Why did Kenneth Starr delay announcing the results of Filegate, Travelgate and Whitewater? Because if he had cleared the president a year ago there would have been no excuse to continue trolling for bimbos.

Starr had to keep those investigations alive as cover for rummaging around in Clinton’s personal sex life. Once President Clinton was truly and completely snared, the pretexts of the other “gates” could die.

The purpose of a special prosecutor is not to conspire with civil litigants to entrap the president into committing an impeachable offense. His job is to investigate whether crimes were committed, not to create the opportunity for their commission.

But Starr goes one step further. Not only does he believe it was part of his job to set a trap, he believes the president is guilty of obstruction of justice for using his office to claim executive privilege and then failing to convince a federal appeals court to agree with him.

By such reasoning, defendants who plead “not guilty” to a crime would also be guilty of obstructing justice for wasting everyone’s time by bringing their cases to trial.

The damage that Kenneth Starr and House Republicans have done in their zeal to nail Clinton for a few parking tickets threatens the foundations of our democracy.

Alan L. Light

Iowa City