Shooting Starr

By Tony Kornheiser

Sunday, June 29, 1997; Page F01
The Washington Post 

If I understand the Whitewater investigation correctly, Kenneth
Starr is asking women in Arkansas if they've had sex with Bill
Clinton. At press time, it was not clear if he was asking all
women in Arkansas, or if he was working from some sort of
list. 

I thought Whitewater was about banking, not boinking. 

(Actually, I am a little vague on the details of Whitewater. Who
wouldn't be? It's either a Ponzi scheme or a log flume ride at a
theme park. The investigation seems to have been going on for
a very long time with very little progress, like that TV show
"Step by Step," with Suzanne Somers and Patrick Duffy.)

Have you been following this thing? There are several
disturbing factors:

1. Starr's head looks exactly like a light bulb. (How many
presidents does it take to change a light bulb? None. The light
bulb is totally independent, and beyond the reach of
presidents.)

2. Starr seems to be on what could be called a fishing
expedition, if you fish with dynamite. 

3. Starr is so sleazy he is actually on the trail of a Clinton love
child! One Arkansas state trooper was reportedly asked
whether a certain woman had given birth to a child, and "did it
look like" Clinton? 

Lessee. Chubby cheeks, a red face, a nose like silly putty.
What baby doesn't look like Bill Clinton? 

Maybe Starr feels he has to do something dramatic because he
made such a fool of himself a few months ago when he
announced he was leaving Whitewater to become dean of the
law school at Pepperdine University, which he described as a
"once in a lifetime" job offer. 

Pepperdine is in Malibu, Calif., overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Other schools award PhDs. Pepperdine awards SPFs. Starr
may as well have become dean of french fries at McDonald's
Hamburger University.

Going after someone important for seemingly minor, unrelated
charges is a tried-and-true tactic of law enforcement officials;
remember that the feds didn't nail Capone for murder or
racketeering -- they got him for income tax evasion. But this is
ridiculous. Focusing the Whitewater investigation on Clinton's
sex life is like going after O.J. Simpson by trying to prove he
illegally disconnected the catalytic converter on his Bronco.

Starr's tactics are so cheesy that next to him, Clinton looks like
Gandhi.

Starr says his rationale is that a person might spill intimate
criminal details during pillow talk. This seems improbable to
me. It is hard to imagine the conversation:

"Oh, baby, you make my knees knock. Your teeth are like
pearls. Your eyes are like limpid pools. Hey, did I tell you that
I just made $230,000 selling a nine-acre tract of barren land in
violation of Banking Regulation RM-8750, Subsection 1-W?"

I don't think so. Speaking of the law, you'll remember that last
week I wrote that although I was available for jury duty, I
hadn't yet been called to the courthouse. Well, this week I was.
I was part of a jury pool of about 60 people for a cocaine
trafficking trial. The judge explained the allegations and read us
a series of 15 questions. If you said yes to any of them, you
then got a chance to explain your answers to the judge and the
attorneys for the prosecution and defense. The questions were
straightforward, such as: Have you seen the defendant before?
Have you seen the lawyers before? Does anybody in your
family work in law enforcement? Do you believe the
government when it says that no spaceship landed at Roswell,
and those aliens were really just crash dummies, even though
eyewitnesses said they spoke in a musical cadence and
ingested water through their spinal columns?

I answered yes to one question -- Were you the victim of a
crime in the last 10 years? (Yes, my car was stolen a few years
ago. And my editor is killing me.) I was worried about the man
sitting to my left. He said yes to 11 of the 15 questions,
including: Is there any reason why you could not sit on this jury
because you don't believe in the American judicial system? Of
all the juries in the world, Che Guevara has to walk into mine.

Anyway, I went to talk to the judge, and I explained that my
car was once stolen. And the judge asked me, "Is there any
reason that experience would make it hard for you to judge this
defendant?" I smiled and said, "Not unless it was him who stole
my car."

I explained how the police found my car quickly, and the
defense attorney asked, "Do you feel beholden to the police?" I
said, "No, but they did a good job." And the defense attorney
said, with some irritation, "That's twice you've mentioned the
police now." And I said, "Well, they got my car back. I thought
I ought to disclose that. Would you feel better if I had said that
the local chapter of the United Mine Workers recovered my
car?"

At that moment I sensed I was not going to be put on the jury.
Guess what? I was right. 

© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company