Don Feder If he isn't removed,
watch out for Bill!

(JWR) --- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com) HERE'S A SOBERING THOUGHT: If Bill Clinton isn't removed from office, what will the last two years of his presidency be like? If you read this before bed, be sure your night-light's on.

Clinton supporters prophesy doom for the republic if the Senate, which began the impeachment trial on Thursday, adheres to the Constitution and decides that presidential perjury requires removal from office.

But what if Clinton once again eludes justice? For the next 24 months, he'll be less like a whipped puppy (the conventional view) than a bruised barracuda.

First, being the shameless scoundrel that he is, he'll run around saying he's been exonerated. "Ken Starr persecuted me. The House was a kangaroo court. But the Senate has judged me blameless." We'll need a federal program to distribute air-sickness bags.

If Clinton is acquitted, he'll have to wonder: "Is there anything I can't get away with?" He seduced a 23-year-old intern in the White House, lied to a federal grand jury, tampered with witnesses, obstructed justice and emerged unscathed. What will he do for an encore?

For a guy who's addicted to the adrenaline-rush, the urge to up the ante could prove irresistible.

If Clinton survives this crisis, it will be payoff and payback time.

In betraying their creed, feminists really crawled out on a limb for a man they would have called a chauvinist pig, if he'd been anyone else. How will their loyalty be rewarded? Women assigned to combat? More gender Jacobins on the bench?

Clinton will be a slave to his party's left wing (the Barney Franks and Maxine Waters), never knowing when he may need them for another rescue mission. No more new Democrat. No sensible solution to the pending Social Security debacle. Instead, he'll gratefully sign on to all of their loonier schemes.

Hillary will present her own IOUs for payment.

The first zipper quite literally owes his political life to the faux little lady. If Hillary hadn't maintained the pretense of forgiving and believing in him over the past year, Clinton would be waiting on the South Lawn for a helicopter to whisk him away to an early retirement.

For the next two years, the policies and appointments will be hers. Clinton defenders, who profess high regard for the Constitution, should ask themselves what it means for a president, bowing to blackmail, to unconstitutionally cede such authority to an individual neither elected nor appointed.

Until January 2001, America's security and the defense of the free world will rest on Clinton's sagging shoulders.

He will attempt to lead without credibility, with the belief in many quarters abroad that this is a president who manipulates foreign crises to maintain his standing at home, like his pre-impeachment attack on Iraq (Operation Diversion Storm). They'll have to start building pharmaceutical factories protected by surface-to-air missiles in the Third World.

Worst of all for the country and the world, Clinton will try to redeem himself in the eyes of history, to earn a slightly higher place in future ratings of presidents than somewhere below Franklin Pierce.

Expect more mad foreign adventures, like Bosnia and Haiti. Israel and Taiwan, traditional American allies, should prepare for the worst. They are the most likely to be sacrificed to secure Clinton's reputation as a peacemaker.

At home, the nation will be subjected to the cynical spectacle of a criminal picking federal judges. Between now and the end of his term, Clinton could appoint another 12 percent of the federal judiciary.

Honest people should shudder at the thought of the nation's most prominent lawbreaker, after O.J., selecting those who will sit in judgment and decide the great constitutional questions of the day.

Since August, Clinton has played the penitent. This is the man who may ask forgiveness but rarely gives it, who believes (as the cliche goes) that revenge is a dish best served cold.

If the Senate acquits the president, there will be nothing to restrain him. James Carville and Larry Flynt will lead the pack of salivating attack dogs.

The same vicious tendencies that were displayed in covert White House efforts to ruin the reputations of Reps. Henry Hyde, Bob Livingston and Dan Burton can be given full reign.

Anyone who thinks Bill Clinton is above this sort of thing hasn't thought the matter through.

Recall that famous photo of our boy president in Africa last April, triumphantly banging on a tom-tom, while chewing a cigar, when he heard that Paula Jones' sexual harassment suit had been dismissed. That's nothing compared to the celebration he'll have if the Senate fails to convict him -- a blowout that will last for the next two years.

