<p>With regard to Frist, whatever the legality of his actions in selling the stock, the timing of the sale just doesn’t look good for a potential presidential candidate. And the reason he claims he sold the stock in the first place was to avoid the “appearance” of a conflict of interest. So now he is getting mired in an “appearance” of illegality. </p>
<p>This has to be a problem for Frist.</p>
<p>Are you suggesting that Cheney is a potential candidate? I can’t see Cheney being electable because of his heart problems. I would think that the public would be concerned about that.</p>
<p>The Dad:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not sure what you are railing about. It seems like you have lumped me in with knee-jerk republicans because I question the consistency in applying ethics to US government officials. Here are a few things different between Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Clinton lied under oath in a court of law. It does not matter whether there was consent of not, that is perjury. Further, his relationship with a subordinate was inappropriate. It creates the wrong atmosphere within the institution.</p></li>
<li><p>Thomas did not lie under oath. What charges were leveled against Thomas? Were they proven?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Perhaps I am asking too much for consistency in the application of some type of standard. I still feel let down by someone I voted for twice, Bill Clinton. I still remain a registered independent so I can see things dispassionately without having to follow the party line which supports a candidate right or wrong.</p>
<p>Odyssey, The Monica thing was just unseemly (but I agree with xiggi, that had it been done by anyone other than Bill Clinton, NOW would have had his scalp); however, the Juanita Broderick (forcible rape) and Kathleen Willey (sexual assault) allegations are far more serious. Both come from people who had no reason to lie about it since they both had been Clinton supporters.</p>
<p>I wondered how soon a thread concerning the questionable actions of a Republican contender would yield a conversation about Bill Clinton having sex. They use his sex acts as if they were vaccination shots… If a republican candidate is caught stealing, the response is . “Yeah, well Clinton had sex.” LOL. If all the government officials in Washington who had inappropriate sex over the past four years would leave town…we could get by holding congressional meetings in a Holiday Inn. </p>
<p>Above postings on Sen Allen from Virginia were insightful, I notice that he recently changed from opposing ethanol to supporting it. He voted against it about a dozen times and then twice in the past year has voted in favor of it…now he can go to IOWA. I wonder how many times he will go to New Hampshire this year I also note that he hired Dick Wadhams, (Allard, 2002 and Thune, 2004) and Janel Domenico (Thune’s finance director in 2004) she proved she can lift large bills and did in 2004,($16 million to run against Tom Daschle)</p>
<p>He won’t ask me but if he did, I would say a lighter hair dye next few times around.</p>
<p>Some of you keep alleging that NOW would have gone after Clinton if he were a republican, with regard to the Lewinsky affair. I can’t speak for NOW since I’m not a member. But I think I understand the disconnect between reps and many femanist dems on this: I think it has something to do with the fact that many liberals believe strongly in personal responsibility. (Ever notice how strict many of the liberals on this board appear to be with their kids?) Not just Clinton’s personal responsibility, but also Lewinsky’s. She was not only an adult, but she was either old enough, or close to being old enough, to run for Congress, for heavens sake. She is not just, as xiggi calls her, a “young girl”. She was old enough to run for congress, be a ceo, or have a 4-5 year old daughter of her own. I believe that’s why women’s libbers in general didn’t go after Clinton for the relationship: they have the belief that she, rather than being a little child or relegated to being described as some father’s baby girl, was actually a thinking adult, responsible for her own actions and fully capable of saying no.</p>
<p>I think if the Republicans disapprove of this behaivor enough they will put a user fee on it and call it a head tax.</p>
<p>Actually, if my daughter were involved in an incident, I would wonder where, why, and how she left the path of how she had been brought up. But flying to Northampton in response to take umbrage is ridiculous; she’s responsible for her own actions. </p>
<p>That said, I think it’s appalling and disgusting for someone to use another poster’s daughter as a rhetorical prop to stand-in for Monica Lewinsky in making an argument. I would appreciate it not happening again.</p>
<p>Eagle, am not a legalist. Under oath, not under oath, technicalities of proven, not proven–that wasn’t the goal of the Senate hearing, after all–doesn’t concern me. At all. The distinction between private & consensual, revealed after a legal witchhunt (and oddly enough by those who now decry Democrats being “partisan,” huge LOL!) versus an abuse of power and position are for more salient. </p>
<p>==============</p>
<p>With interruptions, that took so long to post that I cross-posted. </p>
<p>Hayden: exactly.</p>
