From: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com (Richard Wojcik,snake)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Kremlin_Gate: Bill Clinton in Moscow during V
Date: 13 Oct 92 16:02:26 GMT
Reply-To: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com
Organization: Research & Technology

In article 8072@anasazi.com, john@anasazi.com (John R. Moore) writes:
>I notice that once again the liberals are trying to twist this issue
>around into what it isn't: red baiting and McCarthyism. Naturally this
>is easier than dealing with the real issues:

If it isn't red-baiting and McCarthyism, then what is?  You trash somebody's
character by linking them with Communism.  It stinks, but some politicians
believe that it works.  Bush's popularity dropped because he thought it would
work to his advantage.  I don't think that he's really a red-baiter at heart.
It's just part of the cynical game.  What has he got to lose?

>  -Bill Clinton was out of line for demonstrating against his own
>   country IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY. It wasn't against the law, and it
>   doesn't make him a communist, but it si wrong to take internal squabbles
>   outside the country.

Would you favor a Constitutional amendment to limit First Amendment rights when
people leave the country?  Clinton had a perfect right to express his anti-war
views both at home and abroad. 

>  -Bill Clinton can't come straight on this issue, any more than he can
>   on most others, which means that he has a character problem. He has
>   lied and dissembled on the anti-war issue just like he did on the
>   Jennifer Flowers allegations. He has told us that he met with
>   anti-communist students at Moscow University. Do you believe that?
>   If so, please justify your views.

Well, I travelled to the Soviet Union in 1965, and I met plenty of Russians who
were critical of the SU.  Clinton was there a year after Czechoslovakia, and
disillusionment with the Party was at a very high point.  Some troops who had
participated in the invasion had had to be rotated out of the country.  Something
about not being able to take swastikas being painted on their tanks.  ;-)

>  -The Soviet Union was an enemy of the US at the time, and they were using
>   the peace movement as a weapon against us, and the fact that Clinton
>   went to Moscow while a member of that peace movement indicates at least
>   very poor judgement.

Many of those in the peace movement felt that the war was an embarrassment.  It
was surprising to many Soviets that Americans felt free to criticize their own
government's policies without being critical of the American system of government.
They did not enjoy the same freedom, and they knew it.  Your view, that citizens
of a country should not express their opposition to government policy when 
speaking with foreigners, was precisely the one held by the Soviet and Chinese
governments.  I bought a poster in Leningrad that depicted all foreign tourists as
spies and urged citizens not to have contact with them.  Don't air your "dirty
laundry" in public.  You can criticize, but not publicly and not to outsiders.

I visited the SU as part of a university group learning to speak Russian.  We had
excellent contact with Soviets of many political persuasions.  After the group
returned home, Komsomolskaya Pravda printed a fictional interview with one of the
members of our group, who claimed to have been intimidated by the tour leaders,
who were working for the FBI.  Why?  The Soviets wanted to promote the idea that
Americans had no real freedom.  That they were afraid to speak their minds.  Just
like the Soviets themselves.

>[Note: The allegation which I repeated that Clinton's passport files had
> been tampered with has been investigated and found to be false by the FBI.
> All that was missing were some innocuous items that had been misplaced.]

Yet this won't be the last time that we hear wild, unsubstantiated charges made
in a blatant attempt to smear Clinton's character.  He is perceived as "weak" on
the character issue, so throw everything you have at him.  Don't let truth or
fairness get in your way.

-----
Disclaimer:  Opinions expressed above are not those of my employer.

    Rick Wojcik   (rwojcik@atc.boeing.com)   Seattle, WA