During the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton in the late 1990's, I was a young scholar, if you will, who was busy in school here in the U.S. I had a great respect for former President Bill Clinton, who spoke eloquently during his public speeches that I got a chance to watch or listen to during those days.
Then Kenneth Starr, a name I hadn't heard about before then, came out of the blue, at least for me, and started investigating the President that I respected. At first, I was open-minded and heard his allegations perfunctorily. I did not pay a lot of attention to it while I was busy in college even as I heard strangers walking by on college campus say that it was the biggest trial story since that of O. J. Simpson, a name or case that I hadn't heard about before then. It made me realize how much I didn't know about news in the U.S.
After hearing and watching few moments of Starr's public pronouncements about his investigation, I concluded that he was the cheapest lawyer who brought a flimsy case against a duly re-elected President of the republic whose second term of office was going to end in a short two or so years. I lost respect for Kenneth Starr as a lawyer, including after my respect for the President was diminished after he lied with a straight face by saying "I did not have sexual relations with ..."
To this day, I do not fully understand why he chose to lie in the manner he did and lose respect for eternity on that count instead of coming out and telling the public that he had erred on that count and continue his public service.
Like many others, I was very surprised recently when I heard the news that the same Kenneth Starr was one of those who were going to defend against the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. Later on, I also heard news that during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton that Kenneth Starr presided over, citizen Donald Trump had called Kenneth Starr a lunatic.
Whether he is called a cheap lawyer or a lunatic lawyer, I think that many people would agree that his case for the impeachment of the then President Bill Clinton was flimsy. On that count, I agreed with the position of citizen Donald Trump, who and whose name I didn't know existed at that time.
My departure in legal opinion in which I have no expertise is in even contemplating to have Kenneth Starr, who presided over the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, stand to defend against the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. To begin with, the impeachment trial that Kenneth Starr signed on to defend against appears to me a lot more stronger than that he singed on to prosecute over two decades ago. If he was a lunatic then, as citizen Donald Trump put it, he must be a lunatic squared now to sign on to defend an impeachment trial of the same man who is accused of such a lot more stronger case.
It was that realization a few days ago that made me ask if the young country the United States of America has become a genuine republic yet. The question has made me think that it has not yet. I think that nothing is more evident than the words of Kenneth Starr a few days ago during his defense against the impeachment trial to substantiate this proposition. I am one of those people who admire the checks and balances system of government put in place by the writers of the U.S. constitution.
That doesn't mean that they weren't also the lords that committed the original sin that is now widely acknowledged, including by the 2016 Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton; if I remember correctly, she has publicly acknowledged it during her Presidential campaign. So, it goes without saying that the founding fathers of the U.S. were the committers of the original sin. During his defense against the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, Kenneth Starr called them the most noble of builders. This goes to show that the same set of people can't be committers of the original sin and most noble of builders at the same time.
It is true that they were men who preferred to run away from a monarchy but fell short of reaching a full-fledged democracy. In his pursuit for an order for a republic, Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers, was determined to dig deep to find the wisdom of Goddess Athena but fell short of reaching that of Pharaoh Akhenaten. It appears to me that that shortfall became a builtin in the political order that they established. After so many amendments to the original constitution, what has unfolded in the last several weeks may just be a symptom of that shortfall from the get go and suggests the need for the young country to become a genuine republic.
In my view, in a genuine Republic, the public court is the greatest court. If I haven't misunderstood the reluctant impeacher House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, she also suggests the same thing when she quotes the saying that public sentiment is everything.
With all due respect to all social scientists, I am not a social scientist and I have no expertise in law. My training is in applied science and sometimes, I use terms in applied science to understand social science.
What I watched in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump is the application of legal mechanics on a dirty laundry. Consequently, the outcome appears to me a badly greased fixture that some may try to present as a well oiled machine, if we were to equate the term acquittal to such a thing.
In my view and without being disrespectful to all parties involved, in this trial, no party was conceptually proven wrong and I do not think that any party has convincingly won in the public court.
The House managers brought up 99 centimeters for a meter and pleaded with the Senate jurors that they are convinced that the parts that they were denied to see could be more than one centimeter. They pleaded with the jurors to help them see it and prove them wrong or right in order to acquit or find guilty as charged, accordingly. I don't think it was too much to ask for in order to conclusively convince the public whether to acquit or find guilty as charged.
The defense brings in a brilliant legal scholar, defense lawyer, and legal engineer in one package in the name of Professor Alan Dershowitz. And my name is now has a new name. I saw and heard Professor Dershowitz for the first time on CNN a little while ago when he was debating against Jeffrey Toobin on a conceptual legal issue; he was delivering on TV a legal concept to his former student. As a legal scholar, he can say at a moment's notice if 99 centimeters are shorter than a meter. As a defense lawyer, he can tell you that he doesn't have the burden of proof for your shortfall even if it is by a mere centimeter, and that he is entitled to the presumption of innocence about his client. As a legal engineer, he only needs to tell you that 99 centimeters are shorter than a meter, which you can't argue against.