Up

1/07/99: We can learn a lot from Teddy
1/05/99: Monica and a call to modesty
12/30/98: Will Bubba get away with it again?
12/28/98: Zionist dream alive and well on West Bank
12/18/98: Impeach or abandon the Rule of Law
12/16/98: Clinton moves Middle East closer to war
12/14/98: Why we lost interest in the homeless
12/10/98: No place at table for conservatives
12/07/98: The day America lost its innocence
12/02/98: Pilgrims Pilloried in streets of Plymouth
11/30/98: Caribbean dogpatch not a good candidate for statehood
11/25/98: Will Vermont force gay marriage on the nation?
11/23/98: The ACLU wants your kids to get a love life
11/18/98: Why liberals hate tobacco and guns more than drugs and crime
11/16/98: "Pleasantville" a countercultural morality play
11/13/98: Ads are a tough sell for abortion
11/09/98: Why gutless Republicans lost
11/06/98: Historians against the Constitution
11/02/98: Loving response to a hateful conference
10/28/98: Professor Death will fit right in at Princeton
10/26/98: Plymouth caves to Pilgrim foes
10/21/98: On '98 election, keep a critical eye on polls
10/19/98: Clinton could yet be 'prosperity president'
10/16/98: Working families -- Dems love 'em (stuffed)
10/09/98: Majoring in 'weirdness'
10/07/98: Friends of Billy Clinton
9/29/98: Letter from ex-soldier highlights defense peril
9/28/98: Answering arguments against impeachment
9/18/98: The nation that doesn't exist
9/14/98: Bubba isn't the only one who should be ashamed
9/11/98: Resolution of Clinton crisis will define national character
9/09/98: We're still just wild about Harry
9/07/98: Mexican banditry didn't end with Pancho Villa
9/02/98: Clinton forgives us!
8/31/98: Ashcroft's plain talking touches responsive chord
8/26/98: Public opinion be damned
8/24/98: Why liberals condone Clinton's lies
8/20/98: Time to move on -- to impeachment
8/12/98: With Bubba in the sexual privacy zone
8/10/98: The truth won't set Clinton free
8/06/98: Truth about Hiroshima is incontrovertible
8/04/98: Clinton not the first hollow president
7/30/98: "Small Soldiers" -- a fractured Vietnam allegory
7/27/98: Crime wave hits hometown
7/22/98: Love in an Internet fishbowl
7/20/98: Ads bring ex-gay movement out of closet
7/15/98: Brian and Amy -- the children of Roe
7/13/98: Why are we scared of obnoxious 'activists?'
7/6/98: Fonda still resists reality
7/1/98: New York blesses domestic partnerships
6/29/98: Teddy and Calvin stood for virtue
6/24/98: Will Clinton betray Taiwan?
6/22/98: Big tobacco? What about big casinos?
6/15/98: Religion -- God for what ails you
6/10/98: Planning Clinton's China itinery
6/8/98: Republicans' Custer offers advice
6/4/98: Oh, Dems Christian-bashers!
6/2/98: Goldwater did conservatives more harm than good
5/27/98: A Clinton-hater confesses
5/15/98: Giuliani's assault on marriage
5/13/98: Hillary knows what's best for everyone
5/11/98: To honor her would not be honorable
5/6/98: Conservative chasm: pragmatism vs. worship of marketplace
5/4/98: Anglo-saxon me
4/29/98: Needle exchange programs are assisted-suicide
4/27/98: Chretien's mission of mercy to Fidel
4/22/98: School-choice is a religious freedom issue
4/20/98: Corporate execs deliver body parts to Beijing
4/14/98: National sales tax --- looks better all the time
4/13/98: The U.N. sinister? Hey, where did that idea come from?
4/8/98: Unions fight workers rights in 226 campaign
3/30/98: Africa's leaders should apologize
3/25/98: GOP shouldn't look to media for advice
3/22/98: You should care about Clinton's 'private life'
3/19/98: Color-coded reading, product of obsessive minds
3/16/98: Amendment will end exile of G-d from our public lives
3/9/98: Havana will break your heart
3/2/98: Vouchers Terrify Teachers' Union
2/25/98: Presidential politics starts at a resort hotel
2/23/98: Hillary's support comes at a price
2/18/98: How many times must we say "no" to gay rights?
2/16/98: Enoch Powell spoke the truth on immigration
2/11/98: Bubba behaving badly
2/9/98: A conservative dissent on the flag-burning amendment
2/5/98: We get the leaders we deserve
2/2/98: Send a signal that could penetrate boardroom doors
1/27/98: State of the president: hollow rhetoric
1/25/98: For Monica's playmate, we have no one to blame but ourselves
1/22/98: At Yale, bet on yarmulke over gown
1/19/98: Commission tackles America's fastest-growing addiction, gambling
1/15/98: Capital punishment and the hard case: no exceptions for Karla Faye Tucker
1/12/98: Partial-birth abortion and the GOP's future: the "big tent" meets truth in advertising
1/8/98: IOLTA: the Left's latest scam to crawl into our pockets
1/5/98: Connect the dots to create a terrorist state
1/1/98: The Unacceptables of 1997: Long may they rave
12/28/97: Hypocrisy is a liberal survival mechanism
12/23/97: Chanukah is no laughing matter
12/22/97: No merry Christmas for persecuted Christians around the world
12/18/97: Bosnia, Haiti, and how not to conduct a foreign policy


©1998, Boston Herald; distributed by Creators Syndicate, Inc.