Bombs away -- impeachment
delayed
By Joanne Gray, Washington
Tom DeLay, the Republican numbers man in the House
of Representatives, was greeted with hisses and boos for
bringing up politics, demanding from Defence Secretary
William Cohen whether there was any reasons why the
impeachment vote should not go ahead even as military
action was underway.
Well, yes, Cohen responded at his briefing -- such a vote
could hurt the troop morale.
That answer infuriated DeLay who as Republican
majority whip had been salivating over delivering Bill
Clinton's impeachment in a matter of hours.
It was just one event in an extraordinary day in the US
capital where war and impeachment were irrevocably
intertwined, no matter how hard officials tried to keep
them separate.
At one point, there was uncertainty whether President
Clinton would use the Oval Office to give his national
address explaining why the attack on Iraq had been
launched.
That was the traditional venue for such broadcasts, but
the Oval Office had recently become famous for other
Monica Lewinsky-style activities. It went ahead there
anyway.
As Clinton spoke, it looked at one point as though a
brown shadow had appeared behind his left shoulder,
perhaps a head of hair? Surely not.
Just before the broadcast, a car fire outside the White
House on Pennsylvania Avenue caused confusion. An
attempt at political assassination? No need, that was
already underway, some would argue at the President's
own hand.
Television networks which has been geared to the
impeachment drama, the biggest political story in 130
years, were forced to drop it as air strikes were
unleashed in Baghdad. And all through the evening, the
question persisted. Why now?
Gerald Solomon, the outgoing House rules committee
chair had no doubts. In a sharply worded press release,
titled 'Bombs Away -- Leave Impeachment for another
day' he accused the president of planning the attack
solely to delay the vote.
Instead of the persistent references to Wag the Dog, the
Hollywood movie where an American president
manufactures a war to distract attention from a sex
scandal, it became Wag the Elephant, a reference to the
Republican party mascot.
One of the lead actors in that film Robert De Niro was
yesterday trying to use his celebrity clout to lobby against
the impeachment vote.
Hollywood, which has been a bastion of funding for the
Democratic party rallied in Los Angeles with Jack
Nicholson and Clinton buddy Barbra Streisand making
speeches warning about the threat to democracy of
impeachment. Probably no-one persuaded anyone, but
there would have been a great party afterwards. They
clearly had not got the news on Iraq in California.
A politically wary public appeared to be only slightly less
cynical than the Washington establishment. A CNN poll
found that 75 per cent of those surveyed supported the
air strikes. While 62 per cent of the public thought the
President was motivated solely by America's national
interest in ordering the attack, 30 per cent believed it was
a ploy to divert attention from the imminent impeachment
vote.
afr.com.au
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