James Carville attacking Ronald D. Rotunda, Special Counsel on the Whitewater Investigation of President Bill Clinton:

 

CNN, Larry King Live November 2, 1998;

Transcript # 98110200V22 (excerpts); Carville and Rollins Duke it Out

GUESTS: James Carville, Ed Rollins

LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight: on the eve of Election ’98, the controversial Democratic strategist James Carville, and the Republican strategist, Ed Rollins duke it out. I’ll referee next on LARRY KING LIVE. We begin tonight’s edition, I think, of LARRY KING LIVE for the first portion with James Carville, then Ed Rollins will be joining us. James new book is just out. It’s already scorching up the best- selling list. It’s titled “... And the Horse he Rode in On: The People Versus Kenneth Starr,” published by Simon & Schuster — just published. And there you see its title. He has been talking about this for a long time – . . .

KING: Is this the final of your war on the independent prosecutor, which you have been waging for some time now?

CARVILLE: Well no, I don’t think so,. . .

KING: Those who will say forget any of his defects; forget all your criticisms. One fact is a president lied under oath and that is indefensible. . . .

CARVILLE: What about — do we want to have this in our country? What about — if, you know, Ken Starr would have been around, Thomas Jefferson would have never been president because we would have had … You had the Whitewater — the Filegate! The Travelgate! All of this foolishness, . . .

KING: Obviously, if it was a lie under oath, though, you would say that was wrong.

CARVILLE: Well, what he did was wrong. I mean, I got no — it was wrong. . . . he’s a good man, done a bad thing. But I think the country wants to get beyond that. . . .  this is all as a result of the Paula Jones suit, Ken Starr was involved in the Paula Jones suit.

KING: That’s been reported.

CARVILLE: Been reported, ain’t no doubt that it was. I think you’re going to find out that Mr. Rotunda is the gentleman’s name who’s in Mr. Starr’s office, another one of these people over there. It’s going to be all over the thing. . . .

KING: James, she [Attorney General Janet Reno] could fire him tomorrow.

CARVILLE: She could, she sure could. Good question. . . .