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Decter and Podhoretz

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from: Midge Decter

Censure or No Censure?

Posted Tuesday, Feb. 9, 1999, at 1:36 PM ET

You are treading on dangerous ground. The precedent set for sliming one's partisan way around the Constitution is far more damaging than some patched-up avoidance of short-term trouble. You see now how dangerous a precedent creating an Independent Counsel turned out to be, and how difficult it is to undo things that are done for momentary convenience. Let Clinton get off scot-free and let it be recorded for history that the Democratic Party in 1999 took a light-minded view of perjury and obstruction of justice by the chief law-enforcement officer of the United States. We are drowning in the consequences of measures taken for political convenience, such as the law against sexual harassment, but this would really suck us down to the bottom (not to mention letting a fervent supporter of that law violate it with impunity).

the breakfast table
entries
123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960
from: Midge Decter

Censure or No Censure?

Posted Tuesday, Feb. 9, 1999, at 1:36 PM ET
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Midge Decter is an essayist and social critic who publishes in a variety of magazines and appears most frequently in Commentary. Norman Podhoretz is editor at large of Commentary magazine and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. His latest book, Ex-Friends, was published this month.
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