From the beginning of the Clinton impeachment crisis, the World Socialist Web Site and its predecessor, the International Workers Bulletin, drew attention to the underlying class issues and the implications of the right-wing effort to cripple or remove the Clinton administration for the democratic rights of the working class.
Pointing out the repeated use of sex scandals to shift official politics in America in a reactionary direction, the WSWS explained that the central issue was not President Bill Clinton’s relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, or his lying about it, but the conflict within the American ruling elite and what it revealed about the crisis and decay of American democracy.
In a statement published on December 21, 1998 under the headline, “Is America drifting toward civil war?” the WSWS Editorial Board wrote, “The crisis in Washington arises from an interaction of complex political, social and economic processes. Bourgeois democracy is breaking down beneath the weight of accumulated and increasingly insoluble contradictions. The economic and technological processes associated with the globalization of the world economy have undercut the social conditions and class relationships upon which the political stability of America has long depended.”
The impeachment of Clinton by the US Senate took place in early 1999 and ended in his acquittal, but the right-wing conspiracy continued.
This WSWS Editorial Board statement reviews the social, political and historical implications of the right-wing conspiracy to impeach Clinton
The present furor over an alleged White House sexual liaison is only the latest in a string of scandals and investigations that date back to Clinton’s 1992 election campaign and have dogged his administration from its inception.
The sex scandal that has rocked the Clinton administration has all the hallmarks of a well-planned “dirty tricks” conspiracy, involving neo-fascist elements within and on the fringes of the Republican Party, covert operations specialists in the national security apparatus, and right-wing propagandists who hold powerful positions in the media.
Amidst all this sick and degrading “commentary” the establishment media shows not the slightest interest in probing the politics that underlie the events that have staggered the presidency.
The latest stage in the Clinton political crisis, centered on his alleged sexual relations with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, marks a coming together of the long-running Whitewater investigation and the lawsuit by Paula Jones.
Notwithstanding the biased and superficial media coverage, what is unfolding under the cover of Starr’s four-year probe—which has jumped from one issue to another, beginning with a 1970s land speculation deal and eventually settling on an alleged sexual relationship—is nothing less than a political coup d’etat.
The decision of independent counsel Kenneth Starr to subpoena White House officials about their contacts with the press raises a direct challenge to First Amendment rights.
A new front has been opened up in the political warfare in Washington, with claims by congressional Republicans that the Clinton administration agreed to reverse US policy on the export of satellite technology to China after large campaign contributions from aerospace companies and the Chinese government itself.
Clinton’s speech marks a distinct change in tack by the president, who had confined himself since January to legalistic arguments which merely sought to limit the most brazen intrusions into the functioning of the White House.
The resignation of Gingrich has exposed a number of myths about American politics promulgated by the media. The most important of these is the supposed power and popularity of the reactionary politics identified with the congressman from suburban Atlanta.
A political conspiracy, hatched by extreme right-wing and fascistic elements in and around the Republican Party, came very close to effecting a political coup d'etat.
The opening of the Senate impeachment trial will be remembered in history as a critical milestone in the political degeneration and breakdown of the institutions of American democracy.
The fact that all 45 Democratic senators joined their Republican colleagues in approving the procedure for the trial has endowed the proceedings with precisely what they lacked following the impeachment vote in the House of Representatives: a politically-indispensable aura of constitutional legitimacy.
The briefs filed by attorneys for Bill Clinton demonstrate that the impeachment charges against the president have no legitimate legal foundation. If the Senate trial were a genuinely fair legal proceeding, rather than a politically motivated witch-hunt, Clinton's right-wing political enemies would not have a leg to stand on.
This column profiles important historical events which took place during this week, 25 years ago, 50 years ago, 75 years ago and 100 years ago.
The ten-part television program on FX gives a devastating picture of the right-wing conspiracy against the Clinton presidency, which is largely ignored by the media reviewers and entertainment press.
The first three parts of the 10-part series are well done and have considerable impact.
