In this section, Dan Rather repeatedly relays the Democratic argument that Kenneth Starr's investigation of the Monica Lewinsky matter was about Bill Clinton's personal life and sex. He chooses not to relay the Republican view that Clinton may have committed perjury or obstruction of justice.

See also Impeachment.

"Results are in tonight from a CBS News poll taken since Monica Lewinsky's testimony to the Ken Starr grand jury: 63 percent of those polled said even if there was wrongdoing by the President, it would have been better for the country if the Starr investigation into Mr. Clinton's personal life and whether he lied about it had never started."
--Dan Rather's version of a poll which really asked "Whatever happened, would it have been better if the investigation had never begun?" CBS Evening News August 7, 1998.

"President Clinton moved today to counter special prosecutor Ken Starr's latest push to investigate his personal life."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, August 3, 1998.

Special prosecutor Robert Ray had announced a plea bargain with Bill Clinton:
"Good evening. Once again, there has never been anything like this in American history. A dramatic close today to the Clinton presidency. A plea arrangement to avoid any possible prosecution or disbarment in two sex cases."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, January 19, 2001.

"President Clinton today said little and shrugged off any similarity between a federal court rejecting his assertions of executive privilege in the Ken Starr investigation of his personal life, and the Richard Nixon executive privilege claims during the crimes of Watergate."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, May 6, 1998.

"In Washington there are new indications tonight at just how wide, deep, and aggressively special prosecutor Ken Starr is pushing to make the Secret Service tell what it knows about the President's personal life."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, July 13, 1998.

"In a CBS News poll out tonight just 29 percent believe Starr is conducting an impartial investigation of President Clinton. And 57 percent want Starr to drop his investigation of the President's personal life."
--Dan Rather CBS Evening News, May 8, 1998.

After former president Clinton's law license was suspended in Arkansas for committing perjury, the U.S. Supreme Court banned him from ever trying a case before it. In Rather's relaying of the news, he used the language of Clinton supporters who believed Jones's case to be just about sex. Clinton and his supporters also preferred the term "misleading" over "perjury" because they insisted that Clinton not lied:
"The Supreme Court opened its new term today....[mentions other case] And the justices gave former President Clinton 40 days to say why he should not be barred from practicing law before the high court. This stems from the suspension of his Arkansas law license for giving misleading testimony in the Paula Jones sex case."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, October 1, 2001.

"Good evening. More people close to President Clinton became witnesses today in special prosecutor Ken Starr's push for testimony about the President's personal life."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, August 5, 1998.

"On Capitol Hill the Republican-dominated House now plans to vote Thursday to approve an official impeachment investigation into [Clinton's] sex life and lies he told to hide it."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, October 6, 1998.

"Monica Lewinsky showed up, as ordered, to give the FBI handwriting and fingerprint samples for special prosecutor Ken Starr's deepening investigation into the President's personal life. She arrived at the federal office building here with her father, flanked by security, and the press, of course, all around. Lewinsky's father castigated Starr and his tactics."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, May 28, 1998.

"Good evening. There is new information tonight about President Clinton's response to Ken Starr's hard press in his investigation of the President's personal life. As CBS News White House correspondent Scott Pelley reports, the President has declined Starr's unprecedented request for his testimony."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, May 27, 1998.
Note: Presidents Bush and Reagan had both provided video testimony to grand juries investigating scandals.

"[Y]oung GOP firebrands in the House may fulminate about Vince Foster, missing files and moral turpitude in the oval office."
--Dan Rather in "Rather's Notebook" at the CBS News Web site, May 4, 2000.

"In Washington, for the second time in a month, the Chief Justice of the United States, William Rehnquist, cleared the way for prosecutor Ken Starr's demand for testimony about the President's personal life from those closest to Mr. Clinton..."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, August 4, 1998.

"More fast-breaking developments on special prosecutor Ken Starr's new push to get the top Secret Service man closest to the President to tell him what he knows about the President's personal life."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, July 15, 1998.

"For better or for worse, we Americans are a forward looking people. Americans always have their eye on the far horizon. Clinton and what happened to him in his personal life and elsewhere is near history."
--Dan Rather on Imus in the Morning, February 1, 2000.

"But as for the President's personal life, 60 percent said they want Starr to end the Monica Lewinsky investigation."
--Dan Rather citing a CBS News poll on the CBS Evening News, April 23, 1998.

"At least three active-duty Secret Service employees were forced today to appear before special prosecutor Ken Starr's grand jury to give testimony. This happened after Chief Justice William Rehnquist cleared the way for Starr's unprecedented push to make the Secret Service tell him at least some of what it knows about the President's personal life."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, July 17, 1998.

"Must the Secret Service tell Ken Starr now what it knows about the President's personal life?..Also heating up today the battle over special prosecutor Ken Starr's demand for Secret Service agents to tell him what they know about President Clinton's personal life."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, July 16, 1998.

"A late-breaking and major escalation tonight of special prosecutor Ken Starr's aggressive push to make the Secret Service tell him what it knows about the President's personal life."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, July 13, 1998.

"[M]uch of my reporting time has been given over to one of the strangest stories I've ever encountered: the collision of Republican Special Prosecutor Ken Starr's grand jury investigation with President Clinton's personal life."
--Dan Rather, in a chapter introduction in Deadlines and Datelines, 1999. print_file('footer'); ?>