Kenneth Starr

Roger Altman's resignation as deputy secretary of the Treasury and Jean Hanson's as Treasury general counsel were no surprises. The Whitewater casualty list is getting long enough to be a political liability for President Clinton.Mr. Altman and Ms. Hanson still deny they did anything improper in briefing the White House counsel, Bernard Nussbaum, about a Resolution Trust Corp. criminal investigation into Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, an institution linked to President and Mrs. Clinton and the Whitewater Development Co. Mr. Altman and Ms. Hanson also minimize misleading Congress about the briefings.

Kings have coronations. Presidents have inaugurations. And, as seen yesterday afternoon in the federal court in downtown Baltimore, U.S. attorneys have investitures. Amid pomp, circumstance and a healthy dose of humor from a bench filled with 13 judges, Rod J. Rosenstein formally, and quite possibly officially, became the state's top federal prosecutor. That's because Chief Judge Benson E. Legg jokingly admitted that the oath of office he administered about a month ago to the former Justice Department official came without knowing the script.

WASHINGTON -- Independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr has never been more transparently political than in his clumsy attempt to force President Clinton to share responsibility for the new charges facing Susan McDougal.The notion that the president could have been expected to urge any witness in the Whitewater case to testify is ludicrous. If Mr. Clinton wandered into that thicket, he would face a hundred questions about, for example, why he didn't apply similar pressure to Webster Hubbell or anyone else involved in the case.

First Among Equals: The Supreme Court in American Life, by Kenneth W. Starr. Warner Books. 320 pages. $26.95. Ken Starr has a written a new book, which for him is a high-risk activity, since his last book arguably cost him a seat on the Supreme Court. Consider: Until 1994, Starr was a consensus favorite for eventual appointment to the court. After Duke Law School, he clerked on the contentious Fifth Circuit, then won a coveted Supreme Court clerkship. In 1981, Starr became counselor to the U.S. attorney general, and in 1983, at the venerable age of 37, he was appointed to be a judge on the prestigious U.S. Court of Appeals.

FINALLY, independent counsel Kenneth Starr will step out of the shadows to argue his case for impeachment of President Clinton.He will have the opportunity to improve on his written referral to the House Judiciary Committee, which ignored standards for impeachment. Today's committee hearing looms as one of the most portentous in U.S. history.Mr. Starr will make his case his own way, and then face friendly Republican questioners, hostile Democrats and a defensive White House.Mr. Starr is a workaholic with a fine legal mind, adept at thinking on his feet.

WASHINGTON -- Maybe the next time an independent counsel is appointed to investigate serious allegations against a president and his wife, the job should impose a requirement that its taker finish the job.Unfortunately, however, practicing law, even on the public payroll, is not the same as signing up for a hitch in the Army, so there's no way to force Kenneth Starr to see through the Whitewater investigation he took on two and a half years ago.In retrospect,...

Independent counsel Kenneth Starr and his staff have pulled together information on the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky relationship in ways that would make many investigative reporters proud.Granted, journalists rarely have access to grand jury testimony, as Starr did. Journalists cannot issue subpoenas to witnesses, as Starr did. Journalists cannot grant witnesses immunity from prosecution, as Starr did. Journalists cannot effectively threaten hold uncooperative sources in contempt of court, as Starr could.

The White House cannot forgive Janet Reno's opposition to the death penalty for Kenneth Starr.If we don't trick Russia's spies into U.S. jails, Russia won't do it to ours. Deal?The world food conference in Rome did wonders for its priciest restaurants if not for the malnourished of the world.Turmoil over city school administration should distract attention from classrooms for the rest of this century.Pub Date: 11/18/96

Kenneth Starr will quit his lifetime appointment as special prosecutor, fueling speculation that he will not be indicted.Big business has a new home in the former horse country of north Baltimore County, while city land values are going down to where they can support agriculture.The Koreans will find peace if they don't all bump each other off first.Dying takes a long time in Chinese opera.Pub Date: 2/19/97

Ten headlines that would buy President Clinton another week of peace:1. O.J. Finds Murderers on 17th Hole2. McGwire Admits Bat, Arms, Thighs are Corked3. Elvis Is Alive, and Boy is He Hungry4. Ripken Sits: "I've Got Better Things to Do"5. Stock Market Closes Unchanged6. William Donald Schaefer Declines Speaking Invitation7. Boston Globe Prints No Retractions!8. Art Modell Spends Vacation in Cleveland9. Kenneth Starr, Hillary Clinton Set Wedding Date10. O's Reduce Ticket Prices; Players Take Pay CutPub Date: 9/11/98

CHICAGO - The bumper stickers say, "American by birth. Tattooed by choice." Ron White, a tattooist who is barred in South Carolina from pursuing his profession, takes that slogan a bit further. He thinks that part of every American's birthright is the choice to be tattooed, and he's asking the Supreme Court to uphold that freedom. "How can we say that America is the land of the free when I'm not allowed to practice my art and express my beliefs freely?" he asks. The injustice being done to Mr. White may bring to mind Oscar Wilde's comment about a tragic scene in The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens: "One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing."

