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Politics : Should Clinton resign? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ned Land who wrote (349)	9/15/1998 9:10:00 PM
From: James A. Shankland	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 567

I'm curious here so indulge me; I'm just trying to understand you country's Constitution. If you did agree with me that the President's actions did not rise to the standard meant to be impeachable and, you also felt that they made the remainder of his term disfunctional, what would the necessary course of action? Well, first, "dysfunctional" is a little hard to quantify. A President's influence does tend to wane anyway as his second term draws to a close, and that effect is bound to be amplified in this case, particularly since his political opponents will be working as hard as they can to amplify it. I dislike the argument that Clinton should resign because he can no longer be effective because it is not the way we have done things traditionally in this country. No President has ever been impeached and convicted in our history, and only one has resigned under threat of impeachment and likely conviction; and that one was implicated in a staggeringly long list of crimes directly related to the performance of his official duties, as opposed to an apparent perjury in a civil case not directly related to his official duties. (The arguments of the "perjury is perjury" camp notwithstanding, there really are differences in the severity of perjuries, and they really are punished differently, or in many cases, not at all.) This is pretty different from the Parliamentary model, in which a P.M. can be dismissed because he or she has lost the confidence of the legislature. With considerable respect for that model, I think our way has served us pretty well so far, and this is not the time to consider abandoning it. Harry Truman was thoroughly unpopular for much of his Presidency, standing for President only once and eking out a come-from-behind victory in what turned out to be a brief spike in his popularity; yet today, historians tend to think of him as a pretty effective President. Much of the moral outrage I see on this list over Clinton's misdeeds seems to come from people who simply never liked the man or his policies. We've heard that "perjury is perjury," except, of course, if it is saving the world from the thread of Communism. We've also heard that during Clinton's term, the United States has gone from being a great power to being the laughingstock of the world. And we have heard that Clinton engaged in behavior bordering on rape, and that he sexually harassed Ms. Lewinsky. (Speaking of which: when Mr. Starr's agents identified themselves to Ms. Lewinsky after her lunch with Ms. Tripp, and told her that Ms. Tripp had been wearing a wire, Ms. Lewinsky burst into tears and said, "You've ruined my life." Whom do you think she meant by "you" -- Ms. Tripp, Mr. Starr's agents, or the Great Satan Clinton?) Anyway, simply disliking the man, or even his policies, should not be enough to remove him from office in our system. The "perjury is perjury" camp believes that merely to, say, censure Mr. Clinton would not convey adequate disapproval, and would set a bad precedent, presumably encouraging future Presidents to perjure themselves, secure in the knowledge that they would face negligible consequences. I find this a little difficult to believe, and like dougjn, don't believe that this would preclude future impeachments for more severe cases of perjury, especially if the perjury related to a matter of state. Personally, I think history will not forget Clinton's misdeeds. But I do think they will diminish a bit over time, and that history will record a Presidency marked by years of peace, prosperity, and moderation (yes, yes, not all of which he can personally be credited with -- probably all just a delayed effect from the Bush administration :-)), and marred also by a scandal created by incredibly stupid personal behavior, and aggravated by a determined campaign by the President's political enemies to use the legal system as a political weapon in an unprecedented way.