BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
After a some debate, the U.S. Congress decided to make
public four hours of videotaped grand jury testimony by U.S.
president William Clinton. On September 21, the three major
broadcast networks and four cable networks aired the entire
testimony, which had been given a month earlier. Some 3,100
pages of other "evidence" in the Clinton sex scandal were
released the next day.
The Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr had previously delivered his 445-page report to Congress September 10, accusing the president of perjury and obstruction of justice and urging that impeachment proceedings begin against him. This report, like the video testimony, consisted mostly of salacious details of Clinton's sexual activities with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
The Starr report was immediately posted in full on the Internet and is being sold in paperback form. The Government Printing Office bookstore also released transcripts of the grand jury testimony of Clinton, Lewinsky, and other related documents for sale September 21. Daily papers across the country ran special supplements featuring excerpts of this testimony the next day.
Ultrarightist politician Patrick Buchanan seized on the latest stage in the scandal to press his "cultural war" against the "elite," in a September 23 syndicated column. "Monicagate is a battlefield in the war for the soul of America, a war that is religious and cultural in character, as well as political," he declared. "Traditional America means to purge him [Clinton] from office for living by Woodstock values that most of America's social and media elite also embrace."