Suspicious White House reporters who have long parsed every jot and tittle of presidential speech have been utterly vindicated by the Starr report. The man whose name gave us the adjective "Clintonian," it turns out, is an expert parser of his own sentences. The report's footnote 1128, THE SCRAPBOOK's personal favorite, provides a snapshot of the president, under oath, meditating on the meaning of the verb is. Here is the footnote in full:
- In claiming that this statement was true, the President was apparently relying on the same tense-based distinction he made during the Jones deposition. See Clinton 8/17/98 GJ at 59-61 ("It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the -- if he -- if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not -- that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement. . . . Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true.")