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Editorials
Wednesday, November 1, 2000Bill Clinton’s request
for Republican apologyThe issue: President Clinton, in a magazine interview, said congressional Republicans owe the country an apology for attempting to remove him from office.
AL Gore has been running for president while trying to ignore the incumbent, Bill Clinton, who is supposedly his boss. Seeking to avoid reminding voters of the scandals of the current administration, Gore rarely mentions Clinton's name. As if to contrast his record implicitly with Clinton's serial infidelities, Gore frequently refers to his own presumably unblemished marriage -- but not to Clinton's scandalous behavior.
Yet the vice president claims credit for the Clinton-Gore administration for the strong economy, and vows to build on that record if elected in his own right. It's a difficult balancing act.
And it just got more difficult with the publication of an interview with Esquire magazine in which Clinton claims that the Republicans owe the country an apology for attempting to remove him from office.
The impeachment crisis that resulted from independent counsel Kenneth Starr's investigation of Clinton's sordid affair with Monica Lewinsky and the president's brazen lies was the last subject that Gore wanted the voters to be reminded of with the election campaign in its closing phase.
In the interview, Clinton said, referring to his congressional critics, "Unlike them, I have apologized to the American people for what I did wrong, and most Americans think I paid a pretty high price. They never apologized to the country for impeachment. They never apologized for all the things they've done."
The president's comments have circulated in news reports and on the Internet in recent days. Clinton said the magazine violated an agreement with the White House that it would not publish the interview before the election.
But Esquire's editor in chief, David Granger, said, "The only deal was that this was going to be the cover of our December issue. The bottom line is it was not embargoed until any date."
Esquire sent out transcripts to some news organizations in New York and Washington last Thursday and posted a partial transcript on its Web site on Friday, followed by a fuller transcript Monday.
In an interview Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott rejected Clinton's request for an apology. "It shows you something about his thinking and the judgment that he has," Lott said. "Look, he disgraced the office. He did things in the Oval Office that are absolutely still incredible, and he lied about it."
Most Americans did not agree that Clinton should be removed from office, and the Republican attempt failed, but his behavior was clearly disgraceful and the Republicans owe no apology for trying to hold him accountable.
Gore's own running mate, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, denounced Clinton on the Senate floor -- an act that probably led to Lieberman's selection for Gore's team in an attempt to dissociate Gore from Clinton.
Whatever the merits of Clinton's request, the point is that Gore can't be pleased to have the subject brought up. It can only serve as an embarrassment and divert attention from his own agenda at a critical point in the campaign.
State Hospital security
ESCAPES from the Hawaii State Hospital and a federal judge's order tightening its rein on patients on conditional release should prompt a review of the hospital's security policies. The public should not be endangered by patients on the lam or by those who have violated conditions of their release.
A dozen patients escaped from the Kaneohe facility in the last fiscal year. The most recent to escape was Johnie Michael Gray, who was acquitted of attempted murder by reason of insanity and committed to the hospital in 1981. Gray walked away from the hospital on Saturday after he signed out to go to the facility's gymnasium; he was found in Waikiki the next day.
Gray was on unsupervised status despite his history of violence and diagnosis of schizophrenia. Last December, psychologist Gary Farkas said Gray "would be a moderate-substantial danger to himself or others" if released.
Gray's relatively stable behavior while at the hospital has been attributed partly to medication. On three occasions he was granted conditional release but violated the conditions of the release by using drugs, which caused him to hallucinate.
Patients who have violated those conditions normally have been held in jail or prison without psychiatric treatment while awaiting court hearings, but that will soon change. U.S. District Judge David Ezra has ruled that such incarceration is "simply not constitutional." In the future, patients accused of violating conditions of their release must be returned to the State Hospital for care and determination of a course of treatment.
Anita Swanson, the state Health Department's deputy director of behavioral health, insists that the State Hospital is not a prison. But neither should it be a public spa.
Public safety requires that potentially dangerous patients be kept under secure conditions. State health officials must find a way to meet that requirement without turning the State Hospital into a prison.
ESCAPES from the Hawaii State Hospital and a federal judge's order tightening its rein on patients on conditional release should prompt a review of the hospital's security policies. The public should not be endangered by patients on the lam or by those who have violated conditions of their release.
A dozen patients escaped from the Kaneohe facility in the last fiscal year. The most recent to escape was Johnie Michael Gray, who was acquitted of attempted murder by reason of insanity and committed to the hospital in 1981. Gray walked away from the hospital on Saturday after he signed out to go to the facility's gymnasium; he was found in Waikiki the next day.
Gray was on unsupervised status despite his history of violence and diagnosis of schizophrenia. Last December, psychologist Gary Farkas said Gray "would be a moderate-substantial danger to himself or others" if released.
Gray's relatively stable behavior while at the hospital has been attributed partly to medication. On three occasions he was granted conditional release but violated the conditions of the release by using drugs, which caused him to hallucinate.
Patients who have violated those conditions normally have been held in jail or prison without psychiatric treatment while awaiting court hearings, but that will soon change. U.S. District Judge David Ezra has ruled that such incarceration is "simply not constitutional." In the future, patients accused of violating conditions of their release must be returned to the State Hospital for care and determination of a course of treatment.
Anita Swanson, the state Health Department's deputy director of behavioral health, insists that the State Hospital is not a prison. But neither should it be a public spa.
Public safety requires that potentially dangerous patients be kept under secure conditions. State health officials must find a way to meet that requirement without turning the State Hospital into a prison.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
