Slick Willy worked until the very end to screw this country. Among the scumbags he pardoned was former Illinois Congressman Mel Reynolds, who was convicted of having sex with a minor campaign worker (he's married, of course), bribery and misappropriation of funds. Reynolds is currently in jail, but not for long.

Jesse Jackson, through an attorney, issued a statement saying how happy he was that "Brother Reynolds" will be set free. After that, the news quoted some Chicago columnist, whose name I unfortunately didn't catch, who suggested that Reynolds should find a way to become vital in community again, by becoming a TEACHER. I really liked that - putting some middle-aged felon with a history of screwing teenage girls in the classroom.

Living in Chicago is enough to make any person with a shred of character and decency physically ill. Clinton really should move here now - he'd fit right in.

Fraz - He pardoned someone who was arrested for that? I wonder if he would have felt the same way if it was his daughter...

Morph, it would probably depend on the amount of the pay-off. Disgusting.

I'm outta here. Talk to you guys later.

Tim - Dont forget that he also pardoned his brother for drug crimes... I am still having trouble deciding which one is more like Jimmy and which one is more like Billy Carter.

Dont forget his pardoning of 1,000,000 illegal aliens..

Nothing ex-Pres Clinton does surprises me anymore...

How about the pardon of Leonard Peltier, convicted of killing 2 FBI Agents.

I don't mean to bash him since he is leaving, but the pardons were a disgrace to the country. Clinton did some serious damage on the way out.

This is what our president of a few days back thought about the law...

And his fellow democrats are worried about Ashcroft being able to uphold the law?

Geez...

47mack - foxnews.com lists Peltier among those NOT pardoned. If you've heard different, let us know the source.

Also, scuttlebutt is that Web Hubbell may be sufficiently disillusioned by Clinton's failure to pardon him that his jaw is slowly loosening. Again, that's suttlebutt, not informed sources. We'll see.

He did NOT pardon Peltier. Settle down...

How many was connected to whitewater,drug running in arkansas got a clean bill of health?

How long are you guys going to continue to LOOK for things to whine about?

I'm sure "Superboy" will make everything all better.




BTW, I'm now waiting for my tax cut.

As long as It Takes for everyone to see that Willie was a thugs best freind!

I'll agree that Clinton was a "thug's best friend" if you'll agree that Dubya is more brain-dead than any President this country has ever seen.

Clint - Your right, from now on we should ignore anything stupid or immoral a President does. I mean as President they are beyond reproach.

Morphius
Doubts Clint can follow his own advise.

Actually, Clinton did not pardon Reynolds. He commuted his sentence on Federal corruption charges. Reynolds had already served his time on the sex charges, which was a matter for the state courts: he had a 5-year sentence without the possibility of probation and served about half of it, getting the rest of it off for good behavior:

From http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/reyns22.html :
Reynolds resigned from Congress in 1995 after being convicted in state court of having sex with a 16-year-old campaign worker. He was convicted in 1997 on federal corruption charges. He had more than two years to serve on that conviction when he learned Saturday that President Clinton had commuted his sentence.


[Edited by DanT on 01-22-2001 at 12:57 PM]

Damn those troublesome facts!

Sorry

I misread the section of the article on pardons. Didn't mean to start a false rumor.

Oh yeah - pardon our misconstual of the "facts", Brock. Reynolds served his time for being a child molester but he got off of the corruption charges. That sends a message I want our country to hear loud & clear. Swindle the government out of funds & molest a child but as long as you have someone with enough power in your court, your sentence will be commuted. I don't get it. Because somebody got their facts mixed up, Willy was justified in his actions, right? What some of you people will do to defend Willy is totally beyond me. It's as though he's kin to you or something.

KPhobia,
they have to defend him because if they don't than they look bad for voting for the dirt bag. To much pride to admit they made a mistake and learn from it.

Pride goes before the fall.

Actually, Marc Rich bothers me more than most of the other pardons...

He stole millions from Americans and fled to Switzerland. He bought oil from Iran during embargos. He sold arms to Israel as an individual. ANd has NEVER Spent a day in court, let alone prison.

Why was he pardonned? Because his wife contributed to both the Presidential campaigns and the senatorial run in NY by Himmary.

The man is about as close as you can get to being an American Terrorist and he is now set for life.



[Edited by KCWolfman on 01-22-2001 at 08:27 PM]

Oh, I forgot to mention he also stole military secrets from the Pentagon and sold them to the Israelis as well.

Wolfman,
I thought that Pollard did not get a pardon. Did I hear wrong?

Hader - You are right, I meant Rich...

OK, just checking.

KPhobia and raider"hader": I'm not defending anybody, nor did I vote for Clinton, so you can both kiss my @ss. Republican Presidents pardon criminals too, or are you too stupid to look it up in a history book?

Touche' Brock. Show me a conservative president pardoning a man guilty of treason.

Conservative or Republican?

Brock - I agree, some pardons are unpardonnable, by both sides.. However, no one as wrong as Rich has ever been pardonned in my estimation (even Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford were not selling secrets to other countries).

Clinton has rolled in the dirt by pardonning a rapist, a drug dealing brother, and a treasonous bastard. All because of money contributed to his and his wife's campaigns and being related to the right person. Nothing can remove that taint from him.

I find it very odd that McDougal who never spoke a ill word of Clinton gets pardonned but a man like Hubbell who has hinted he will work a deal for his freedom is looked over.

You guys better hope that W is as perfect as you expected Clinton to be while in office. I'm not saying that W will have as many personal flaws as Bill, but he'll f*** up a few things for sure.

