Posted on 03/12/2002 9:12:23 AM PST by LiberteeBell
Students grill Janet Reno before her ODU lecture By TONY GERMANOTTA, The Virginian-Pilot © March 12, 2002
NORFOLK -- The questions were tough, the answers thoughtful. Sixteen students turned up during Old Dominion's spring break to grill former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno a couple hours before she delivered a lecture at the school.
They asked her about terrorism, civil liberties and the children who died in the operation against the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993.
And they asked her about her former boss, President Clinton, and how she felt when she learned of his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Reno, who interrupted her campaign for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Florida, didn't duck.
Later that evening, she spoke before an overflow crowd as part of the Old Dominion University President's Lecture Series.
She described Clinton as ``one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. He has a prodigious knowledge of government. He has an understanding of the human spirit that was remarkable. He could talk to people in a remarkable way.''
Her analysis of the affair: ``He made a terrible mistake.''
She said she agreed with Kenneth Starr's successor as independent counsel, Robert Ray, who declined to prosecute Clinton.
Ray cut a deal with Clinton's lawyers in which the president admitted that he made false statements. It spared him from criminal prosecution in exchange for a $25,000 fine and a five-year suspension of his Arkansas law license.
The affair, she said, affected the country.
``I don't know how America will ultimately react to it,'' she said, adding after a brief pause, ``but I sure wish he had told the truth.''
Reno told the students that she came to politics through a love of law and the guidance of her parents, both newspaper reporters who believed in the power of government and the responsibility of citizens to make sure it was used wisely. At age 13, she spent a year with an uncle who was a judge in postwar Germany. She saw the concentration camps and asked her German friends how it could happen.
``We just stood by,'' she said they told her. ``We just stood by.''
She said she has since refused to just stand by.
Asked to describe her legacy as attorney general, Reno declined, but said she felt most comfortable with the fact ``that I tried to use the law the right way, to make America safer and freer, and to give more people equal opportunity. And crime went down the entire time I was in office.''
What she wished she could change, she said, was the Branch Davidian standoff and subsequent deaths.
``That wlll always be with me,'' she said. ``and I will never know what the right answer was. Because that went to the grave with David Koresh, who set the fires and who created the armageddon.''
On the current war against terrorism, Reno said she supports President Bush but has some concerns.
``I have trouble with the war that has no ending. I have trouble with the war that generates so many concerns about individual liberties.''
She breaks with the current administration -- and with President Clinton -- on support of the death penalty.
Reno said recent advances in testing of DNA evidence has shown how arbitrary the ultimate punishment can be.
``I think the only justification for the death penalty is vengeance,'' she said, adding, ``the horror of putting a man to death for a crime he did not commit is just appalling to me.''
At the end, she congratulated the students, saying she does such question and answer sessions frequently and ``this was one of the best. It was just superb.''
ugly, ass lezbian bitch!
BTW, what happened to the writer? Sorry if my cynicism is showing but when someone writes such "dissent" then turns up deceased...makes me wonder.
ROFLMAO!
Oh I am sure she'll get her rewards, if you know what I mean.
The Germans didn't stand trial at Nuremberg, it was the Nazis and not all Germans were Nazis
Let's be realistic, he/she/it doesn't stand a chance against Jeb and that red truck of hers should be painted in the colors of the rainbow if she's gonna be honest.
Yeh, he could say things like;
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.", or
"It depends on what your definition of "is" is.", or
"The era of big government is over."
Janet, that remarkable way Slimey Bill had of talking to others you're so enthralled with is called LYING!!!! You can't or won't realize this, and you want to be governor?
The Germans didn't stand trial at Nuremberg, it was the Nazis and not all Germans were Nazis
The Defendants at the Nuremberg Trials were German, not French, Swedish or American, therefore the orignal statement was correct.
Nobody said ALL germans, just "The Germans who stood trial"
Don't be so touchy.
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