I agree with my Detroit News blogmate Henry Payne that the Free Press should not try to have it both ways. The newspaper's editorial board cannot logically argue that Kwame should go for lying under oath when they previously argued that Bill Clinton deserved pass for similar transgressions. However, it is with no great joy that I am being consistent in saying that both men should go.
Lying under oath about a material issue is lying under oath.
The issue for me is equity. If it were Bonnie Bucqueroux or Lil' Kim fibbing under oath, we would end up doing time (as Lil' Kim did). The argument that either Bill and Kwame somehow deserve to escape punishment just because the issue is adultery fails to move me.
In Bill's case, his sin was compounded when he signed legislation that criminalized the workplace harassment that he then lied about in the Paula Jones' case. Serial lying blended with hypocrisy compounded with sexual harassment means that the case cannot be dismissed as "just about sex."
Last I knew, Kwame has not spent much time pandering to the feminist vote as Bill did, but he made a bad situation worse by putting both his arrogance and his adultery on the taxpayer's tab. Settling the case brought about by his unscrupulous behavior in suppressing information about his private life cost Detroiters $9 million they don't have to waste on his peccadilloes.
If consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, put me down for a tiny hat size. I think both men deserve to be broomed off the stage, the sooner the better. Watching Bill Clinton tarnish his already tainted reputation makes me wish that we had seen the last of him long ago.
We do need a new kind of politics.
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