An unlikely voice recently bemoaned the decline of civility in presidential politics, warned that “deep anger” was fueling an “almost radical populism” and sang the praises of former President Bill Clinton — particularly his “redemptive” years of philanthropic work since leaving the White House.The voice was that of Kenneth W. Starr, the former Whitewater independent counsel, whose Javert-like pursuit of Mr. Clinton in the 1990s helped bring a new intensity to partisan warfare and led to the impeachment of a president for only the second time in the nation’s history.
...Mr. Starr expressed regret last week that so much of Mr. Clinton’s legacy remained viewed through the lens of what Mr. Starr demurely termed “the unpleasantness.” His remarks seemed almost to absolve Mr. Clinton, if not to exonerate him. He called Mr. Clinton “the most gifted politician of the baby boomer generation.”
“His genuine empathy for human beings is absolutely clear,” Mr. Starr said. “It is powerful, it is palpable, and the folks of Arkansas really understood that about him — that he genuinely cared. The ‘I feel your pain’ is absolutely genuine.”
For some time, Mr. Starr, a Christian who is now the president and chancellor of Baylor University, a private Baptist school in Waco, Tex., has sought to put his years as a political combatant behind him. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, some of his associates expressed regret that so much of the Clinton administration’s efforts had been spent fighting those battles rather than addressing the growing threat posed by Osama bin Laden. And in 2010, Mr. Starr told Fox News that he regretted that his investigation of Mr. Clinton had taken so long and that it “brought great pain to a lot of people.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/u...atedCoverage®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article
...Mr. Starr expressed regret last week that so much of Mr. Clinton’s legacy remained viewed through the lens of what Mr. Starr demurely termed “the unpleasantness.” His remarks seemed almost to absolve Mr. Clinton, if not to exonerate him. He called Mr. Clinton “the most gifted politician of the baby boomer generation.”
“His genuine empathy for human beings is absolutely clear,” Mr. Starr said. “It is powerful, it is palpable, and the folks of Arkansas really understood that about him — that he genuinely cared. The ‘I feel your pain’ is absolutely genuine.”
For some time, Mr. Starr, a Christian who is now the president and chancellor of Baylor University, a private Baptist school in Waco, Tex., has sought to put his years as a political combatant behind him. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, some of his associates expressed regret that so much of the Clinton administration’s efforts had been spent fighting those battles rather than addressing the growing threat posed by Osama bin Laden. And in 2010, Mr. Starr told Fox News that he regretted that his investigation of Mr. Clinton had taken so long and that it “brought great pain to a lot of people.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/u...atedCoverage®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article