Has he ever been a part of something in the real world that hasn't failed, requiring his daddy to bail him out? Other than the Texas Rangers when he was a minority owner, basically just for the name. Seriously, it's kinda comical that this guy is our new President.

At least he is surrounding himself with smart people so far... he needs all the help he can get.

Brad - I agree, we all screw up. But we all dont perjure ourselves in court over it and make a mockery of the justice system he is hired to defend.

Tell me, if you and your wife have a daughter who is sexually active with a 40+ year old man at the age of 16, and the current President lets him off, what would you think?

George W. will make mistakes, but I, like you, am impressed with those he surrounds himself with. Just like Reagan, where he is lacking he chooses the right piece to fill in the spots.

In reading the posts, I realize I slightly mistated the facts. Thanks, Dan, for correcting me. Clinton didn't pardon Reynolds for being a child molester. He pardoned a convicted child molester who was in jail for for doing OTHER THINGS on top of child molesting. Boy, I feel better about the whole thing now. :mad:

Every criminal in the country missed a perfect opportunity here - rob, cheat, molest to your heart's content - and when you know the cops are closing in, mail a generous donation (procured from your last heist) to the Democratic National Party. Then just wait for the Prez to step down. Talk about a Get Out of Jail Free Card...

The most bogus pardon issued by the Republicans was obviously Ford pardoning Nixon - and logically, Ford probably knew it was the price he had to pay to get the prize. I'm not saying its right, but under the circumstances, a small price to pay to be leader of the free world for a couple of years. Clinton, on the other hand, pardoned killers, traitors, and a child molester.

Somehow I felt safer with Nixon on the street than these other turds.

Here's what Slick said, (or didn't say) about Rich:


''I'm out of office now,'' (Clinton) told reporters outside his new home in suburban Westchester County just north of New York City. ''I'm not talking anymore.''

If he'd stick with that it would be worth it. He won't shut up as long as it took Jesse to forgive himself.

This board is starting to resemble the other board in the way that language gets stretched and spun over and around facts or near-facts. I think some of the time being spent by posters coming up with exaggerated and distorted characterizations of whatever news item or public figure they happen to disagree with would be better spent trying to get the facts right and in choosing fair and accurate words to express your scorn.

Suppose you were at a diner where the soup was kind of cold and maybe had too much salt in it. You're about to let the waitress know but before you do another diner gets up angrily, overturns the table, throws the bowl of soup at the waitress and goes after the cook with a knife, muttering that he's going to make whatever sonuvabitch dared serve him cold, salty soup regret it for the rest of his life, now how's that going to make you feel toward the soup and the cook? You're probably going to soften your stance toward it, saying that it isn't really as bad as all that. Next thing you know, the cook's going to be surrounded by a handful of mildly discontented diners like you, defending him against the lunatic and enraged killer diner, which enrages the lunatic all the more because he can't believe anyone would dare defend so inept a cook.

That's what this board is starting to sound like. Now I ask you, wouldn't it be better if we all just complained to the waitress discretely, get out of paying our checks and then ambushed the cook later, kicking his a$$ in the alley, after his shift's over? Huh, wouldn't it be better to realize that, in fact, we all agreed that the soup kind of sucked?

[Edited by DanT on 01-23-2001 at 01:17 PM]

Wonderful analogy Dan, just to clarify, is Clinton the soup or the Cook. ;)

DanT - problem is on both sides though. In you analogy, the angry diner with a knife would be doomed to spend the rest of his life hearing how he's not a real human being for not loving that wonderful soup. Why that soup is about the best thing I've ever tasted. And only racists and homophobes would ever even take a bite of Campbell's Chicken Noodle. Sure, that salt you tasted was the cook pissing in the soup, but EVERYBODY pisses in the soup. If you think you're gonna buy Chunky Soup and not get a mouthful of piss. And besides, pissing in the soup is a personal choice that has no effect on his qualifications as a cook. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

AWWWWWWWWWWW, SHUDDUP ALREADY!!!

He's the salt! I don't think anyone wants too much of him. ;)

Senator Clinton is the cold. [rim-shot]

:D :D :D at JC~Johnny's reply.

I especially like the "everybody pisses in the soup" excuse!

I'm watching the Chicago news right now. Mel's plane is on the ground, and they're rolling out the red carpet for him. They've got a podium ready so he can make a speech, which the station will, of course, carry live. Mel's apparently going to give a statement thanking everyone responsible for his release. Ain't that sweet.

Sorry, Dan, but I just don't follow your analogy. I just can't see the connection between a child molesting thief and crappy bowl of soup. Perhaps I'm just dense. Or maybe I'm so disgusted and ashamed to live in this festering, corrupt, immoral abyss otherwise known as Chicago that I just don't care. From Capone to Rostenkowski to Jackson and Reynolds, this city has always embraced scum as heroes. It sickens me.

Time to start checking out jobs in KC. More than ever, I want to get the hell out of here. Until then, I'm just glad I don't have any children for Mel to molest, or enough money for him to deem me worthy of robbing.

Frazod,

I think that Americans are very fairminded people, by and large, and that they tend to react to gross distortions of another person's wrongdoings by distancing themselves from the person making the distortion, which sometimes means they find themselves defending folks who committed disgusting actions, out of sympathy for how those actions are being misrepresented. The result is that folks can get away with perjury and all kind of other ridiculous crimes if the prosecutors get perceived as persecuters. It would be better for all concerned if measured, honest and fair words were used to describe other peoples' transgressions.

That's my opinion, at least.