BEGINNING OF THE MEND; CLINTON GETS POSITIVE FEEDBACK.Byline: Raja Mishra Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder (IPA: /ˈrɪdɚ/) was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Newspapers If President Clinton undid un·did v. Past tense of undo. undid undo himself with his public admission of improper behavior Aug. 17, then Monday's televised version of his grand jury testimony could be the beginning of the mend. Republicans, though unyielding in their criticism of the president, reported hearing more support for him from their constituents Tuesday than callers previously had expressed. And Democrats, who had seemed fractured by Clinton's behavior and legal parsing See parse. parsing - parser , rallied to criticize Republican tactics in the Monica Lewinsky Monica Samille Lewinsky (born July 23, 1973) is an American woman with whom the former United States President Bill Clinton admitted (after initially denying) to having had an "inappropriate relationship"[1] while Lewinsky worked at the White House in 1995 and 1996. matter as unfair. If indeed the tide has changed for Clinton, however, it was reflected not so much in the hall of Congress as it was in calls to their offices by the public. ``Thursday and Friday of last week it was as heavy as I've ever seen it,'' Sen. Mike DeWine Richard Michael "Mike" DeWine (born January 5, 1947) is a former senator from Ohio. Born in Springfield, Ohio to Jean and Richard L. DeWine,[1] DeWine grew up in neighboring Yellow Springs, OH. , R-Ohio, said in describing constituent antipathy toward Clinton. ``We've never seen people as agitated ag·i·tate v. ag·i·tat·ed, ag·i·tat·ing, ag·i·tates v.tr. 1. To cause to move with violence or sudden force. 2. . It was running 8-1 against the president. ``Yesterday it changed. Over half was for the president.'' Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, encountered the same sentiment. Opposition to the president, he said, went from 7-1 a week ago to ``split about 50-50 now.'' Added Sen. Sam Brownback Samuel Dale Brownback (b. September 12 1956) is the senior United States senator from the U.S. state of Kansas. On January 20 2007, he announced his intention to seek the Republican Party's nomination for President in the 2008 Presidential election. , R-Kan., ``It's much closer now.'' The calls, though never a reliable barometer of public opinion, are significant because Republicans had used the overwhelming calls against the president as evidence to counter national public opinion polls that indicated continued support for the him. Indeed, in a CNN-USA Today Gallup poll Gallup Poll Noun a sampling of the views of a representative cross section of the population, usually used to forecast voting [after G H Gallup, statistician] Gallup poll n → conducted Monday, 66 percent of the adults polled approved of Clinton's handling of his job as president - up 6 percentage points from a poll the previous day. Eager to exploit the tepid reaction to the testimony, Clinton's attorneys and aides launched a counterattack Attacking an attacker. Even though a criminal hacker or other agent is attempting to penetrate a security perimeter or damage systems, the counterattack must not violate applicable laws. Tuesday against Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr
Kenneth Winston Starr (born July 21, 1946) is an American lawyer and former judge who was appointed to the Office of the Independent Counsel to investigate the death of the , accusing him of distorting testimony to make the president look bad. They said Starr's report to Congress accusing Clinton of impeachable im·peach·a·ble adj. 1. Capable of being impeached: venal, impeachable public servants. 2. Being such as to warrant impeachment: an impeachable offense. offenses left out direct quotes from Lewinsky in which she said Clinton did not ask her to lie to cover up their affair. The quotes were included in Lewinsky's grand jury testimony, which was released to the public Monday. Democrats echoed the White House strategy, accusing Republicans and Starr of conducting a public witch hunt of the president. They said Starr's report was one-sided and left out evidence helpful to Clinton. Several said the evidence against the president appears weak and that Republicans are pushing for impeachment impeachment, formal accusation issued by a legislature against a public official charged with crime or other serious misconduct. In a looser sense the term is sometimes applied also to the trial by the legislature that may follow. prematurely. Feinstein reaction And at least one early Democratic critic of the president downplayed the case against him now that significant parts of the evidence have become public. ``The president's flashes of anger that we heard so much about certainly weren't true,'' said Sen. Dianne Feinstein Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein (born June 22, 1933) is the senior U.S. Senator from California, having held office as a senator since 1992. She is a member of the Democratic Party. of California who had earlier accused Clinton of lying to her. ``The question is if this really rises to the level that some people want it to. If this is the totality of the case, then this is limited to sexual matters. It's certainly about sex.'' Despite the spike in support for the president, Republicans moved toward releasing yet another batch of evidence collected by Starr. They dismissed the Democrats' complaints and announced that they might also release a videotape of the president's deposition in the Paula Jones case next week. A proposal floated by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., that would bring Clinton to Congress to answer questions in exchange for a lesser punishment than impeachment received a lukewarm response. Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi welcomed the idea. But House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., said it was premature to discuss it, noting that Clinton would not even be able to appear until the House voted to move ahead with impeachment hearings. For now, it appears that the Republican majority will proceed quickly to begin formal impeachment hearings. ``We are headed in the direction of not giving a popularly elected president a fair trial,'' said Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb. GOP concern Even some Republican members of the Senate, which by nature is more reflective than the House, expressed concern that the House Judiciary Committee has become a hornet's nest of politics. ``I was very concerned after the decision by the committee to release all the information,'' said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. ``I do have concerns if they don't proceed in a nonpartisan matter.'' The Judiciary Committee is in charge of analyzing the mounds of evidence Starr collected and deciding whether Congress should began impeachment hearings. Hyde said he expects a vote sometime in October, with public hearings to follow the November elections. White House lawyers weighed in Tuesday, claiming that Starr's description of both sexual matters and those related to an alleged cover-up left out evidence that would help the president's case. At issue was Lewinsky's assertion to the grand jury: ``I would just like to say that no one ever asked me to lie and I was never promised a job for my silence.'' ``The decision by Mr. Starr to specifically exclude Ms. Lewinsky's exculpatory exculpatory adj. applied to evidence which may justify or excuse an accused defendant's actions, and which will tend to show the defendant is not guilty or has no criminal intent. statements and express denials raises grave questions about the fundamental fairness of the Starr (report),'' White House counsel Charles F.C. Ruff and Clinton lawyer David Kendall said in a letter to Hyde. They said Starr ``significantly distorted the testimony of Lewinsky, quoting it when it suited (his) purposes and downplaying it or ignoring it when it did not.'' Hyde dismissed their complaints by saying ``that's just not so.'' |
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