Media Tricks

This is certainly a curious argument not impeaching Bush:

Stanford University historian Jack Rakove, a constitutional expert, said breaking the law on domestic spying would qualify as an impeachable offense, but that Congress should be hesitant to pursue it. The Clinton impeachment was a major distraction for the nation, he said. Some have suggested it hurt the U.S. effort against al-Qaida before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

So…don’t impeach a president for a blatant and illegal disregard of Americans’ civil liberties—an action he has repeatedly justified by invoking the specter of 9/11—because impeaching the last president for committing perjury about a consensual sex act led to 9/11. The Clenis made him do it! The logical extrapolation from that rationale is that if the Republican Congress had not gone on a witch hunt, leading the nation (and, presumably, its leaders) to distraction, 9/11 would never have happened.

Ahem.

But here’s the thing—I happen to know who Jack Rakove is. He’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who I respect very much (even though I don’t always agree with him), and I’m fairly certain that he wasn’t one of the “some” who have suggested that any distraction caused by impeachment proceedings against Clinton hurt his administration’s counter-terrorism efforts. In fact, he wrote a piece for Salon in June of last year outlining his objections to impeaching Bush that didn’t mention anything of the sort.

What I think happened is that the last sentence of the above excerpt got tacked on by the writer as part of the ongoing effort to provide “fair and balanced” coverage. Rakove says impeachments are major national distractions we should avoid. “Some” say that they such distractions can lead to terror attacks. But, in the end, it leaves a reader (especially one who has no idea who Rakove is) with the impression that Rakove is not making a general statement about impeachments (which is in keeping with his opinion expressed elsewhere), but a specific statement about Clinton’s impeachment and how it related to 9/11. And in a weird juxtaposition, the attempt to provide balance to crackpot conservatives, who like to blame 9/11 on Clinton, the onus ends up resting more on those who pursued the impeachment—the GOP.

Is it any wonder the American public is clueless? Geez.