Ken Starr All Over The Place Today, Being A Real Piece Of Shit

Obstruction of justice? LOOK OVER THERE!

Ken Starr, who started off looking for dirt in a real estate deal and eventually got Bill Clinton impeached over a blowjob, has some very important thoughts on his place in history and how it relates to this present day of ours, especially because he's selling a book about the Clinton investigation. Today, Starr went on CBS and NPR to offer his not at all self-serving observations on the uncanny parallels between today and the '90s, during which he mentioned the book's title as often as he could, so Mission Accomplished!

We really liked Starr's charming explanation on NPR of why he felt now was a good time to write a book about his investigation all those years ago: You see, Hillary lost, so he can go into it without it seeming like a partisan jab at a sitting president, and also, his "personal circumstances changed; I was freed -- I was, uh, freed of responsibilities at Baylor University, where I was president and chancellor."

Which is perfectly true! Baylor gave Starr his freedom after he was demoted and then resigned altogether over his part in covering up -- or failing to "take appropriate action to respond to" -- a massive sexual assault scandal involving the f'ball team. That's a heck of a euphemism! But we can understand why he wouldn't mention the details. In any case, here's Starr explaining the "eerie echoes" between impeaching a president who lied about a blowjob and today, when we have a president who lies about everything:

It's all about the rule of law and the abuse of power, you see, because everyone who worked with Starr agreed Bill Clinton overstepped the limits of presidential power. Funny, though, Starr doesn't even mention one member of his team, Brett Kavanaugh, who did everything he could to try to prove Hillary Clinton killed Vince Foster. Because after all, it was a very serious investigation and Kavanaugh just couldn't get the rightwing fever dreams he loved into the official report.

One very important difference between Trump and that monster Clinton jumps out at Starr, however:

Here's a key distinction: At least as far as we know Donald Trump has not lied under oath, as far as we know, he's not intimidated witnesses, as far as we know -- in my view -- he has not obstructed justice.

NPR's Steve Inskeep asked about that witness intimidation thing, seeing as how Trump is always slagging anyone involved with the Mueller investigation; we sort of wish he'd asked Starr more about that little habit of firing (or wanting to fire) everyone who's running it, which strikes us as a tad obstruction-y. Starr at least says he wished Trump would knock it off with the mean tweets, since they're "inconsistent with the rule of law" -- which, by the way, reminds him of his book, where he said prosecutors have to find all the blowjob facts and apply the blowjob law fairly to any blowjob malefactors.

What really surprises Starr is that even though Trump tweets all these crazy things, he really is doing his very best to cooperate with the Mueller investigation, you see. Oh, sure, maybe he refuses to sit for an interview, but that COULD mean Mueller has nothing meaningful to ask him, since the investigation is wrapping up, maybe, without finding anything bad about Trump. See, Ken Starr is NOT A PARTISAN HACK AT ALL.

When Inskeep mentioned Starr's opinion of the Clintons as "fundamentally dishonest" and asked if he thought that might apply to Trump, whose own lawyers fear he can't talk to Mueller without lying, Starr graciously said, "I'm not going to opine on the president," but thinks it's important to have all the facts, and also did he mention his book is about Bill and Hillary Clinton? And dishonesty? Well, as long as Trump isn't lying under oath, why would we worry too much about it?

Let's get all the facts in. I have all the facts in with respect to Bill and Hillary and that's what Contempt is all about. But I do think that there are echoes. We want our president to be honest, and we especially want the president to be honest under oath [...]

We're not talking about the morality of truth telling, we're talking about the rule of law.

On "CBS This Morning," Starr also told host John Dickerson about "eerie similarities" -- an adjective-noun combination we suppose appears every few paragraphs in his book -- and explained that one big thing he learned is that America ought to learn what he did from pursuing Bill Clinton like the very Inspector Javert of Blowjobs. It's fine if an investigation starts out in one place and ends up looking at other crimes, but we have to think long and hard before we pursue the nastiness of impeaching a president:

There are eerie similarities as to what's happening now as to what happened then. You just don't know what's going to come before you. The key is, there are checks and balances to make sure that the prosecutor isn't just doing anything and everything [...]

I think that, first of all, the system did work. Our system of checks and balances worked; that is, the president was held accountable. He in fact had to answer to articles of impeachment. But at the same time the American people are very forgiving, and we also want stability. And so, one of the messages of this book is, be careful about impeachment. Impeachment is hell, and putting the nation through that process is really quite wrenching.

An inspection that starts with real estate and ends with a blowjob isn't that different from one that starts with Russia and then looks at stuff involving Russia, money laundering, campaign finance law violations, and Crom knows what sort of crooked real estate deals -- you really have to be careful about pursuing either too aggressively.

Also, too, he kind of "regretted the whole thing," though it "had to be done," because perjury and obstruction of justice, but he won't apologize to Monica Lewinsky because he did his job, and the whole thing would have been easier if Lewinsky hadn't "lawyered up," Starr says:

Had she cooperated, this entire matter would have been wound up in a matter of several weeks, and the nation would have been spared all of this. So, we treated her with dignity, we treated her with respect, and said, 'Here is the possibility: You can cooperate with the investigation, which has been authorized by the attorney general … now please cooperate and let's get this over with.'

Also, hey, have you noticed how EERIE the parallels to today are? The end.

[ NPR / NPR / CBS News / CBS News ]

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