“Hannah Arendt once wrote that the great success of Stalinism among the intellectuals could be attributed to one annihilating tactic. Stalinism replaced all debate about the merit of an argument, or a position, or even a person, with an inquiry about motive. I can attest, in a minor key, to the effect of this tactic in smaller matters. It was instantly said of me that I did what I did in order to promote this very book—still then uncompleted. Other allegations against me failed to rise to this elevated level. The truth or otherwise of what I had said was not disputed so much as ignored. When the finger points at the moon, the Chinese say, the idiot looks at the finger. As a much-scrutinized digit, I can attest to the effect of that, too.
The acquittal of Clinton, and the forgiving by implication of his abuses of public power and private resources, has placed future crooked presidents in a strong position. It is unlikely that they will be much troubled by the independent counsel statute. They will, if they are fortunate, be able to employ "the popularity defense" that was rehearsed by Ronald Reagan and brought to a dull polish by Clinton. They will be able to resort to "the privacy defense" also, especially if they are inventive enough to include, among their abuses, the abuse of the opposite sex. And they will only be impeachable by their own congressional supporters, since criticism from across the aisle will be automatically subjected to reverse impeachment as "partisan." This is the tawdry legacy of a sub-Camelot court, where unchecked greed, thuggery, and egotism were allowed to operate just above the law, and well beneath contempt.” - Christopher Hitchens, ‘No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton’ (1999) [p. 112, 113]
