>>A good example of this is the current Republican Congress. Since they have a free rein they are trampling over rights and ignoring fair play. This is why I am an independent. I want an equal balance of Democrats and Republicans, so that no one would be in the
position of abusing power, such as the Republican lead congress is doing currently.
Ridiculous. The Watergate hearings showed far more partisanship by the majority:
Invoking 1974
at Judiciary
panel hearing
Why panel members revere
Rodino and misread history
ANALYSIS
By Tom Curry
MSNBC
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 — Looming over the right
shoulder of House Judiciary Committee chairman
Henry Hyde at Monday's impeachment hearings in
Room 2141 of the Rayburn Building was St. Peter.
That is: St. Peter Rodino of Newark, N.J., the
former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the
man who presided over the 1974 hearings on
Richard Nixon's impeachment.
"The Clinton Crisis" - Complete Coverage
Rep. Henry Hyde, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, makes his
opening statement
Rep. John Conyers, the ranking democrat on the Judiciary Committee,
makes his opening statement
There was only
one problem with
the effusive praise
of Rodino and the
spirit of '74: As
any reader of the
transcripts of the
1974 Judiciary
hearings soon
discovers, those
proceedings were
supremely
partisan.
A LARGE PORTRAIT of Rodino, his head back-lit by
a saintly glow, hung on the wall above Hyde. From
committee members' reverent references to Rodino it
seemed he had became sanctified. Both Republican and
Democratic members praised him for conducting dignified
hearings 24 years ago.
“We don't propose to deviate from the wise counsel of
former Chairman Peter Rodino,” declared Hyde, who quoted
Rodino's statement that impeachable offenses “cannot be
defined in detail in advance of full investigation of the facts.”
Virginia Republican Bob Goodlatte quoted another
Rodino axiom that the impeachment process was “a
constitutional safeguard of the public trust.”
Even before Hyde opened the hearing at 10 minutes
after 9 Monday morning, journalist Elizabeth Drew was
invoking St. Peter, declaring that as chairman in 1974 he
“was able to keep a nonpartisan and bipartisan process.”
But Rep. Steve Rothman, Democrat of New Jersey,
trumped them all with the ultimate Rodino cachet. Rothman
declared in his opening remarks that “we have talked on the
telephone for hours and last Thursday I had the great
privilege of meeting him in his Newark office. And I must
say I walked out of his office with an even greater
awareness of our shared commitment to our constitutional
form of government.”
REVISING HISTORY
There was only one problem with the effusive praise of
Rodino and the spirit of '74: As any reader of the transcripts
of the 1974 Judiciary hearings soon discovers, those
proceedings were bitter, contentious and supremely partisan.
In 1974, Republican Judiciary Committee members such
as Charles Wiggins of California and Trent Lott of
Mississippi denounced Rodino and the Democratic majority
for voting to impeach Nixon on a pattern of offenses or “a
course of conduct.” Republicans protested that Rodino had
adduced no proof that Nixon had committed specific crimes.
(The notorious “smoking gun” tape of Nixon's June 23,
1972, cover-up chat with his aide H.R. Haldeman was
released only after the committee voted to impeach Nixon.)
One reason that people's memories may be playing
tricks on them was the vote on articles of impeachment in
1974. Six of the panel's 17 Republican members voted to
impeach Nixon on obstruction of justice charges and seven
GOP members voted to impeach him for using the Internal
Revenue Service to audit his “enemies” and other abuses of
power.
But the bowing before the Rodino icon on Monday
indicated that some members of today's committee feel a
nostalgic yearning for what they think happened in 1974. In
the afterglow of history, Nixon's case seems to some a
clearer and more ominous case of presidential misconduct
than Clinton's.
INVOKING HISTORY
History was being
made Monday in
Rayburn 2141, but
history was also
frequently being
invoked to justify
contradictory
views of the case
against Clinton.
History was being made Monday in Rayburn 2141, but
history was also frequently being invoked to justify
contradictory views of the case against Clinton.
