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Published on 02/01/1999 All articles from this issue

Forum pundit chastises media, political agendas against president

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By Laura Brown

Special to the Town Crier

Susan Estrich, former presidential campaign manager for Michael Dukakis and former special assistant to the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke to the Morning Forum of Los Altos on Jan. 19, the day the Senate began the impeachment trial of President Clinton.

Originally scheduled to speak on her new book, "Getting Away With Murder: How Politics is Destroying the Criminal Justice System," Estrich, currently a law and political science at the professor at University of Southern California, instead spoke about how political agendas and the media have become the driving forces in government, and how these forces have culminated in the trial of the president.

Estrich, who has also written a diet book, "Making the Case For Yourself: A Diet Book for Smart Women," drew a parallel between her attraction to doughnuts and the president's attraction to women. She noted, "I can diet for three days to obliterate the results, the president can't."

Although she deplored the president's conduct, Estrich said the charges against him do not warrant impeachment, and that the motivation for prosecuting the president is purely political.

Estrich noted the connection between ultra-conservative Republicans and the impeachment proceedings.

Calling the rise of the Christian Coalition the "politicization of religion," Estrich said that a small group of conservatives who want to remove the president have influenced more moderate Republicans to fall in line by threatening to use coalition voting power to unseat them. Republican congressman who did not support impeachment found that conservative candidates were found to run against them in the 1998 election, she said.

The conservatives could not have succeeded with impeachment, Estrich said, without the help of the media fanning the flames of the controversy. Estrich said that she was called by a network correspondent and asked if she would go on the air and call for the president's resignation.

When she said she thought the president should not resign, the correspondent asked if she knew of any previous Clinton supporters who would ask him to resign.

Estrich said the media is not out to "get" the president, but are after the most sensational story.

She asked, "Why is everyone yelling on TV?" and answered that producers want to ensure conflict by presenting "the wackball on the right versus the wackball on the left" and saying into the panelist's earpieces, "jump in, feel free to interrupt," in hopes of raising the entertainment value of the show.

Asked how she thinks it will end, Estrich said that if witnesses are called, "It will be a bunch of white men beating up on women and minorities - Monica Lewinsky, Betty Currie and Vernon Jordan, and everyone will look awful."

She believes that Clinton will survive the impeachment trial, but that his ratings will drop dramatically once the trial is over.

Estrich closed by saying that the only way the political conflict will end is for people, both Democrat and Republican to stand up and say, "Enough of this," agree on the common ground which unites and punish behavior which is divisive. "We are not going to do anything without working within the political system," she said.

The Morning Forum is a members-only lecture series held at the United Methodist Church of Los Altos. Membership is closed for this year. To get on a waiting list for membership, write to: Morning Forum, P.O. Box 274, Los Altos 94023-0274.