The Economist calls for Clinton to be gone:
economist.com
Unwanted
ON SEPTEMBER 9th, at last, Kenneth
Starr sent to Congress his report on Bill
Clinton's actions and obfuscations in the
Monica Lewinsky affair. It was, as
expected, comprehensive: 36 white boxes
in the back of two black vans. As The
Economist went to press, there was still no
knowledge (though a mountain of
speculation) about what it contained. But
whatever Mr Starr may prove or fail to
prove, the damage is done.
What began as a trickle has become a flood. First, former aides
wrote sad columns in the news magazines. Then candidates
running for re-election in Maryland, Iowa and New York said
they did not want the president to show his face in their districts.
By last week, the list of the outraged and estranged included both
California's senators, Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York,
Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, Pat Leahy of Vermont and-most
strikingly-Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who delivered to the
Senate a devastating account of how Bill Clinton had let America
down. All these people are Democrats; all once counted
themselves as the president's friends. And all now see him as a
liability both to his party and his country. It is not Mr Starr Mr
Clinton should fear, but the supporters and sympathisers he has
left feeling betrayed.
Character issues
The American presidency is surprisingly vulnerable, checked on
every side by the legislature, the judiciary, the press and the
people. An American president has no power except his own
moral authority, his ability to persuade and set the example. But
these depend largely on his character. Inevitably, his private flaws
have public consequences. By recklessly pursuing Monica
Lewinsky and then emphatically denying it, Mr Clinton knew he
was endangering the whole programme on which he was elected.
He went ahead anyway. That is why his friends in the Democratic
Party are now so hurt. They supported him for his administrative
energy and his huge political talents, hoping against hope that he
would heed his own mantra of "personal responsibility". But he let
them down, and did not even have the grace to make a decent
apology.
Any president at the mid-point of his second term is in a weak
position. His reforming ardour is exhausted, and attention is
shifting to his successor. But this is not normal second-term
weakness. This is a president who has forfeited respect to the
point of political impotence. Nowadays even Al Gore-First
Friend and heir-apparent-is conspicuous by his absence. It
would be hard enough even for a scandal-free Bill Clinton to
persuade Congress that it should fund the IMF, approve fast-track
authority for trade talks or reform Social Security. But he
approaches Congress now empty of all credibility and with no
moral leverage to demand either sacrifice or restraint; for how
much of either has he shown himself?
It is said that Americans at large do not care. This may well
change. If Mr Starr's report does not nauseate them (as perhaps it
may not), they may well be rattled by signs of downturn in the
economy. The president's high job-approval ratings have a fragile
look about them. Other polls, measuring public respect for the
president's character and his sharing of their values, are already
dismally low. The public would desperately prefer the matter to be
dropped; but that may be because they find it too painful to be
reminded, day after day, of the character of the man who is their
representative to the world.
Mr Clinton has been in deep peril before, and every time he has
rebounded. Anger and defiance have re-energised him. After the
blistering rebuke of the mid-term elections in 1994, he rallied
against the Republicans and, within a year, had them on the
defensive. Often over the past two years, when scandal threatened
to up-end him, he escaped by lashing out at Mr Starr and the
"vast right-wing conspiracy". But defiance will not work any more.
Yes, the press and the prosecutor have hounded him, the
prosecutor with a set of statutory powers never employed so
fiercely against any other president. Yet obsessive and infuriating
as Mr Starr may have been, he is not the man who has brought
Mr Clinton to this pass. The president's own demons have put him
there.
Some in his party-Mr Lieberman among them-think Mr Clinton
may yet recover with a fuller and broader apology. It is hard to
see how. First apologies are what count, and Mr Clinton made his
through gritted teeth. He has subsequently said sorry a bit more,
but always under compulsion. Besides, since his lying was so
sincerely done, why should anyone believe his most sincere
apology?
The presentation of Mr Starr's report to Congress now raises the
stakes. Congressmen, already convinced that the president cannot
or will not make reparation by himself, must brace themselves
either for impeachment proceedings or for some form of official
rebuke. Mr Clinton himself clearly hopes he can cling on. After all,
he still sits in the White House, rides in the presidential limousine,
shakes hands with Boris Yeltsin. Some world-shattering event, he
supposes, may yet enable him to shine internationally and recover
grace at home. That is quite possible. But clinging on for dear life
is not governing. As markets zigzag, Russia crumbles and
terrorism rears its head, self-pitying paralysis is not good enough.
This newspaper has no wish for him to stay. And it is hard to see
why America should, either.
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