IMO, Clinton is as good as gone.
September 3, 1998
Lieberman Addresses the Senate Regarding President Clinton and the
Independent Counsel's Investigation
Washington, DC -- Sen. Joe Lieberman today addressed his colleagues in the
United States Senate with regard to President Clinton and the Independent
Counsel's investigation.
The following is the text of Lieberman's statement made in the Senate late this
afternoon:
Mr. President, I rise today to make a most difficult and distasteful statement, for
me probably the most difficult statement I have made on this floor in my ten years
in the Senate.
On August 17th, President Clinton testified before a grand jury convened by the
Independent Counsel and then talked to the American people about his
relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern. He told us that
the relationship was "not appropriate," that it was "wrong," and that it was "a
critical lapse of judgement and a personal failure" on his part. In addition, after
seven months of denying that he had engaged in a sexual relationship with Ms.
Lewinsky, the President admitted that his "public comments. . . about this matter
gave a false impression." He said, "I misled people."
My immediate reaction to this statement was deep disappointment and personal
anger. I was disappointed because the President of the United States had just
confessed to engaging in an extramarital affair with a young woman in his employ
and to willfully deceiving the nation about his conduct. I was personally angry
because President Clinton had by his disgraceful behavior jeopardized his
Administration's historic record of accomplishment, much of which grew out of
the principles and programs that he and I and many others had worked on together
in the New Democratic movement. I was also angry because I was one of the
many people who had said over the preceding seven months that if the President
clearly and explicitly denies the allegations against him, then, of course, I believe
him.
Since that Monday night, I have not commented on this matter publicly. I thought
I had an obligation to consider the President's admissions more objectively, less
personally, and to try to put them in a clearer perspective. And I felt I owed that
much to President Clinton, for whom I have great affection and admiration, and
who I truly believe has worked tirelessly to make life tangibly better in so many
ways for so many Americans.
But the truth is, after much reflection, my feelings of disappointment and anger
have not dissipated. Except now these feelings have gone beyond my personal
dismay to a larger, graver sense of loss for our country, a reckoning of the
damage that the President's conduct has done to the proud legacy of his
presidency, and ultimately an accounting of the impact of his actions on our
democracy and its moral foundations.
The implications for our country are so serious that I feel a responsibility to my
constituents in Connecticut, as well as to my conscience, to voice my concerns
forthrightly and publicly, and I can think of no more appropriate place to do so
than the floor of this great body. I have chosen to speak particularly at this time,
before the Independent Counsel files his report, because while we do not know
enough to answer the question of whether there are legal consequences from the
President's conduct, we do know enough to answer a separate and distinct set of
questions about the moral consequences for our country.
I have come to this floor many times in the past to speak with my colleagues
about my concerns, which are widely-held in this chamber and throughout the
nation, that our society's standards are sinking, that our common moral code is
deteriorating, and that our public life is coarsening. In doing so, I have
specifically criticized leaders of the entertainment industry for the way they have
used the enormous influence they wield to weaken our common values. And now
because the President commands at least as much attention and exerts at least as
much influence on our collective consciousness as any Hollywood celebrity or
television show, it is hard to ignore the impact of the misconduct the President
has admitted to on our children, our culture and our national character.
To begin with, I must respectfully disagree with the President's contention that his
relationship with Monica Lewinsky and the way in which he misled us about it is
"nobody's business but" his family's and that "even presidents have private lives,"
as he said Whether he or we as a people think it fair or not, the reality in 1998 is
that a president's private life is public. Contemporary news media standards will
have it no other way. Surely this President was given fair warning of that by the
amount of time the news media has dedicated to investigating his personal life
during the 1992 campaign and in the years since.
But there is more to this than modern media intrusiveness. The President is not
just the elected leader of our country, he is, as presidential scholar Clinton
Rossiter observed, "the one-man distillation of the American people," and "the
personal embodiment and representative of their dignity and majesty," as
President Taft once said. So when his personal conduct is embarrassing, it is so
not just for him and his family. It is embarrassing for us all as Americans.
The President is also a role model, who, because of his prominence and the moral
authority that emanates from his office, sets standards of behavior for the people
he serves. His duty, as the Rev. Nathan Baxter of the National Cathedral here in
Washington said in a recent sermon, is nothing less than the stewardship of our
values. So no matter how much the President or others may wish to
"compartmentalize" the different spheres of his life, the inescapable truth is that
the President's private conduct can and often does have profound public
consequences.
