Although the words below were composed two years ago, I think Charles Pierce wrote the appropriate eulogy:

“If a more sanctimonious toad than Kenneth Starr ever has crawled through American politics, I’m hard-pressed to know who it was.”

Despite his often pious public pronouncements, Starr simply had no moral compass at all. He once wrote a letter of support for convicted and confessed pedophile Christopher Kloman, who was sentenced to 43 years in prison, despite Starr’s absurd suggestion that a more appropriate punishment would be “community service.” He didn’t have to make such an argument – he was not on the defense team. He just felt it was an appropriate recommendation to provide justice for a man who was convicted of molesting five children, accompanied by “strong evidence” pointing to the abuse of 26 more, with the accusations ranging from inappropriate touching to rape.

But then again, seeking sweetheart deals for child molesters was really Starr’s specialty. He also helped to secure a ludicrously lenient deal for the notorious Jeffrey Epstein, and was removed as President of Baylor when he did his best to sweep a campus rape scandal under the rug.

9 thoughts on “Ken Starr has died

  1. Ken Starr was a forerunner of an increasingly common type – the right winger (aka “conservative”) who doesn’t care what damage he does to the United States as long as he advances the cause of the American right (aka “the Republican Party”). And who is smugly self-satisfied with himself for doing it. See Bill Barr for the perfect example of the type.

    These people are utterly convinced of their own rightness and rectitude in a way that baffles me. But if they were not so convinced, they could not do what they do. Maybe it’s because they are doing what their heart most desires, for reasons I cannot guess.

    1. When Ken Starr was investigating the Whitewater deal, he kept running into what he and his staff believed was obstruction of justice. Susan McDougal chose to serve 18 months in prison rather than testify before a grand jury. Was she promised anything in exchange for refusing to testify? There was a big time DC lawyer whose name escapes me at the moment that was alleged to have been involved. When the Monica Lewinsky story broke, there were allegations of the same type of obstructions of justice, involving that same lawyer, being used to try and keep Monica from testifying and /or to get her dress dry cleaned. That pattern was what Starr used to get his jurisdiction extended to include the Paula Jones suit. Ultimately, he wasn’t able to prove any financial crimes related to Whitewater, but he was able to prove Clinton was less than truthful at his deposition.

      Lots of people say Starr was a prude because what Clinton lied about was a blowjob. I didn’t know the man and he may have been a prude. But I think it’s more likely that he was pretty sure that the Clintons had committed crimes related to Whitewater, but was frustrated he couldn’t prove it. So when there seemed to be potential perjury crimes he wanted to be the investigator. But maybe he was also a prude.

      If Bill had a smarter lawyer he could have avoided the whole situation. When he was served with the Paula Jones lawsuit, he should have refused to file an answer. He could have then issued a press statement saying that he was innocent of the allegations in the lawsuit, but he didn’t want the distraction from his duties as president. With all the allegations being presumed to be true, the trial would move on to damages. What were those allegations? She went up to his hotel room, he showed her his penis and propositioned her. She declined and left. If you were on that jury, what would you award her in damages? Would $100,000 be enough? Too much? Whatever the amount, it was almost certainly less than what his lawyers charged for the defending the case.

      Clinton knew he had skeletons that could come out in discovery in the case and decided that he would rather rely on his ability to deceive instead of using the strategy above. Bill Clinton was and is a slime. If you think Clinton’s sliminess pales before Trump’s, I agree. But if not for Bill Clinton, we might not have gotten a President Trump. Trump was able to wave off attacks on his character for 2 reasons. First, he could self finance so he didn’t have to worry about appealing to mega donors. But second because many Republicans figured the Democrats defended Clinton so good character isn’t necessary to be president. I wonder what might have happened if Ross Perot never decided to run for president and Pappa Bush got a second term. A Dem would almost certainly be elected in 96 and W probably wouldn’t have followed in his father’s footsteps. Would things be better today? Or would that be the timeline where the (extraterrestrial) aliens attack?

      1. See, the problem with Judge Starr was that he was a hypocrite. We all know that if Donald Trump had done precisely what Clinton did, Starr would have argued that it did not merit impeachment. In fact, Trump did things thousands of times worse, and Starr still argued it was not at the level of impeachable offenses. Hell, Bill Clinton’s lifetime of sleazy behavior, added together, would have been one below-average day of sleaze in the life of Donald Trump. Not to mention that whole wacky “sedition” and “treason light” thing.

        Ken Starr’s entire moral code consisted of “If I don’t agree with you, you must be immoral,” and his judicial temperament can best be measured by his argument that he thought a guy with 31 instances of sexual abuse of children should be sentenced to community service, when a real judge determined that the proper sentence was for the monster to be incarcerated until he had the good sense to die.

        David Souter was a nerd. He was one of those guys who sat down with an open mind and tried to determine his rulings based on the law and the Constitution, even when the proper application of the law produced results he disagreed with personally. A nerd, albeit an honest nerd.

        Starr was the opposite. If you held conservative positions, he found some way to justify your actions. If not, then those same actions were evil.

        1. Ken Starr proved he had absolutely zero credibility with his cover-up job at Baylor. His morality only applied if you belonged to the Democratic Party.

      2. You know, no matter how many words you expend, you still cannot make Bill Clinton look even a tiny fraction as bad as Trump. Trying makes you look stupid.

        And also, no amount of words is going to polish the turd that was Ken Starr and his investigation. He was sent on a fishing expedition to find ANYTHING detrimental to Bill Clinton. It took him years to come up with anything worthwhile. How many major politicians do you think could withstand that kind of scrutiny without finding something worse than Monica Lewinsky or Paula Jones? My guess is “damn few”.

        And blaming Trump on Clinton???!!! Just go to hell. Go straight to hell. Trump was where the Republican Party was headed ever since they decided that the Watergate investigation was a monstrous injustice, and they embraced right-wing talk radio as a road to winning elections. And other people found that it made big money. And since billionaires bought the party in order to have the country run the way they want it run.

        Jeebus, the things people can make themselves believe when they want to.

  2. After Ken Starr was appointed as the special prosecutor for the Whitewater investigation, but before the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, the Washington & Lee chapter of the Federalist Society hosted a speech by Judge Robert Bork. At a reception prior to his speech, I asked him what he thought being special prosecutor would do to Starr’s chances of someday being on the Supreme Court? I asked this because I had seen Kenn Starr was reported to be on the shortlist for the Supreme Court during the Bush 41 administration and I thought Bork might have some insights into being nominated. He said very emphatically “I don’t know what he was thinking, he will never on the Court now because either he finds something on Clinton and the Democrats would never vote to confirm him or he doesn’t and the Republicans wouldn’t want him.”

    I have to say, I think Judge Bork pretty much called that one. From what I read, Starr was the runner up to Souter. I have to wonder how history might have been different if Starr was nominated instead of Souter.

    1. Ken Starr, the sanctimonious, hypocritical, “holier-than-thou unless I agree with thy politics” toad, rather than David Souter, the last honest man? It boggles the mind.

      It goes to demonstrate that there really are things to be thankful for on each fourth Thursday of November. As bad as things have ever been, they could have been so much worse.

      But, to be fair, Starr really did get on the Supreme Court in effect, if not in name. It just took a few decades and the help of a surrogate. Brett Kavanaugh is his former coffee boy and protege – the toad’s toady!

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