Editorial #26
by James C. Benerofe
March 9, 2001

Is former President Bill Clinton any more immoral than anybody else or are we just hell bent on ripping his political guts out? Don't get me wrong, I would not do a lot of the things that Bill Clinton has done but I don't believe that other Presidents and other politicians have not done equally bad things.

One of the really questionable things that most if not all politicians have done is accept contributions from the tobacco industry -- some still do. What is even worse is that the media has accepted millions of dollars in tobacco advertising over the years even after writing and knowing incontrovertible scientific facts that tobacco will kill a certain number of its users indiscriminately. In the United States alone more than 400,000 people die each year from tobacco related illness. A lot of people make big money from those deaths. Relatively few of those money makers have ever paid much of a price.

That is just one nasty example of truly immoral behavior in this country and I am sure that we could all come up with more. We can continue to castigate Mr. Clinton but we should also include everyone else who engages in high crimes  and misdemeanors. I don't believe that other Presidents granted pardons without getting some kind of benefit that was never found out about. There are lots of dirty little secrets, we just have to look around and we can blame them on Bill Clinton. Nobody ever did a bad thing, just Bill Clinton. It is time to leave the former President alone and stop attacking him. I'm tired of paying for the investigations and it is too hard to keep up with the accusations. Mr. Clinton has probably reached the point where he gets up in the morning and turns on the radio to get the accusations of the day. It's really time to give it up. This country is one big immoral feast and Bill Clinton has not cornered the market.