WASHINGTON -- It wasn't that long ago that Robert W. Ray, pushing 40 and winding up his work in the controversial and unsuccessful prosecution of former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, was contemplating his next career move. Before he knew it, before he even had the chance to alert his friends, he was holding in his hands the awesome, many would say unenviable, power to prosecute the president. While most of the world has moved on, believing the Whitewater-to-Lewinsky scandal anthology was mercifully closed after President Clinton was impeached and then acquitted by Congress, Ray, the career prosecutor tapped last fall to succeed independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, is still deciding the president's legal fate.

KENNETH Starr should personally write or supervise the final report that his Office of Independent Counsel is required to produce before it shuts down.For five years, one of its obvious targets has been Hillary Rodham Clinton, against whom it has brought no charges. Whatever it does or says about her -- or refrains from doing or saying -- will figure in the 2000 Senate race in New York. She is almost certain to be the Democratic nominee.Mr. Starr cannot honorably go this far and then hand it over to a caretaker or successor, whatever his personal or professional desires.

WASHINGTON -- The end of June marked the end of the independent counsel law that led, among other things, to the impeachment of President Clinton. It is a death that will go unmourned not only at the White House but generally throughout the political community as a questionable tool for the search of corruption in high places, often in questionable hands. Many legal scholars challenged the constitutionality and wisdom of the law from the outset of its enactment in 1978. It was a direct outgrowth of the Watergate scandal, in which an incumbent attorney general, John Mitchell, was directly involved with President Richard Nixon in abuses of executive power and the subsequent cover-up.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The game would come with an Adult Language warning. Or maybe CBS would just hit the master mute button and deliver its broadcast in closed captions. Gary Williams vs. Bob Knight. We're not there yet. But if Maryland and Indiana win today in the second round of the NCAA men's tournament, the screaming match would occur Thursday in the Sweet 16. The South Regional would turn into Profanity Central. The coaches would wash their mouths out with soap at halftime.

AT LAST the Senate has redeemed Congress and kept faith with the nation, its history and Constitution.The Senate acquitted Bill Clinton of high crimes and misdemeanors, because he did not commit them. It refused to convict him of unproven low crimes.Had the Senate removed Mr. Clinton from office, the Constitution would have been changed irrevocably. The finality of elections and stability of institutions would have been undermined.Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr dogged the president more than four years, turning an instruction to investigate impartially into a license to oust Mr. Clinton by any means.

Here are excerpts from the interview of William H. Ginsburg, attorney for Monica Lewinsky, on NBC's "Meet The Press" by Tim Russert.Russert: You've been having discussions with independent counsel Kenneth Starr's office. What are the state of those discussions?Ginsburg: They are still open. As the saying goes, the ball is still in the air. We are having cordial discussions. We've been together by telephone, and I'm very hopeful that we'll continue those today.Russert: If Monica Lewinsky agrees with Kenneth Starr to cooperate, is granted immunity, will she tell all?

AT LAST the Senate has redeemed Congress and kept faith with the nation, its history and Constitution.The Senate acquitted Bill Clinton of high crimes and misdemeanors, because he did not commit them. It refused to convict him of unproven low crimes.Had the Senate removed Mr. Clinton from office, the Constitution would have been changed irrevocably. The finality of elections and stability of institutions would have been undermined.Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr dogged the president more than four years, turning an instruction to investigate impartially into a license to oust Mr. Clinton by any means.

ONE CAN only admire the instincts that drove Mrs. Kenneth Starr to fly to the defense of a husband whose approval ratings rival those of Newt Gingrich and Bob Barr.It's more than some of the wives of Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Barr have done. But to have chosen to stand by her man in a prattling, not to say feline, interview with the Ladies' Home Journal shows poor judgment.Mrs. Starr pointedly tells the Journal that unlike Hillary Clinton, she has had the same hairdo for 20 years and that she'd "rather not be married" to a cheating spouse.

THIS week, Republicans in the House of Representatives will decide whether they will aid the election of Al Gore as president in the year 2000.That's right. Thursday's impeachment vote isn't about Bill Clinton and Monicagate. Nor is it about morals and ethics.It certainly isn't about adhering to the narrow grounds for impeachment so cautiously laid down by the Founding Fathers.No, this is pure politics. Conservative Republican politics. The ring-leader isn't Newt Gingrich, the outgoing House speaker, or Louisiana Rep. Bob Livingston, the next speaker, but Texan Tom DeLay, the No. 3 Republican and one of the GOP's extreme right-wingers.