SocraticGadfly: Ken Starr dead? Like shooting fish in a barrel, but, while here, I'm firing at both halves of the duopoly

September 14, 2022

Ken Starr dead? Like shooting fish in a barrel, but, while here, I'm firing at both halves of the duopoly

Geez, over the last two weeks, I do a non-takedown but critical obit of Gorbachev, then another one, also non-takedown but critical, over Barbara Ehrenreich, then a takedown of the House of Windsor at the back end of calling out Americans for royal envy paralleling penis envy, over the death of Elizabeth II.

And now, Ken Starr is dead?

A sad embarrassment of riches, and with me having been on press deadline, I didn't have time to jump in the fray.

I sum it up in this Tweet.

To expand on that, I recommend this Twitter thread, and, of course, the Rolling Stone takedown obit above.

Per that thread, beyond what I mention above, Starr defended other statutory rapists besides Epstein.

He helped Mitch the Turtle gut and eviscerate McCain-Feingold.

And, he represents everything wrong with the GOP federal legal and judiciary pipeline. As the account notes, Kirkland and Ellis is a kind of breeding ground. Then, as a forming ground, there's the Federalist Society.

Personally, I lived half an hour from Waco, Texas, when the Baylor shit started going down. I first noted how he was running protection for Art Briles, which itself was crappy enough given the way the Bears had previously coddled former basketball coach Dave Bliss from facing his own improprieties. And, I was still in the area when the Baptist non-dancers finally fired him.

Interestingly, as with Gorbachev, I had no tag for him. And, as there, I'm not adding one.

BUT?

We're not ending there.

Since I'm on a roll on semi-takedown obits, we're triangulating off Ken Starr to both halves of the duopoly, primarily the left-hand side.

Linda Tripp was a nutter, especially over Vince Foster conspiracy theories. No denial whatsoever here.

But? Contra the likes of Jeff Gerth at the New York Times blathering about Whitewater for years, then later saying "nothing here," there WERE things there. (Gerth, interestingly, blames NYT editors for the inaccuracies in his reporting.)

In terms of William J. Clinton, aka Slick Willie, vis-a-vis Tripp and Monica Lewinsky, there was of course Paula Jones in his past, even though she was in some ways manipulated by the wingnuts whose legal bidding Starr was too willing to do.

And, there was Hillary making a killing on those cattle futures, as part of a general lack of believability, and not too too long after the Slickster complained about his governor's salary. In my mind, there's no doubt she had help of some kind, and probably something that would meet the commodities futures definition of insider trading or the equivalent thereof. 

As for Starr defending Trump during his first impeachment? Doornknob forbid that I sound anything close to Glenn Greenwald, let alone Cucker Tarlson, but, even if Trump was trying to extort information about Hunter Biden from Zelenskyy, it's not like Hunter Biden was Mr. Innocent.

Both the cattle futures (which happened at the same time as the alleged problems and incidents collectively called "Whitewater") and the Ukrainian stiff-arming? Both reflect the duopoly disease of capitalism.

Related? Don't forget, as Twitter won't let you forget, that Epstein the hypercapitalist had plenty of connections in both halves of the duopoly.

Don't forget that NCAA Division I college football at a place like Baylor is ultimately about capitalism. And, don't I know it, from those two blog posts about Starr's time at Baylor. Had Art Briles been 2-10, his ass would have been sacked faster that a Whitewater minute.

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