Starr court

Whose stupid idea was it to confine the testimony to a single day? Still, Starr did the impossible and testified for a solid 87 hours yesterday. Some of it I watched live and I'm still going through the rest on video. I have so far seen the first 137 hours. I am now officially more tired of his voice than I am of Monica's. I'm too brain-damaged to have anything especially intelligent to say, but here goes:

I had a sense of unreality while watching Starr that I only just pinpointed: no pornography. After the intense detail of the Starr Report, someone on the committee, and I nominate Barney Frank, should have figured out a question to which Starr would be forced to answer using the phrase "blow job". I'd have been happy if he was just told to turn to page 231 and read out the salacious material he saw fit to unleash on an unsuspecting world, to watch him squirm (don't go looking to see what's on page 231, I made the number up).

Starr thinks he is demonstrating his impartiality by saying how he didn't recommend impeachment for Whitewater, then wrecked it by adding that this was in spite of knowing damned well that Clinton lied lied lied about it.

I understand that the Dems on Wednesday got their hands on the GAO account of what Starr spent the $45 million on, but that Hyde declared it confidential in order to stop them using it against him.

Hyde's reputation, based on what exactly I've never known, to be the grand old man of impartiality, should now be in tatters.

I want the name of that Asian man with the glasses I could see all day sitting behind Starr, yawning, squirming, looking around like he was wondering why the Rockettes hadn't gone on yet...

Someone writing for Salon described the day as a "carefully choreographed blandness blitz".

The most telling moment on the issue of OIC leaking was the one where Starr was asked to release all media from any confidentiality, and he refused.

There was a piece in the Thursday Washington Post on the history of actual censures and attempted censures of US presidents, which can still be accessed using the Yesterday's Paper button. An interesting corrective to the claim that the censure is unknown to the American political system.