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Loading... SellOut: The Inside Story of President Clinton's Impeachmentby David Schippers
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Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0895262436, Hardcover)While no one came out of the Monica Lewinsky scandal looking good, David Schippers, the chief investigative counsel for the Clinton impeachment, wants to be sure Americans know just who contributed to the debacle and how. A trial attorney and a Democrat, Schippers was hired by Republican congressman Henry Hyde to lead an oversight investigation of the Justice Department, then was redirected to handle the impeachment. The quintessential honest man, Schippers was shocked, not so much by Clinton's actions (which he calls a far-reaching conspiracy to obstruct justice with perjury, lies, and witness tampering), but by Republican and Democratic politicians who sold out the impeachment process.
If you ever want to vote again, you might not want to know what went on behind the scenes in the Capitol Hill meat grinder leading up to and during the impeachment proceedings against William Jefferson Clinton.... Lies, cowardice, hypocrisy, cynicism, amorality, butt-covering--these were the squalid political body parts that, squeezed through the political processor, combined to make a mockery of the impeachment process.Of course, Schippers does want you to know what happened, and he also wants you to vote--against those who made the mess. And so he names names--of Republican senators who refused to allow evidence on the floor, of the five Democratic congressmen who never examined the evidence, of the GOP senator who said, "You're not going to dump this garbage on us," and also of the politicians who did an honest job, or at least asked reasonable questions (such as Joseph Lieberman). Schippers also reveals the evidence he was building against the Clinton administration regarding illegal INS actions and Chinagate, but that he was forced to drop. He reviews the successful struggle to get a full hearing in the House and the "flat-out rigged ball game" in the Senate. He discusses the president's pattern of abuse and intimidation of women, including some highly disturbing information regarding Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broaddrick, and Dolly Kyle Browning. Most of the documents related to the impeachment are still sealed, so Schippers's story is more diatribe than new information. Perhaps what this book confirms most (besides the ugly, self-serving side of politics) is the chasm between those trying Clinton, who firmly believed that his lying was destroying the structure of government, and those who felt that lying about sex was nobody's business. Schippers is clearly in the first camp: "I do not care what you are lying about. If you're the President of the United States and you lie under oath, you should be removed from office." --Lesley Reed (retrieved from Amazon Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:50:49 -0500) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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David Schippers was the Chief Investigative council for the House Judiciary Committee. His staff's task was to look at the Starr Report, investigate it, and prepare a presentation for the committee and recommend a course of action. He is also a lifelong Democrat. He comes from a family of Chicago Democrats and voted for Bill Clinton twice. That being said, this is not another "right-wing conspiracy" book designed to slam the President. It slams Republicans and Democrats. It also makes you wonder how such a sleazy, self-centered man was able to be elected President not just once, but twice.
One of the main reasons I feel Schippers wrote this book is the fact that there was a lot of evidence and information he wanted to present to the Senate and to his own committee that was not possible due to the unreasonable time constraints he was given. This was evident in there not being witnesses and them not presenting the Juanita Brodderick story, Filegate, and Chinagate.
One telling moment from the book goes something like this. The evidence they gathered was sealed in two rooms. There was a Republican room and a Democrat room. Committee members had to sign in and sign out to see any documents. Numerous Republicans went in and spent hours pouring over documents.
NOT ONE SINGLE Democrat looked at any of the evidence. Yet they were the first on television saying, "I haven't seen anything that warrants impeachment." Of course they hadn't seen it. They never looked.
So, the Democrats turned their back on the whole thing to save the party. The Republicans weren't much better.
The Senate Republicans did NOT want impeachment dumped in their laps. They ignored the pleas from Schippers and his staff to "do the right thing". They were afraid of looking like they were after the President. They bought into the spin that if they looked mean, they wouldn't get re-elected. They succumbed to poll watching and public opinion. They rushed through the entire impeachment to get the least amount of evidence out so there would be no way the President could get removed from office.
O.J. Simpson was likeable guy who did a very bad thing. Bill Clinton was a likeable guy who did a whole slew of very bad things. The prosecution at the Simpson trial was given all the time they needed to present their case. They turned an entire country against a well established idol. Schippers and the House Managers could have done the same thing. But their own team never gave them the opportunity, while the opposition wore blinders. (