In this case, the President apparently had extramarital relations with an employee
half his age, and did so in the workplace, in vicinity of the Oval Office. Such
behavior is not just inappropriate. It is immoral. And it is harmful, for it sends a
message of what is acceptable behavior to the larger American family,
particularly to our children, which is as influential as the negative messages
communicated by the entertainment culture. If you doubt that, just ask America's
parents about the intimate and often unseemly sexual questions their young
children have been asking and discussing since the President's relationship with
Ms. Lewinsky became public seven months ago.
I have had many of those conversations in recent days, and from that I can
conclude that many parents feel much as I do, that something very sad and sordid
has happened in American life when I cannot watch the news on television with
my ten-year-old daughter any more.
This is unfortunately familiar territory for Americas families in today's
anything-goes culture, where sexual promiscuity is too often treated as just
another lifestyle choice with little risk of adverse consequences. It is this mindset
that has helped to threaten the stability and integrity of the family, which
continues to be the most important unit of civilized society, the place where we
raise our children and teach them to be responsible citizens, to develop and
nurture their personal and moral faculties.
President Clinton is well aware of this threat and the broad public concern about
it. He has used the bully pulpit over the course of his presidency to eloquently and
effectively call for the renewal of our common values, particularly the principle
of personal responsibility, and our common commitment to family. And he has
spoken out admirably against sexual promiscuity among teenagers in clear terms
of right and wrong, emphasizing the consequences involved.
All of which makes the President's misconduct so confusing and so damaging.
The President's relationship with Miss Lewinsky not only contradicted the values
he has publicly embraced over the past six years. It has compromised his moral
authority at a time when Americans of every political persuasion agree that the
decline of the family is one of the most pressing problems we as a nation are
facing.
Nevertheless, I believe the President could have lessened the harm his relationship
with Ms. Lewinsky has caused if he had acknowledged his mistake and spoken
with candor about it to the American people shortly after it became public in
January. But as we now know, he chose not to do this. His deception is
particularly troubling because it was not just a reflexive and understandably
human act of concealment to protect himself and his family from the
"embarrassment of his own conduct," as he put it, when he was confronted with it
in his deposition in the Paula Jones case, but rather the intentional and
premeditated decision to do so.
In choosing this path, I fear that the President has undercut the efforts of millions
of American parents who are naturally trying to instill in our children the value of
honesty. As most any mother or father knows, kids have a singular ability to
detect double standards. So we can safely assume that it will be that much more
difficult to convince our sons and daughters of the importance of telling the truth
when the most powerful man in the nation evades it. Many parents I have spoken
with in Connecticut confirm this unfortunate consequence.
The President's intentional and consistent misstatements may also undercut the
trust that the American people have in his word, which would have substantial
ramifications for his presidency. Under the Constitution, as presidential scholar
Richard Neustadt has noted, the President's ultimate source of authority,
particularly his moral authority, is the power to persuade, to mobilize public
opinion and build consensus behind a common agenda, and at this the President
has been extraordinarily effective. But that power hinges on the President's
support among the American people and their faith and confidence in his
motivations, his agenda, and ultimately his personal integrity. As Teddy
Roosevelt once explained, "My power vanishes into thin air the instant that my
fellow citizens who are straight and honest cease to believe that I represent them
and fight for what is straight and honest; that is all the strength I have."
Sadly, with his deception, President Clinton may have weakened the great power
and strength of which President Roosevelt spoke. I know this is a concern that
many of my colleagues share, that the President has hurt his credibility and
therefore, perhaps, his chances of moving his agenda forward. But I believe that
the harm the President's actions have caused extend beyond the political arena. I
am afraid that the misconduct the President has admitted may be reinforcing one
of the most destructive messages being delivered by our popular culture --namely
that values are essentially fungible. And I am afraid that his misconduct may help
to blur some of the most important bright lines of right and wrong left in our
society.
I do not raise these concerns as self-righteous criticism. I know that the President
is far from alone in the wrongdoing he has admitted. We as humans are all
imperfect. We are all sinners. Many have betrayed a loved one, and most of us
have told lies. Members of Congress have certainly been guilty of such behavior,
as have some previous Presidents. We try to understand the profound complexity
and difficulty of personal relationships, which gives us pause before passing
judgement on them. We all fall short of the standards our best values set for us.
Certainly I do.
