KENNETH STARR ON "MY LIFE"... WHAT BILL CLINTON LEFT OUT

Great reminder. Read it if you can.

My Job
What Bill Clinton left out of his memoir.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BY KENNETH W. STARR
Thursday, July 8, 2004

The last American president of the 20th century has now told in elaborate detail his remarkable story. At its best, his book, "My Life," not only demonstrates the great natural gifts and steely determination of its subject, but points more broadly to the greatness of the country itself. Ours is the opportunity society, Bill Clinton's story reminds us. It is the revolutionary society insisting on the inalienability of fundamental, God-given rights, including the pursuit of happiness. For Bill Clinton, that pursuit found ambitious expression in childhood dreams of reaching the pinnacle of American politics.

Along with its high optimism, the story told by the nation's 42nd president has a decidedly unhappy dimension. Its pages brim with bitter reflections on the source of that unhappiness--the selection of a court-appointed prosecutor in the Whitewater investigation. That prosecutor, we are reminded, replaced an earlier, highly distinguished prosecutor, Robert Fiske, who had been chosen in early 1994 by President Clinton's own attorney general, Janet Reno, to investigate the matter. Mr. Fiske should have continued to serve, the argument goes, especially since (in the author's view) there was essentially nothing of substance to investigate in the first place, given that he and the first lady had lost money on the Whitewater investment. Therefore, Mr. Clinton concludes that the entire investigation became a tale of partisan politics.

It was my task to complete the investigations begun by Bob Fiske, whom Ms. Reno had appointed during a period when the independent counsel law had lapsed. A three-judge panel appointed me pursuant to a 1994 law, which Mr. Clinton himself signed, that re-established the office of independent counsel. The sad and undisputed facts revealed by those investigations scarcely need retelling. Numerous criminal prosecutions and convictions dotted the legal landscape, including the conviction (and resignation) of a sitting governor of Arkansas; the convictions of Jim and Susan McDougal, business partners in Whitewater; and the guilty pleas of, among others, a former associate attorney general of the U.S. (and chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court).

The crimes were ferreted out through the hard work and professionalism of men and women from the FBI and the IRS, the honorable service of honest citizens serving on grand juries in Little Rock, Ark., and Washington, and, finally, through the courageous and sacrificial service of (largely career) prosecutors. Many of those prosecutors in both Little Rock and Washington were on assignment to our office from U.S. attorneys' offices around the country and from "Main Justice," the Justice Department itself. Two boasted the Department of Justice's highest award for career prosecutors. These men and women were honest, hardworking, law-abiding public servants. (full article)