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Jewish World Review / June 11, 1998 / 17 Sivan, 5758
Thomas Sowell
IT IS AMAZING how many people, including media pundits, fail to ask the most obvious
question about various claims of presidential privilege: Does any such privilege actually
exist? If so, where?
Instead, there is a lot of back-and-forth about whether secret service agents, for example,
should be required to testify about President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. But the law is
bigger than either of these people. It has been around longer and the optimists among us
can hope that it will still be around for our children and grandchildren.
On the other hand, if the existing law gives no secret service privilege, then the agents in
Clinton's White House are no different from any other citizens who have no right to
withhold information from a grand jury.
In short, what the law is at this moment should not be a big issue and all the arguments
back and forth about what the law should be are irrelevant.
What is scary is how many people have so little grasp of what the rule of law is -- and how
important it is for all of us -- that they think the law means whatever they feel it ought to
mean.
If we don't like existing law, we have the democratic right to change it for the future -- but
not retroactively. That would destroy the whole concept of law.
If we are thinking about changing the law for dealing with future presidents and their
secret service agents, then the arguments that are irrelevant to Clinton would become
relevant for that very different purpose.
Fortunately, in more than two hundred years of having presidents, we have never before
had a president testifying in a criminal case, so there has been no occasion for secret
service agents to be subpoenaed to find out if a president committed perjury in his
testimony. After Clinton is gone, we may not descend to that level again, so the whole issue
could become moot.
If, however, a new privilege is created out of thin air by the courts, then it is virtually
certain that some future president or presidents will descend to that same level again. If
you do not understand the enormous dangers from abuses of power, then you do not
understand why the Constitution of the United States was written the way it was.
It would have been far better if this issue had never arisen because we do not want to box
in future presidents or -- worse yet -- create immunities to laws. A president who cared
about the institution of the presidency, or about the country as a whole, would not have put
us in the bind that we are in now. But there are many things that Clinton would not have
done if he were that kind of president.
White House spin-masters and their media allies are determined to portray this as an issue
about the president's private sex life. When you try to get a witness to commit perjury to
protect the president, that is a major crime, regardless of what the perjury is about.
Monica Lewinsky's father has protested that his daughter is being used as a pawn by
special prosecutor Kenneth Starr. She was used as a pawn, all right, but by whoever sent
her out on a mission to tamper with a witness.
If prosecutors aren't supposed to prosecute people who commit crimes, then why are we
paying them? Why are they appointed in the first place?
The law is not the Oprah Winfrey show or Geraldo Live. It is not a question of giving vent
to our emotions. Most of us would probably not like to see Monica Lewinsky go to jail. It is
doubtful whether Kenneth Starr really wants to put her behind bars.
But if we ever forget the supremacy of the law, then we and our children and our children's
children will be in big trouble. It is not about Clinton and
Presidential privileges
If there is anything in the law that says secret service agents do not have to testify, then
that settles it: They don't have to testify. We don't have to speculate about what Bill and
Monica did, or who saw them or whether future presidents would rather risk getting
assassinated than let secret service agents testify about what they have done.
It is not what Monica Lewinsky did or didn't do with Clinton that is the issue. The issue is
whether she tried to get Linda Tripp to commit a felony -- thereby committing a felony
herself.
6/8/98: Fast computers and slow antitrust
6/3/98: Can stalling backfire?
5/29/98: The insulation of the Left
5/25/98: Missing the point in the media
5/22/98: The lessons of Indonesia
5/20/98: Smart but silent
5/18/98: Israel, Clinton and character
5/14/98: Monica Lewinsky's choices
5/11/98: Random thoughts
5/7/98: Media obstruction of justice
5/4/98: Dangerous "safety"
5/1/98:
Abolish Adolescence!
4/30/98: The naked truth
4/22/98: Playing fair and square
4/19/98: Bad teachers"
4/15/98: "Clinton in Africa
"
4/13/98: "Bundling and unbundling
"
4/9/98: "Rising or falling Starr
"
4/6/98: "Was Clinton ‘vindicated'?
"
3/26/98: "Diasters -- natural and political"
3/24/98: "A pattern of behavior"
3/22/98: Innocent explanations
3/19/98: Kathleen Willey and Anita Hill
3/17/98: Search and destroy
3/12/98: Media Circus versus Justice
3/6/98: Vindication
3/3/98: Cheap Shot Time
2/26/98: The Wrong Filter
2/24/98: Trial by Media
2/20/98: Dancing Around the Realities
2/19/98: A "Do Something" War?
2/12/98: Julian Simon, combatant in a 200-year war
2/6/98: A rush to rhetoric
