This country, during the last seven or eight years, has produced some of the most remarkable hired criminals of which there is any mention in history. Most appear to be focussing their crimes on the Pennsylvania Avenue area of Washington, DC. For instance, there is the Starr case which has been in the public attention recently. Today vilified, with a lower public opinion rating even than the President of the United States, from his boyhood Mr. Starr has been known as malignantly industrious, carelessly honest.

Already described in such mafia-like terms as “courtly” and “universally trusted” as much as four years ago, this publicly known “honest broker” (can there a more apt description of criminal tendencies?) continues to escape the prison warden. During the Reagan Dynasty he was hired to investigate the Packwood affair. He vindictively found evidence that this fine, upstanding fellow Republican was involved in charmingly coy misconduct of a mere sexual nature. Mr. Starr has never been heard once to regret his work in this sordid affair, calling it “his job”, and a “good piece of work”. What gentleman from the Potomac could possibly admit to having “a job” without being a criminal? And yet he gets away with it. It is surprising, but it is apparently not yet a crime to be employed for the purpose of doing “a job”.

As if that were not serious enough, he has, under the command of a sinister group known only in the shadows by names such as “The Justice Department” or alternatively “The Congress of the United States”, been--I tremble at the repeated use of this word in mixed company--hired, to investigate some quite trivial transgressions on the part of the man known as “Bill Clinton”, or the “President of the United States”. A few hundred thousand here, another hundred thousand there, a bit of consensual sex with an intern thirty years his junior, what could possibly be made of such happy things as these?

Work such as Starr’s is certainly on the increase in the world, and crime is dying out. There is no longer any embezzlement--none worth mentioning, at any rate. Formerly, if you laundered money or accepted bribes, it was possible that you were a criminal. But now, it is evidence only that a criminal is investigating you. If a person of high office commits improprieties with a young employee and then lies about it under oath, how, I must ask, did you find out about it? Were you hired? Are you of the opposite political party? To the cell with you for even mentioning it, you right wing conspirator!

Is not this plea of partisanship becoming rather common? Is it not so common that the reader confidently expects to see it offered whenever a transgression is noticed within the White House and mentioned to the public? And is it not so cheap, and so common, and often so trivial, that the reader smiles in derision when the newspaper mentions it? And is it not curious to note how very often it wins public opinion for the President? Of late years it does not seem possible for the President to commit a crime without also inducing his accusers to commit the crime of partisanship!

We, this country, hired Kenneth Starr to do a job, and we are angry with him for doing it. We hired Bill Clinton to do a job and he plays around with interns, and we admire him for it. Americans have always had a soft spot for no-account bums. I remember how we used to honor the scrip of Emperor Norton I of San Francisco, perhaps lending it the same satiric credence we give to Emperor Clinton’s lies. Emperor Norton, at least, had a good heart and that perhaps was his downfall. Emperor Bill has merely a nice pout, and he uses it to his advantage.

If the President is accused, he talks about the Bible’s definition of transgression as tho’ he were a devil’s lawyer. If proof is shown, he pouts his lips; it is his accuser who is at fault! If he takes a few ‘loans’ on the side, has sex with a 20-year-old intern and induces her to lie about it under oath, why, as they say in Chicago, “that's no crime!”

But this sinister Starr, he has the gall to investigate wrong-doing on the part of the President after being hired to investigate wrong-doing on the part of the President! And then, when the Justice Department tells him to go ahead and investigate possible perjury in the Lewinsky affair, why, he just goes ahead and does it! What further proof of criminal intent should the jury of public opinion require?

The unmitigated gall of a man who does his job. Really, what we want now, is not laws against perjury or bribes, but laws against working! There is where the true evil lies.