<p>Mr. B: LOL!!! Republicans do seem to get their knickers in a twist about sex: abortion, contraception, who is doing what with whom. For folks who supposedly believe in small government they want to do a lot of regulating of sex lives.</p>
<p>“Not proven” is indeed where the charges against Thomas fell, though I am inclined to believe them. But that belief does not constitute proof.</p>
<p>“I wondered how soon a thread concerning the questionable actions of a Republican contender would yield a conversation about Bill Clinton having sex.”</p>
<p>Mr. B, with all due respect, it would not hurt you to read the posts that addressed this. For the second time, the discussion about Clinton started in reply to TheDad post where he used Frist’s possible candidacy to handicap the “rest of the field”. And for the third time: NO IT WAS NOT ABOUT SEX. </p>
<p>A closer reading of this thread would also reveal that the “republicans” on this thread are NOT flocking to the defense of Frist’s actions. I think it is fair to note that we are quite happy to let justice run its course. </p>
<p>On the other hand, it must be very tiresome to always have to try to bury or dismiss the positions of people who simply do not think that Clinton was anything close to what the democrats pretend him to have been.</p>
<p>“Actually, if my daughter were involved in an incident, I would wonder where, why, and how she left the path of how she had been brought up. But flying to Northampton in response to take umbrage is ridiculous; she’s responsible for her own actions.”</p>
<p>TheDad, you just made my point! The party line is to point out that the entire responsibility of the actions were on the side of the potential victim. It It is quite a departure from cases of sexual harassment in the corporate world, in which the responsibility almost always rests with the person who holds the power. </p>
<p>“That said, I think it’s appalling and disgusting for someone to use another poster’s daughter as a rhetorical prop to stand-in for Monica Lewinsky in making an argument. I would appreciate it not happening again.”</p>
<p>In my “rhetorical prop” I did not morph your daughter into a Monica stand-in, but presented her as a rhetorical victim of the kind of abusive behavior you persist on dismissing. I entirely disagree that it was appalling and disgusting to use such a personal example to show the hypocrisy of the party line. This was about how YOU would react to an event, nothing more. </p>
<p>That said, I would gladly refrain to venture again in rethorical discussions that are personal in nature. Despite my disagreement with your statement and conclusion, I sincerely apologize.</p>
<p>Thedad, good answer.</p>
<p>I remember this from years ago. Democrats sneak off by themselves to distant cities to watch x rated movies. Republicans form censorship committees so they can watch them as a group.</p>
<p>Xiggi, do you think it was just a coincidence that Frisk held on to family stock all these years and then sold them just before their prices went sour? Does what you read concern you about how blind this trust is?</p>
<p>I love how the media takes info and runs with it before the whole story is out. I just heard that Frist needed oversight approval in order to sell the stocks, a process that takes a bit of time. Apparently, there were some media types that were writing about possible conflicts of interest in his ownership of the stock, even though it was in a blind trust. So, in order to avoid the apperance of impropriety, he started the approval process in April, way before anyone could know what the stock would be doing during the summer, especially when it was high then. he received approval a couple months later, and now the same media types are writing about “insider info.” Keep it, we pan you, sell it we pan you anyway. You just can’t win, can you???</p>
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</p>
<p>Mr. B, you really seem to be a selective reader. </p>
<p>I wrote this yesterday:</p>
<p>“A closer reading of this thread would also reveal that the “republicans” on this thread are NOT flocking to the defense of Frist’s actions. I think it is fair to note that we are quite happy to let justice run its course.”</p>
<p>For your benefit, let me repeat that I have no clue about the illegality of Bill Frist’s actions. Having no clue, how could I have an opinion? Acknowledging the spirit of this thread, I would even hesitate to suggest to consider him innocent until proven guilty. </p>
<p>Just about every time I’d like to think that liberals are supposed to be the tolerant ones, the words of avowed liberals remind me how wrong I was.</p>
<p>Here’s one liberal Democrat who sees nothing inherently suspicious about Frist deciding to sell his stock shortly after its price hit an all-time high. That’s an extremely common time to sell stock. The scenario of an investor innocently deciding to sell after a nice run-up strikes me as far likely that than one in which a politically astute Senate majority leader with presidential amibitions, who knows his every move is being scrutinized, in a political and legal climate that is extremely antagonistic toward insider trading would pick this time of all times to do a little insider trading.</p>
<p>A very different take on the HCA affair. While some might disagree with the general argument that Frist ought to have pushed for universal health care to help his family’s company as well as the nation’s uninsured, the article suggests that the sale of stocks was above board.
