Clinton is responsible for all the dirty work:
The vast wreckage about us is one man's work. And this work will
continue with that man's blessing. The president's press spokesman, Joe
Lockhart, was asked on Monday if the president, in his desire to end the
politics of personal destruction, would ask Larry Flynt to stop exposing the
sex secrets of Republicans or if would ask James Carville to stop
threatening Republicans with retribution. Nah, said Lockhart.
Bill Clinton and his morally bankrupt defenders intend to do whatever it
takes to discredit his impeachment, to savage the reputations of those who
supported it and to establish Clinton as a sort of hero, the president who
bravely defended the Constitution against a small band of hate-blinded
fanatics. The critical step in this campaign is to avoid conviction in the
Senate. The 100 jurors who must now weigh the welfare of one endlessly
selfish man against the welfare of the republic should consider this.
'The Politics of Personal Destruction'
By Michael Kelly
Wednesday, December 23, 1998; Page A23
So, there was the first impeached elected president in the history of the
United States, standing on the South Lawn. There, with the stain of
disgrace still fresh as paint upon him. There, facing a nation he had
betrayed and harmed. And the man seemed to believe he was speaking
from the moral high ground.
The president listened appreciatively as Dick Gephardt labeled the
impeachment vote "a disgrace to our country," and as Al Gore called him
"one of our greatest presidents." He nodded: so true, so true. He thanked
the nearly lock-step House Democrats and a "few brave Republicans," for
defending "the plain meaning of the Constitution." And then he piously
intoned: "We must stop the politics of personal destruction. We must get
rid of the poisonous venom of excessive partisanship, obsessive animosity
and uncontrolled anger."
"Excessive partisanship"? Certainly the president was not referring to the
House Democrats, who voted to not impeach a man they themselves had
described as having "violated the trust of the American people, lessened
their esteem for the office of the president and dishonored the office which
they have entrusted to him."
"Poisonous venom"? Certainly this was not aimed at California Democrat
Tom Lantos, who, on the floor, likened the House to "Hitler's parliament"
and "Stalin's parliament." Nor at Illinois Democrat Jesse Jackson Jr., who
compared the vote to the racist overthrow of Reconstruction. Nor at
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Martin Frost, who said Republicans
could have "blood on their hands," for debating while American pilots
bombed defenseless Iraq. In deploring "uncontrolled anger," the president
was assuredly not referring to the actor Alec Baldwin, a prominent Clinton
defender, who recently ranted to Conan O'Brien:
"I am thinking to myself in other countries they are laughing at us 24 hours
a day, and I'm thinking to myself if we were in other countries, we would
all right now, all of us together, all of us together would go down to
Washington and we would stone Henry Hyde to death. We would stone
him to death! . . . We would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go
to their homes and we'd kill their wives and their children! We would kill
their families."
In inveighing against "obsessive animosity" the president meant no
disrespect to James Carville, who appeared on "Meet the Press" the day
after the president and frothed thusly: "These people are going to pay for
what they did. This was a cowardly and dastardly thing that they did, and
there's going to be retribution, and the retribution is going to be at the
polling place. . . . They tried to destroy this president. They tried to destroy
his friends. And they tried to destroy this country and this Constitution, and
there must be a price."
Nor, I am sure, was the president sniping at Salon magazine editor David
Talbot, who brutally outed House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry
Hyde for a 30-year-old extramarital affair having nothing to do with
violations of civil and criminal law, such as obtain in the president's case
("Ugly times call for ugly tactics," said Salon in an editorial). And, rest
assured, the president meant no censure of Talbot's media soul mate, the
pornographer Larry Flynt, who orchestrated the impeachment-eve expose
of Republican Speaker-designate Bob Livingston ("Desperate times
deserve desperate action," said Flynt; imitation is the sincerest form of
flattery.)
I trust that it goes without saying that the president was not referring at all
to the media outreach efforts of White House special assistant Sidney
Blumenthal. (Just how did the president's description to Blumenthal of
Monica Lewinsky as a "stalker" end up in the newspapers?) And the
president meant no insult to Betsey Wright and private investigator Jack
Palladino, who ran his 1992 campaign operation to squelch "bimbo
eruptions," nor to private investigator Terry Lenzner, who has helped the
president's defense team.
The vast wreckage about us is one man's work. And this work will
continue with that man's blessing. The president's press spokesman, Joe
Lockhart, was asked on Monday if the president, in his desire to end the
politics of personal destruction, would ask Larry Flynt to stop exposing the
sex secrets of Republicans or if would ask James Carville to stop
threatening Republicans with retribution. Nah, said Lockhart.
Bill Clinton and his morally bankrupt defenders intend to do whatever it
takes to discredit his impeachment, to savage the reputations of those who
supported it and to establish Clinton as a sort of hero, the president who
bravely defended the Constitution against a small band of hate-blinded
fanatics. The critical step in this campaign is to avoid conviction in the
Senate. The 100 jurors who must now weigh the welfare of one endlessly
selfish man against the welfare of the republic should consider this.
Michael Kelly is the editor of National Journal.
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