Jack Anderson - January 7th 1999 - On C-SPAN
On President Clinton:
" It's up to Congress under the Constitution to decide what
high crimes and mistimeanors are. They can define them.
They can decide whether to convict him for over what he's
done. I don't think that there will be a single vote cast,
for or against him because of his trists with women including
one in the oval office.
I don't think that is what they are going to judge him for.
I think they are going to judge whether or not he lied about
it. Whether he committed pergury. Whether he tried to pursuade
other people to lie. Whether there was obstruction of justice.
But as far as Clinton is concerned, he's through. Oh, he is
formally the president of the United States, but, he will go
down in history as a dirty joke. And, people are already
laughing at him. And, he is the butt of dirty jokes, in private
and in public, by stand-up comics on television, and that has
ruined his presidency already, and he cannot survive that.
The American people have turned off on the whole political
profession. And that they no longer consider their personal
morality as an issue. They tend, with all presidents, to
identify the economy with the president, and the president
with the economy. The economy is booming, and that is the
reason, in my opinion, that his approval rating is high.
It's a mistake to identify the president with the economy. The
president has only about a 7% influence on the economy. There
are other factors that actually effect it.
But, the public seems to identify the president with the economy. "
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