<a href=“http://www.slate.com/id/2126984/[/url]”>http://www.slate.com/id/2126984/</a></p>
<p>Patrick Ruffini (former webmaster for Bush-Cheney '04) has been running blog straw polls for a couple of months. All the major conservative/center blogs have linked to it, and the results are interesting. The data can be sorted a number of different ways, but it always comes out with Giuliani way ahead (34%) followed by Allen (19%), with Condi Rice as the #1 “fantasy candidate.” It’s interesting, but as Ruffini puts it: “This poll is completely unscientific. Use of these results for anything other than their entertainment value or while operating heavy machinery may result in severe bodily harm.” But it does show Giuliani doing surprisingly well among the most tuned-in members of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.patrickruffini.com/september05results.php[/url]”>http://www.patrickruffini.com/september05results.php</a></p>
<p>There is a danger in labeling people. Some, including people on this post, think that the only people who would say a bad thing about the President, Sen Frist, or Tom Delay must be liberals. That is not true.</p>
<p>Others confuse the Christian Conservative and the Right Wing of the Republican party into one unit. It is a mistake to think that all right wing conservatives think and consider issues alike. Just as it is absurd to think that all the people being labled as liberals think a like.</p>
<p>There are deeply religious people who have conservative views, and their are deeply religious people who have more progressive views, and their are people in both parties who will pander toward these groups to get votes and support.</p>
<p>Giuliani may be a very persuasive candidate in some states and districts but will have a hard time selling his northern accent, divorce and political positions in those places that the GOP has been able to drive people to the polls by yelling: abortion, gays and unions.</p>
<p>Innocence is a term for a legal battle, it does not seem to hold much water in terms of public opinion where appearance is most persuasive.
Carl Rove could make John McCain look like the Manchurian Candidate in a primary without him actually being guilty.</p>
<p>Without any implication of guilty or innocent, was anyone else surprised at how much communication was going on with a blind trust? They say when Walter Mondale came out of office and his trust was revealed to him, he was startled by what he owned. Blind trusts seem more near sighted than they used to be.</p>
<p>Mr. B, set your mind at ease. “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” was tongue-in-cheek. When Mrs. Clinton uttered those memorable words years ago, most of us on this side of things–Christians, conservatives, country club Republicans, and doctrinaire Reaganites alike–recognized it for the ridiculous hyperbole and attempt at “labeling” that it was. It has been used (by us) as a whimsical badge of honor ever since.</p>
<p>I believe that the “blind trusts” used by members of Congress are of a different variety than those used by the Executive branch. I recall reading that it’s actually virtually impossible for the congressional “blind trust” to remain blind, as their contents are required by the regulation that created them to be made public on a monthly basis.</p>
<p>You have no Idea how pleased I am that you understand that labeling is not the highest level of political debate…boy is my mind at ease…now off to work.</p>
<p>“There is a danger in labeling people. Some, including people on this post, think that the only people who would say a bad thing about the President, Sen Frist, or Tom Delay must be liberals. That is not true.”</p>
<p>Some think that non-liberals are unable to criticize Tom DeLay and wished he would be defrocked. That is not true!</p>