B Y J A M E S C A R V I L L E
STARR WARS The Ragin’ Cajun Strikes Back most of us have to suffer outrages as we go through life. You buy a lemon of a car and the dealer won't do anything for you. Your health insurance refuses to pay for the care you need. Your boss yells at you for something that isn't your fault. Most of the time, we bitch and moan and pull out our hair (you can see how much of that I've been doing), but there's not much else we can do. We feel small. We are powerless. Sometimes, however, we get up the gumption to do something constructive with our outrage. We decide to strike back in a concerted, methodical, organized way. That is exactly what I've decided to do with my outrage over the continuing witch hunt called Whitewater. As I announced yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press," I've decided to launch an all-out effort to expose Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr as the right-wing partisan hack that he is. During the past four years, the president's opponents have subjected him and his wife to the most blistering barrage of politically motivated attacks ever launched upon a First Family. When these attacks have flared up, I've made my feelings known to every reporter who would listen. But that is not nearly enough. This has gone on far too long. It's time to get proactive. It's time to go radioactive. Kenneth Starr, the man appointed to fairly and impartially determine whether the president has engaged in any wrongdoing, has made a mockery of our system of independent counsels. Kenneth Starr is about as independent as a turkey is bright. He's about as qualified to lead an impartial investigation of the president as I am to lead one of Newt Gingrich. A few months before Starr was appointed to his current position, I ran into him in an airport lounge. At the time, I had no idea who he was. But he knew who I was, and he took the opportunity of our meeting to lay into the president in a contemptuous way. He made absolutely no secret of the fact that he was a bitter partisan. So you can imagine my reaction in August of 1994 when I heard that he had been appointed to replace Robert Fiske as the independent counsel. The word outrage doesn't do justice to the matter. Even if it hadn't been for the airport episode, all of us have reason to question the propriety of appointing a guy like Starr. There have been plenty of tip-offs that his main interests are advancing his right-wing agenda and stroking the right Senators to secure a seat on the Supreme Court in some future Republican administration. Just look at the way the guy was appointed. The head of the panel responsible for coming up with a new independent counsel was Judge David Sentelle, who owes his position on the federal bench to the Senate's biggest blemish, Jesse Helms. When Sentelle was considering various candidates for the counsel job, he gave up all pretense of propriety and sat down to lunch with Helms and Senator Lauch Faircloth, two men who made no bones about their desire to get a counsel who was much more anti-Clinton than Fiske. Several days later, Starr was appointed and — lo and behold — Sentelle's wife soon landed herself a job in Faircloth's office. It don't take a genius to put those pieces together. But just wait — it gets worse. After his appointment, Starr, a million-dollar-a-year private lawyer, didn't want to follow his predecessors' example and take a leave from his law firm while he worked as independent counsel. Starr decided it was perfectly proper to go on representing clients, even if quite a number of them had huge financial interests in seeing the President defeated in the upcoming election. For example, Starr continued to represent Philip Morris and Brown & Williamson, tobacco companies fighting the president's effort to block tobacco sales to and ads aimed at kids. He has also represented the archconservative Bradley Foundation, which bankrolls the right-wing rag The American Spectator and other sworn enemies of the President. More recently, Starr flaunted his dubious affiliations by giving a keynote address at Regent University. For those of you who don't follow half-assed, fourth-tier universities, I'll give you some background on Regent. Before the school acquired this legit-sounding name, it used to be called the Christian Broadcasting Network University. It was founded and is still run by none other than Pat Robertson, the televangelist and Christian Coalition founder, who is one of the chief proponents of the conspiracy delusion that White House aide Vince Foster was murdered. Conflict of interest? You make the call. Mr. Starr, the gig is up. The taxpayers have already spent more than $30 million indulging your drunken-sailor spending habits and your stick-it-to the-President schemes. They deserve better. They deserve impartiality. They deserve counsel who understands the concept of conflict of interest. So what am I going to do about it? I'm assembling a crack team of researchers to fight back with good information. We're going to be part clearing house, part think tank, part War Room. We're going to turn the tables on this man. We're going to scour the record for every scrap of evidence of his partisan affiliations and shady dealings. And we're going to take the case to the American people through every means at our disposal — speeches, ads, talk shows, mailings, a Web site, databases for journalists, you name it. I have been wanting to do this for some time now. I made the huge mistake of letting the White House talk me out of this approach once before. Now the time has come for extreme measures. I have sat back and endured this long enough. Want to help? Are you as outraged as I am? Are you bold enough to do something about it? Are you a good researcher? Have you had exposure to Starr before? Drop me a line. Tell me who you are. You can reach me at: carville@salon1999.com. And while you're at it, drop by Table Talk and voice your thoughts about Carville's declaration of war on Kenneth Starr.
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