Many have probably misunderstood his positions in the impeachment trials of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. I understand that in both cases, he had principled stances that both cases as presented fell short of a meter in substance. That doesn't mean a seedling that is shorter than a meter when it is measured and presented doesn't have the potential to grow to exceed a meter if it is let to grow. I think some people misunderstood the difference between what was measured and presented in contrast to the potential that can be measured and presented.
I only wish that bright legal minds like his get together to establish what those in the applied sciences put together as the SI, or International System of Units. I understand that conceptual ideas in social science may be hard to quantify. At the same time, I contemplate the possibility of bright legal scholars getting together and agreeing to a convention for international legal standards, if they don't exist already.
Donald Trump was willing to hire lawyers to defend himself against the supposed one centimeter instead of coming clean by demonstrating that the supposed one centimeter doesn't exist. In effect, he is telling the public, including the people who voted for him, that you have voted for me to serve you for full four years and let me be arrogant enough to tell delegates from a different branch of government that my branch of government, the Executive branch, is independent from that branch of government, even under the watchful eyes of the third independent branch of government, the Supreme Court. It seems that he also adds that you have the chance to vote me out of office in just a few months if my arrogance offends you as the people of the republic to which we all belong. Or that I am willing to put the burden on the that third branch of government to tell you that the once centimeter your delegates from the part of the other branch of government have been looking for doesn't exist.
The remaining part of that branch of government, the Senate, which has the sole power to determine the presented case and led by its majority leader, had the luxury and pleasure to be mellow about the case and tone it down. No disrespect to the noble Senator and noble Senators.
While anyone can argue that this kind of logic can be said to have been unproven wrong, I think that it can be seen as shortsightedness in a genuine republic.
A genuine republic is not only about its people but also about the land, the soil, and the environment in which ancestral connections and attachments to that land and soil exist and thrive.
In a thriving republic, anyone, including the President of that republic, would be readily respondent to the greatest court of the land, the public court. In my opinion, any leader of any genuine republic where there is a measurably consistent disapproval rating of the majority in the republic should resign from a leadership position in that republic. Public service is a duty of the nobles and nobles have few qualifications in the negatives.
Admittedly, I am biased against the leadership qualities of Donald Trump. My disappointment about his leadership qualities started the day he announced his candidacy for President of the United States, before I finished listening to his announcement speech and never looked back at that quality. It was not personal but a wish for a more enlightened and experienced leader since that leader would be in a place of influence. I happen to think that one can tell the brightness of a faculty the moment one notices it answer a conceptual question sufficiently and correctly.
Long after that, after he became the nominee for the Republican party, I remember hearing some people suggest that he be replaced by Governor Pence as their nominee as a leader with a better experience. I don't know to which world those with that kind of idea went because I don't hear them talk about it on the TV anymore.
I thought they were wise leaders in the republic that foresaw what could happen down the road because of the leadership quality they were observing as I did.
When a supposedly courteous phone call between two leaders of two countries lost the boundary between national policy and personal political desire, I do not think that those who foresaw the quality of the leadership that was on the way would be surprised. It doesn't require a lot of imagination to evaluate fitness for office.
What is surprising to me these days is the lack of wise people in Donald Trump's inner circle who are courageous enough to say that it is better to put the reputation of the republic before any personal interest and that it is better to resign from office than apply legal mechanics to a dirty laundry. Many public servants from that circle have already resigned. It is fair to say that those who have already resigned probably constitute a bigger crowd together than the man they left behind.
This gap is one of the things that make me think that the young country has not yet become a genuine republic. This trial not only makes it feel that it hasn't yet become a genuine republic, but it also makes it appear to have been unhinged, at least partially, from the very land and soil in which ancestral connections and attachments started to take root in recent times. As much as many people talk about the farsightedness of the writers of the constitution of the U.S., it doesn't take a lot of imagination to understand that all of the writers of that rich document could not count many ancestral connections and attachments to the land and soil over which they sat and wrote it. The manifestation of such a shortfall in recent weeks because of the deficit of depth in knowledge is unimaginable.
I suppose that wise leaders in a genuine republic truly love that republic. I have in the past contended that I love democracy more than some Americans who profess to love democracy.
Today, I would contend that I love the young country more than some of its leaders who profess to love it and yet watch its shallow organic root unhinged from its land and soil because of unimaginable deficit of knowledge about how a genuine republic thrives.
In my view, one of the attributes of a genuine republic is the comfort one gets when one resigns or leaves office knowing that it would be in better hands. I contemplate that that is how George Washington felt when he left office at the end of his second term knowing that it would be in the hands of those with whom he fought for independence and wrote a constitution to establish a new and very young republic. I do not think the comfort level of seeing the republic in better hands is more than marginal whether one leaves office or resigns from office.
The absence of a call for a resignation from close friends of the accused in the face of so much dirty laundry that was brought to the public suggests the shortage of wise leaders among them in the republic, which in turn suggests that it may have yet to become a genuine republic.