Ranking Democrat John Conyers reminded the audience
that he was the only remaining veteran of the 1974
committee and then denounced Independent Counsel
Kenneth Starr for using the Nixonian label “abuse of power”
to describe Clinton's acts. “By alleging abuses of power …
the independent counsel has simply repackaged his basic
allegation of lying about sex in a transparent effort to conjure
the ghost of Watergate,” Conyers said. “This is not
Watergate; it's an extramarital affair.”
In a seeming rebuttal, Bob Barr of Georgia cited without
attribution the phrase Nixon counsel John Dean had coined in
1973 “a cancer on the presidency.”
In another historical parallel, Democrat Rep. Jerrold
Nadler of New York warned that an impeachment of Clinton
“has the potential to be the most divisive issue since the
Vietnam War.”
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas managed to invoke
the legacy of black slavery, saying “we should not accept
second-class justice for any American” and “should never
return to the days when some Americans were chattel and
some could not vote or own property.”
California Democrat Maxine Waters also invoked race,
telling her colleagues, “We risk being viewed as no different
than the lynch mob.”
Republicans, too, tore a few pages from the history
books with Bill Jenkins of Tennessee recalling his visit to the
Civil War graves at the Gettysburg battlefield and invoking
the wise spirit of Abraham Lincoln.
In an evocation of Lincoln's Gettysburg address,
California Republican James Rogan declared that “the ghosts
of patriots past cannot compel us to maintain the standard
that no person is above the law. Each generation ultimately
makes that choice for itself.”
Rogan cited President John Kennedy's speech after
University of Mississippi registrars defied a court order and
denied a black man, James Meredith, admission to the
university: “For one man to defy a law or a court order he
does not like is to invite others to do the same. This leads to a
breakdown of all justice.”
But if one stripped away the hours of rhetoric at
Monday's hearing, it was more recent history that was most
pertinent.
In 1994, the Republicans won 52 seats in the House and
took control for the first time in 40 years.
If Democrats were still the majority in the House,
Monday's vote to begin the impeachment inquiry would never
have taken place. No inquiry and no impeachment — that
was the bedrock position for most Democrats.
A DEMOCRATIC MAVERICK
There was one maverick, California Rep. Howard
Berman, who said: “I may even regret my vote for the
independent counsel statute. But the fact remains ... that
statute is the law. ... That statute requires the independent
counsel to report what he believes are grounds for
impeachment to the House. It is our obligation to proceed.”
In the end, Berman voted against the Republican motion for
an open-ended inquiry.
New York Democrat Charles Schumer, absent from
much of the panel's previous weeks of work because he has
been in New York campaigning for Al D'Amato's Senate
seat, said: “To me it's clear that President Clinton lied when
he testified before the grand jury.”
But, Schumer said, “That crime does not rise to the level
of high crimes and misdemeanors.”
The most
passionate
Democrat was
Florida's Robert
Wexler, who cried
that Starr's
investigation
‘rivals
McCarthyism.'
The most passionate Democrat was Florida's Robert
Wexler, who cried that Starr's investigation “rivals
McCarthyism.” He said that the words of the Constitution
make clear that “only those offenses that have the gravity
and impact of treason or bribery” warrant impeachment.
During the lunch break, Wexler told this reporter, “I
don't think a president should be impeached because he
failed to tell the truth about where he touched a particular
woman. It just does not amount to the standard the founding
fathers adhered to in the Constitution.”
Wexler issued a dare: “Let Mr. Starr bring an indictment
or bring charges for perjury or whatever else he may do, and
let a trial determine the issue. Let it happen. I have no fear of
that.”
But can a president be indicted? With a note of
impatience, Wexler replied: “So indict him after he gets out
[of the White House]. I don't know that he can or can't be
indicted. A court hasn't determined that. If that's what needs
to happen, let it happen.”
Wexler's proposal some day may be classified under the
heading of “be careful what you wish for.”
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