From bias free of every kind, this trial must be tried

Someone at Slate counts today as the 9th presentation of the same old evidence against Clinton including the Starr report, Starr’s testimony to House, the judiciary committee’s presentation to the whole House, etc etc. And boy did it seem it, from the half or so I’ve seen or heard so far today. Henry Hyde said that oaths were real important (key theme today: every time someone lies under oath, an angel dies), that Thomas More went to the stake rather than swear a false oath (all together now: I knew Sir Thomas More, Sir Thomas More was a friend of mine...). Poor Paula Jones had her civil rights violated. It’s always laughable watching Republicans try to hitch their causes to civil rights: Sensenbrenner likened Jones’s suit to sit-ins at lunch counters. Especially laughable if you’ve read today’s NY Times article about the Council of Conservative Citizens and why Trent Lott had to have known what it was all about, including the frightening information that 34 Mississippi legislators and Governor Kirk Fordice (who I’ve described as David Duke without the sheet) are members. And don’t get me started on Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, one of the three jurors currently consorting with the prosecutors about witnesses.

Things House “managers” did today they shouldn’t have: turned the count about grand jury perjury into an argument that Clinton lied during the Paula Jones deposition. Which he did, but that was a count the House voted against. It should not be resurrected now. And making the argument for calling witnesses during what was supposed to be about something else.

In other news today, the Pope says that God is not an old man with a beard, but refuses to say what she does look like.

The European Commission barely survives a censure vote, unfortunately.

A Labour county councillor in Sussex of all places defects to the Scottish National Party.

Israeli Watergate?

Something else worth paying attention to in the days or weeks ahead: the German debate over the proposed citizenship law.