Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MR. PANAMA (I am a PLAYER) who wrote (19064)	9/11/1998 10:55:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Respond to of 20981

September 11, 1998 Hillary's Advice: Impeachment Has Its Uses By PAUL A. GIGOT The second most instructive document in Washington these days involves not President Clinton but his wife. No, not the Whitewater billing records. It's a 1974 report by the Democratic staff--of which Hillary Rodham was a member--of the Judiciary Committee contemplating Richard Nixon's impeachment. That superb historical survey concludes that the framers viewed impeachment as "one of the central elements of executive responsibility in the framework of the new government as they conceived it." It quotes approvingly Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 65, that impeachment should apply to "those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself." We have arrived where Hamilton and Hillary both foresaw we would. This is the big picture to keep in mind as Clinton defenders moan about the "trauma" of impeachment, the "damage to the country," or the "need to get this behind us." Impeachment isn't fun, but the founders understood--and our current first lady once agreed--that it could also be cleansing. Consider the benefits of impeachment today: 1. It's educational like nothing else is. For both angry Republicans and scared Democrats, resignation will be the politically easy escape. But if a twice-elected president is going to leave early, most Americans must first be persuaded it's necessary and just. Impeachment hearings are the only way to bring the country along to such a judgment, preventing later resignation remorse. That's why Democrat John Dingell, the senior member of the House, deserves credit for urging the public release of Kenneth Starr's report. After disclosing the main report today, Congress should release the 2,000 pages of backup testimony too. Better everything come out on the record than have it become sludge for Drudge and Geraldo. 2. It reasserts the primacy of fact and law. The Clinton years have seen the apogee of spin and political artifice. Now we will relearn that the truth does have consequences. Mr. Starr focused his report on the Monica Lewinsky matter, I am told, because its evidence is overwhelming and multi-sourced. This leaves the White House with the rebuttal that it's "just a sex case." But that defense may not work with voters who read evidence of law-breaking, witness tampering, and even the abuse of the Secret Service to protect illicit sex. "These are serious offenses that go to the heart of our justice system," says Ronald Rotunda, who helped write the report as a consultant to Mr. Starr and was a member of the Senate Democratic staff during Watergate. Mr. Starr is unloved because the independent counsel law made him the one to break up our national contentment. But his persistence despite the polls proves again that in America the law holds even presidents accountable. 3. It may rehabilitate our political institutions. Congress has hardly distinguished itself during the Clinton years, and many assume impeachment will be another food fight. Certainly Barney Frank and Bob Barr may end up wrestling in the mud. But my guess is that most members on both sides of the aisle will rise to the occasion. It happened with Peter Rodino, the New Jersey Democrat, who until Nixon's impeachment was derided unfairly as a hack with unsavory friends. But he kept a cool demeanor and a somber tone, and helped make Nixon's departure inevitable. Grown-ups are asserting themselves now, too. Pat Moynihan, a Democrat with gravitas, says the country can survive impeachment and Congress should "get on with it." Look for younger voices to emerge on Judiciary, too, perhaps California Republican and former judge Jim Rogan or Democrat Zoe Lofgren. The most important Republican grown-up is Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde, who is feared by the White House precisely because he can't be morphed into Al D'Amato. His political savvy is already apparent in his choice of staff. His impeachment counsel, David Schippers, is a Chicago Democrat unhip to partisan Washington but steeped in the history of impeachment. In 1974, New York Times columnist (and now Clinton defender) Anthony Lewis quoted Mr. Schippers as concluding that Nixon had committed impeachable offenses. Don't expect Mr. Lewis to quote him this time. 4. It helps Democrats. Really. Democrats are fated to suffer some guilt-by-association in November no matter what happens, but they can limit the damage by reasserting their independence on impeachment. Like Joe Lieberman last week, they have a chance to rise above their morally embarrassing "everybody does it" defense of the last two years. Impeachment hearings will force the country to have a much-needed debate about standards, both political and moral. An argument over Bill Clinton's misconduct won't be elegant, but it will set parameters for acceptable future behavior by all politicians. Lying well will no longer be considered a civic virtue. No president since Nixon has done more than Bill Clinton to define political deviancy down. So it's only right that the country use his now likely impeachment hearings to begin redefining it back up. interactive.wsj.com