Though Ken Starr is best known for relentlessly spearheading a string of highly politicized investigations of Bill Clinton, the former prosecutor now seems to have kind words for the former president.
During a panel discussion last week in Philadelphia, Starr called Clinton “the most gifted politician of the baby boomer generation,” according to the New York Times.
“His genuine empathy for human beings is absolutely clear,” he said. “It is powerful, it is palpable and the folks of Arkansas really understood that about him — that he genuinely cared. The ‘I feel your pain’ is absolutely genuine.”
Starr — whose ever-expanding investigations into Whitewater, the death of Vince Foster, and the Monica Lewinsky scandal ultimately led to the impeachment of Clinton — mentioned what he called the “unpleasantness” during the discussion last week.
“There are certain tragic dimensions which we all lament,” he said.
But he added that Clinton had taken part in a “redemptive process,” according to the New York Times.
“President Carter set a very high standard, which President Clinton clearly continues to follow,” Starr said.
Starr, now the president of Baylor University in Texas, did not mention Trump, but indicated he was concerned about the Republican presidential candidate’s popularity, according to the Times. He said he was worried about “the transnational emergence of almost radical populism, deep anger, a sense of dislocation.”
He also said that the “utter decline and erosion of civility and discourse” in politics has “troubling implications.”
