Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [406]
To Mama Starr in Texas, Ken forwarded a letter from a fourteen-year-old “Christian young man” who had sung his praises as a servant of the Lord. The independent counsel jotted a quick postscript to his mother, now fully recovered from her illness: “Sorry I haven’t checked in the last two days, but we will have chatted, God willing, before you receive this little note. Hope all is well. We’re all looking forward to being home in Texas after Christmas.”
He also dashed off a note to Randy and Carolyn, letting them know that the family was “bubbling over with anticipatory enthusiasm” awaiting their return for Christmas. “Look homeward, angels, to coin a Wolfeian phrase,” the ever-optimistic father wrote. “The fatted calf is awaiting. Or Lions Club freshly squeezed orange juice. Or whatever suits your fancy.” Starr took the opportunity to enclose an article that he had clipped out of the Wall Street Journal titled “Clinton Has Corrupted His Party’s Soul.” The piece ended with a stark prediction that when the presidential election of 2000 arrived, “and if the Republicans choose a candidate who is thoughtful and ethical, Democrats and independents will rebel against a presidency that rejects individual responsibility and has no ideal higher than the lowest common denominator.”
Ken Starr concluded with a hint of vindication, telling his children that the article “speaks eloquently for itself.”
CHAPTER
47
“MEN OF THE YEAR”
As if to send a strong signal to Ken Starr in Washington, a Southern California jury on November 24, 1998, acquitted Susan McDougal of all twelve felony counts in the embezzlement trial involving former Hollywood starlet Nancy Mehta. Susan hugged friends and supporters, choking out the words: “I’m overcome.”
The former Whitewater defendant had gone from eighteen months in prison for civil contempt to house arrest at her parents’ home in Camden, Arkansas, to a grueling eleven-week trial in State of California v. Susan McDougal, finally prevailing on the Nancy Mehta charges. Dressed in a striking white pantsuit, the defendant walked out the door, sobbing, “Thank you, thank you.” Jurors followed Susan McDougal out of the Santa Monica courtroom and blasted the district attorney for even bringing this case. They questioned—openly—whether Kenneth Starr had fanned the flame of this baseless prosecution.
Already, Starr had filed new criminal contempt and obstruction of justice charges against McDougal, scheduling a February 1999 trial in “Whitewater II” to force her testimony. A reporter in the seaside town asked McDougal as she stepped into a car: “Are you scared of Kenneth Starr?” She replied with her “best Clint Eastwood imitation,” throwing back her hair and growling contemptuously, “He had better be scared of me”
Back on a farm in Arkansas, where she awaited Starr’s next assault, McDougal sorted through fifty thousand letters she had received since going to prison. The outpouring of support from female inmates was particularly moving, prompting her to write her own notes of thanks. “I AM A CHANGED PERSON,” she penned to a local newspaper editor, “FOR THE SEVEN DIFFERENT JAILS AND PRISONS WHERE I WAS INCARCERATED, AND BECAUSE OF THE WOMEN I MET THERE … I THANK EVERYONE WHO PRAYED FOR ME, AND STOOD BY ME, BECAUSE I WAS ONE OF THE FEW WHO HAD ANYONE WHO CARED”
To friends and family, she reported that there was an upside to having done time as a recalcitrant witness: “Every day I sat there [in prison] the one thing that made me happy was knowing that I was a gall to him, to Kenneth Starr.”
Even as Susan McDougal was publicly mocking the special