Like wide-eyed children waiting for candy, students stood around on the front steps of Coffman Union yesterday to hear the almighty, all-knowing Kenneth Starr speak about the right of privacy and political ethics.
Although not the scheduled topic, the conversation turned to Starr’s treatment of the recent Clinton scandal.
For those who just climbed out from under a rock, Starr blew open a scandalous affair between U.S. President Bill Clinton and his then-21-year-old intern, who we’ll just call “Monica L.” to protect her identity.
“I believe everyone should have skeletons in their closets and, no, I won’t try to find them,” Starr said after breaking down in tears when a student called him a hypocrite.
Starr said he was only doing his job by diligently researching the Whitewater scandal and picking through some accounting jargon when the voluptuous Linda Tripp sauntered into his office one January evening.
“She came in and said, ‘hey honey. I’ve got something you want,'” Starr said. Tripp proceeded to pull 186 tapes out of her extra-large purse and told Starr they contained evidence of the Whitewater dealings.
“When I listened to the tapes and I heard that they were really about stained dresses and midnight phone calls — I couldn’t help myself!” Starr said.
“I had to know more. I had to get more information.”
“I was bored of Whitewater numbers and I wanted a little excitement. My wife was making me sleep on the couch, my co-workers wouldn’t sit with me at lunch, I was getting this rash … well, anyway, I needed something more in life.
“The whole thing was just such a tawdry affair and I got wrapped up in all of it … eventually I think I fell in love with the story of Bill and Monica,” he said.
“It was so beautiful, like a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ for our times,” he said. “I just wanted everyone to hear and fall in love with the story of the heart-crossed lovers like I did.”
“And the only reason I produced the 56 boxes of information to Congress was to let everyone in on their love so we could celebrate it together.”
At that point, a notebook was launched from the crowd, spiking Starr in the noggin and making him fall over.
Upon getting up with a bloody head wound, Starr said he never infringed on Monica or Bill’s privacy because “they wanted me to know, otherwise Monica wouldn’t have voluntarily come in and willingly told me of all their good times. The only reason Bill didn’t is because he was shy.”
After this comment, and yelling from the spectators, Starr said he no longer wished to speak about Bill and Monica and wanted to get to what he came to campus for — the topics of privacy and ethics.
“Political ethics are very important,” he said. “Can you imagine if someone, say an independent prosecutor, spent nearly $40 million of taxpayers money on a witch hunt?”
Starr continued by saying the Constitution was written to allow all citizens “a voice in the people of the country,” and that spending 40 million taxpayer dollars on something the country was vehemently opposed to would be absurd.
He also spoke on the right of privacy and what kind of power it holds in the United States.
“The right of privacy of this country is one granted by the Constitution of the United States in the First Amendment … uh … wait a minute … does anyone out there have a copy of the Constitution?” he asked.
After confirmation that he was wrong, Starr was tossed back on the podium by several Gopher football players and said, “OK, so there isn’t a right of privacy in the Constitution — but by God, there should be!
“The people of this country deserve to have secret love affairs in their place of business if they so chose and then hide it from their spouse. It is the American way!” he said.
At that point, Starr was booed off the podium and ran to his limousine through a barrage of pencils, protractors and constitutional law textbooks.
Once in his vehicle, Starr reportedly said, “Those rowdy kids. They don’t know a thing about ethics,” and swore he would never return to the campus.
He then called his mom to whine about his still-bleeding head wound.