But the President, by virtue of the office he sought and was elected to, has
traditionally been held to a higher standard. This is as it should be, because the
American president is not, as I quoted earlier, just the one-man distillation of the
American people but the most powerful person in the world, and as such the
consequences of misbehavior by a President, even private misbehavior, are much
greater than that of a an average citizen, a CEO, or even a Senator. That is what I
believe presidential scholar James Barber, in his book, The Presidential
Character, was getting at when he wrote that the public demands "a sense of
legitimacy from, and in, the Presidency. . . There is more to this than dignity,
more than propriety. The President is expected to personify our betterness in an
inspiring way, to express in what he does and is (not just what he says) a moral
idealism which, in much of the public mind, is the very opposite of politics."
Just as the American people are demanding of their leaders, though, they are also
fundamentally fair and forgiving, which is why I was so hopeful the President
could begin to repair the damage done with his address to the nation on the 17th.
But like so many others, I came away feeling that he for reasons that are
thoroughly human had squandered a great opportunity that night. He failed to
clearly articulate to the American people that he recognized how significant and
consequential his wrongdoing was and how badly he felt about it. He also failed
to show that he understood his behavior has diminished the office he holds and
the country he serves, and that it is inconsistent with the mainstream American
values that he has advanced as President. And he failed to acknowledge that while
Mr. Starr, Ms. Lewinsky, Mrs. Tripp, and the news media have all contributed to
the crisis we now face, his presidency would not be in peril if it had not been for
the behavior he himself described as "wrong" and "inappropriate."
Because the conduct the President has admitted to was so serious and his
assumption of responsibility on August 17th so inadequate, the last three weeks
have been dominated by a cacophony of media and political voices calling for
impeachment, or resignation, or censure, while a lesser chorus implores us to
"move on" and get this matter behind us.
Appealing as the latter option may be to many people who are understandably
weary of this crisis, the transgressions the President has admitted to are too
consequential for us to walk away and leave the impression for our children and
for our posterity that what President Clinton acknowledges he did within the
White House is acceptable behavior for our nation's leader. On the contrary, as I
have said at length today, it is wrong and unacceptable and should be followed by
some measure of public rebuke and accountability. We in Congress --elected
representatives of all the American people --are surely capable institutionally of
expressing such disapproval through a resolution of reprimand or censure of the
President for his misconduct, but it is premature to do so, as my colleagues of
both parties seem to agree, until we have received the report of the Independent
Counsel and the White House's response to it.
In the same way, it seems to me, talk of impeachment and resignation at this time
is unjust and unwise. It is unjust because we do not know enough in fact and will
not until the Independent Counsel reports and the White House responds to
conclude whether we have crossed the high threshold our Constitution rightly
sets for overturning the results of a popular election in our democracy and
bringing on the national trauma of removing an incumbent President from office.
For now, in fact, all we know for certain is what the President acknowledged on
August 17th. The rest is rumor, speculation, or hearsay --much less than is
required by Members of the House and Senate in the dispatch of the solemn
responsibilities that the Constitution gives us in such circumstances.
I believe that talk of impeachment and resignation now is unwise because it
ignores the reality that while the Independent Counsel proceeds with his
investigation, the President is still our nation's leader, our Commander-in-Chief.
Economic uncertainty and other problems here at home, as well as the fiscal and
political crises in Russia and Asia and the growing threats posed by Iraq, North
Korea, and worldwide terrorism, all demand the President's focused leadership.
For that reason, while the legal process moves forward, I believe it is important
that we provide the President with the time and space and support he needs to
carry out his most important duties and protect our national interest and security.
That time and space may also give the President additional opportunities to accept
personal responsibility for his behavior, to rebuild public trust in his leadership,
to recommit himself to the values of opportunity, responsibility and community
that brought him to office, and to act to heal the wounds to our national
character.
In the meantime, as the debate on this matter proceeds, and as the investigation
continues, we would all be advised to heed the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln's
second annual address to Congress in 1862. With the nation at war with itself,
Lincoln warned, "If there ever could be a proper time for mere catch arguments,
that time is surely not now. In times like the present, men should utter nothing for
which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity."
I believe we are at such a time again today. With so much at stake, we too must
resist the impulse toward "catch arguments" and reflex reactions. Let us proceed
in accordance with our nation's traditional moral compass, yes, but in a manner
that is fair and at a pace that is deliberate and responsible. Let us as a nation
honestly confront the damage that the President's actions over the last seven
months have caused, but not to the exclusion of the good that his leadership has
done over the past six years nor at the expense of our common interests as
Americans. And let us be guided by the conscience of the Constitution, which
calls on us to place the common good above any partisan or personal interest, as
we now work together to resolve this serious challenge to our democracy. Thank
you. |