In an extraordinary editorial published January 5, the Wall Street Journal has demanded that Independent Counsel Robert Ray indict President Clinton on criminal charges as soon as he leaves the White House. The page-length diatribe in the leading US right-wing newspaper is headlined “Yes, Indict Clinton.”
The report that Independent Counsel Robert Ray has impaneled a new grand jury to look into evidence against President Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky affair demonstrates that the conflict within the American ruling elite that resulted in Clinton's impeachment continues to rage.
The new head of the Office of Independent Counsel, who succeeded Kenneth Starr last month, has longtime links to the extreme-right circles which organized the impeachment coup against the Clinton administration, it was reported Monday. Robert Ray, who was selected by the same three-judge panel which picked Starr, ran as a school board candidate in Brooklyn, New York with the backing of Christian fundamentalist groups.
Two developments this past week have shed additional light on the connections between right-wing political forces, the media and the investigation into the Clinton White House by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, which triggered Clinton's impeachment and trial by the Senate.
Nearly six months after the right-wing campaign to remove Bill Clinton from the White House ended with the defeat of two impeachment counts in the Senate, the opinion-makers of the ruling class are still working to obscure the political lessons of this experience. This is evident from the media reaction to the decision last week by a federal district judge in Washington to impose $90,000 in costs on President Clinton.
The Gridiron Club dinner, sponsored by the Radio & Television Correspondents' Association, is an annual ritual of the Washington establishment. Two thousand journalists, politicians, judges, lobbyists and assorted celebrities gather for an evening of humorous speeches and skits.
The trial of Susan McDougal on criminal contempt and obstruction of justice charges continued this week in Little Rock, Arkansas with prosecutors from the Office of Independent Counsel increasingly on the defensive. McDougal, who has already served nearly two years in prison for two previous Whitewater-related convictions, faces yet a a third trial which could result in a prison term of 10 years and $750,000 in fines.
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr has resumed his attack on one of the victims of his long-running political campaign against the White House, putting Susan McDougal on trial in Little Rock, Arkansas. Starr is seeking to send her to prison for the third time.
Congressional Republicans have seized on reports of Chinese espionage against US nuclear weapons facilities to launch a new round of political attacks on the Clinton administration. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott announced that the Senate Intelligence Committee would begin holding hearings next week on the charges, which surfaced in a March 6 front-page report in the New York Times.
The television interviews with Monica Lewinsky, broadcast Wednesday in the United States and Thursday in Britain, and her ghost-written book released at the same time, provide chilling details of the methods employed by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and his squad of special prosecutors and FBI agents.
In a February 27 editorial ("The President's Missing Voice") the New York Times denounced Bill Clinton for refusing to personally respond to Arkansas businesswoman Juanita Broaddrick's charges, avidly promoted by prominent segments of the US media, that Clinton raped her in a Little Rock motel room 21 years ago.
The latest round of scandal-mongering against the White House demonstrates that extreme right-wing elements, backed by the media, are determined to press ahead with their campaign of political destabilization.
Last November, at a conference of the Federalist Society at Washington's Mayflower Hotel, attorney Theodore Olson welcomed his audience to "the vast right-wing conspiracy. In fact, you're at the heart of it."
These are politically instructive times, and that perhaps has its own objective significance. At historical turning points a variety of pretensions and guises fall away. Individuals, as well as social forces, are obliged to declare who and what they are.
A political conspiracy, hatched by extreme right-wing and fascistic elements in and around the Republican Party, came very close to effecting a political coup d'etat.
It is fitting that the Senate impeachment trial of Bill Clinton should end with a debate behind closed doors, after the Republican majority blocked a move to open it to the public. From its inception the campaign to drive Clinton from the White House has been a secretive, back-room effort to overturn the results of two presidential elections. It concludes as it began, as a conspiracy against the democratic rights of the American people.
As the Senate trial of Bill Clinton enters its final hours, it is universally acknowledged that the ultimate vote will fall short of the two-thirds required to convict and remove him from office. But the response of most Democratic senators to the failure of the Republican effort to oust the president is a frenzied attempt to pass a bipartisan censure resolution condemning him.
