Legal Commentary

Why I'm unpersuaded by Obama's disavowal of Rev. Wright's political polemics from the pulpit

By Beldar

BY MR. WISENBERG:

   Q   Mr. President, I want to, before I go into a new subject area, briefly go over something you were talking about with Mr. Bittman.

   The statement of your attorney, Mr. Bennett, at the Paula Jones deposition, "Counsel is fully aware" ? it's page 54, line 5 ? "Counsel is fully aware that Ms. Lewinsky has filed, has an affidavit which they are in possession of saying there is absolutely no sex of any kind in any manner, shape or form, with President Clinton."

   That statement is made by your attorney in front of Judge Susan Webber Wright, correct?

   A   That's correct.

   Q   That statement is a completely false statement. Whether or not Mr. Bennett knew of your relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, the statement that there was "no sex of any kind in any manner, shape or form, with President Clinton," was an utterly false statement. Is that correct?

   A   It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is. If the ? if he ? if "is" means is and never has been, that is not ? that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement....

(From the Sworn Grand Jury Testimony of President William Jefferson Clinton on Monday, August 17, 1998, at pp. 57-58; emphasis mine.)

They teach you how to parse words at Texas Law School, where I went. They teach you how to parse words at Yale Law School, where Bill & Hillary Clinton went. And they teach you how to parse words at Harvard Law School, where Barack & Michelle Obama went.

The law schools at Harvard and Yale certainly cost more than I paid at Texas; maybe they teach you how to parse words better up there, I dunno. But there's one kind of word parsing used to obscure, and another type that's used to reveal, and my goal in this post is to do the latter because I think Barack Obama is engaged in the former.

Full post as published by BeldarBlog on March 15, 2008 (boomark / email).