Kenneth Starr

Abbe Lowell, minority counsel for the House Judiciary Committee, asked Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr why his referral to Congress was "substantially different" from the one submitted by Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski in the Watergate impeachment case of Richard Nixon. It is commonly agreed that the Jaworski referral was a model of decorum and facts presentation. And it is widely agreed that the Starr referral was slanted, one-sided, accusatory, filled with innuendo and unnecessary salacious details.

KENNETH Starr did his utmost to accumulate evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors for the House to use in impeaching President Clinton, and failed. That is the conclusion most fair-minded people take from his referral and testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, scrutinizing the Monica Lewinsky affair while omitting the more serious allegations Mr. Starr was assigned to investigate.But that is not the conclusion that the committee's Republican majority wishes to reach. Its Dec. 1 hearing looms as an exercise in public relations to persuade more American people of the gravity of the perjury charges.

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 -- As the impeachment inquiry of President Clinton draws near, charges of misbehavior and abuse of office are also swirling around the president's chief nemesis: independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr.Critics are questioning everything from the prosecutor's initial request for authority to investigate the Monica Lewinsky matter to his strong-arm tactics with witnesses to the sexually graphic and argumentative nature of his report to Congress.Late last week, White House special counsel Greg Craig said some of Starr's actions could amount to "entrapment."

No evidence to back claim about Clinton inquiryAfter reading the title of your lead editorial ("Panel forges ahed, despite people's will," Oct. 6), I expected to see ample evidence to support that contention, that in fact the American people did not want the House Judiciary Committee to open an impeachment inquiry.That evidence was nowhere to be found. What I found instead was the all-too-familiar attempt by the Clinton apologists to shift attention to supposed wrongdoing by the devil incarnate, Kenneth Starr.

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.

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

Clinton is a man, all too human, but presidential?Yes, indeed. One has to read the newspaper comments from coast to coast to realize that we all are laughing stock.These people tear their clothing because the president has lied, and give impressive arguments and reasoning, without the slightest thought as to what he lied about.The Romans had a saying for it: "When men want to do evil, they give it a form to please.''And in a moment of levity, we can remind them of Albius Tibullus' aphorism, "Jupiter laughs at the perjuries of lovers.

THE UNITED STATES is demeaned before the world and its own eyes by the appearance of President Clinton on television to admit to what most people consider adultery and to declare, Nixon-style, that he is not a crook.The fault is his own, for doing what he should never have done; Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's, for mounting a massive and inappropriate investigation into personal conduct violating every American's concept of the right of privacy; the press pack's and the nation's for their insatiable and gleeful prurience.

The day President Clinton is scheduled to become the first president to testify as the principal target of a criminal investigation. Independent counsel Kenneth Starr is investigating whether Clinton lied under oath when he denied having a sexual relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. (1998)The day a federal grand jury indicted James and Susan McDougal, the Clintons' business partners in the Whitewater land deal. "The investigation is continuing," said prosecutorsfrom Kenneth Starr's office.