Posted on 09/10/2004 9:27:29 AM PDT by Condor51
The former US president has charged the Republicans with bigotry and judicial manipulation, writes Peter Wilson 11 sep 04
BILL Clinton has delivered an extraordinary blast at America's top judge, William Rehnquist, and an uncharacteristically bitter attack on Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
Speaking before his recent health scare, the former president accused Rehnquist, the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, of deliberately politicising the system of appointing independent investigators, leading to years of relentless, politically motivated inquiries into his presidency.
In an interview with The Weekend Australian, Clinton dropped the affection with which he usually discusses Reagan and the civility he affords the current President to accuse both men of deliberately using racist electoral appeals to win the White House.
Clinton said Rehnquist, Reagan and Bush were part of a far-Right branch of the Republican Party made up of the "spiritual heirs" of white southern racists, who still used the tactics of personal destruction employed by racists in their campaign to block civil rights for blacks.
He accused Rehnquist of deliberately appointing a highly partisan Republican, David Sentelle, in 1994 to chair a three-member panel of judges empowered to appoint special counsels to conduct inquiries into presidents.
Sentelle's panel sacked Robert Fiske, the counsel investigating allegations against Clinton, and replaced him with the more partisan Republican Ken Starr.
Starr, who pursued dozens of allegations against Clinton before eventually catching him out lying to cover up his sexual liaisons with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, was "an ultra-conservative" who abused his position and should never have been appointed, Clinton said.
"Rehnquist could not have been unmindful of what he was doing," Clinton stressed. "But you know, Rehnquist is a very partisan Republican. Before he went on the Supreme Court he had been part of voter challenges to (black) minority voters in Arizona.
"When he was a clerk on the Supreme Court he argued to his justice that the Supreme Court did not need to overturn the doctrine of 'separate but equal' and could keep basically supporting legalised racial segregation in America.
"That is just his philosophy, it is what he believes."
According to Sue Bloch, a law professor at Georgetown University and an expert on US judicial history, you would have to go back 200 years to Thomas Jefferson to find a president or former president making such a bitter attack on a chief justice.
Dwight Eisenhower said in the 1960s that he regretted appointing Earl Warren as Chief Justice, but there had been no parallel to Clinton's comments since the career-long political feud between Jefferson and Chief Justice John Marshall, Bloch said.
One of Washington's most noted presidential scholars, Norm Ornstein of the conservative think-tank the American Enterprise Institute, said yesterday that some Washington insiders knew privately that Clinton held a low regard for Rehnquist but his views had never been expressed publicly and were "extraordinary things for a former president to be saying".
"I have no doubt the private thoughts of George Herbert Walker Bush or any other president about their opponents and other people, if made public, would make your hair stand on end," he said. "But even after you have left office, to actually say these things to a reporter is very unusual."
Ornstein said he believed Clinton had good reason to be unhappy about Rehnquist's appointment of Sentelle, and the resulting selection of Starr.
The appointment of Sentelle over more senior and less partisan judges was "at a minimum utterly insensitive to the intent of the law" governing such appointments, he said.
Ornstein said Clinton was also correct in saying some Republican leaders were prepared to use racist appeals to win elections.
Mr Bush's supporters, for instance, used "an utterly sleazy smear" against John McCain during the 2000 Republican primary race by highlighting the fact the Arizona senator had adopted a child from Bangladesh, Ornstein said.
He's contemptible and disgusting!
btw, I understand that he's so loopy from the pain meds that he actually hit on Hillary.
Bill Clinton STFU!
Calm down Mr president. Wouldn't want to bust your stitches or anything.
There could never, ever be such a drug...no way.
This from the party of race baiting and race whoring.
Conservatives want to get to know a person's name and shake hands [with people of any color].
Liberals wants to see skin color and then set those colors against each other.
The first black President playing the race card. The Dems are desperate.
Because we are commanded to love our enemies. And Klinton is definately an enemy. Probably about the hardest thing we could do.
It's Clinton and his people have been slandering Republicans overseas since 1995. Nothing new here whatsoever.
...still crazy after all these years.
"white southern racists"
Trying to recall,which party did most of these belong to?
Yet another "ME! ME! Pay attention to ME!" moment from the Toon.
Ok.... we were supposed to pray for this guy again exactly why?.........
I don't pray for traitors. F 'im
Uh... this is BILL Clinton we're talking about?
Dan
Not really IMHO. Kerry inspires no trust in Blacks but Clinton does great with them. This is known as firming up the base.......getting out the Black vote which is even more important as the USS John Kerry takes on water.
I prayed that he would remain in good conditrion until Nov. 3.
Ok.... we were supposed to pray for this guy again exactly why?
Because God commands us to.
Just remember these lines:
I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. Those allegations are false.
Yep. Time to play the race card.
Here's hoping a speedy clotting of your ateries Bubba.
May you rot in hell. As soon as possible.
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