Mike, it is appalling to me that the liberal troops in Washington are so shameless in defending Clinton and demonizing Starr. Well, this article changed my mind - after all, not all liberals have big mouth and the audacity to cry foul about something doubtlessly unethical, immoral and illeagal. -g-
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December 8, 1998
Commentary
Clinton Has Corrupted
His Party's Soul
By Henry Ruth, a retired lawyer in Tucson, Ariz. He served as Watergate special prosecutor and as deputy to his predecessors, Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski.
In George Orwell's "Animal Farm," whenever the animals could possibly blame their incumbent leader for a hardship, the leader's aide would blame a former rival, Snowball. Even though Snowball was obviously innocent, the animals in the farm would eventually come to accept the explanation. Ken Starr is President Clinton's Snowball. And as a good Democrat who voted twice for Mr. Clinton, I fear the November 2000 election consequences for my party if the Democrats in the House don't stop playing "Animal Farm" and start dealing seriously, forthrightly and morally with the consequences of presidential lying and obstruction.
Instead, as Mr. Clinton's lawyers prepare to present his defense to the House Judiciary Committee starting today, Democrats are close to euphoria over the likelihood that the president will remain in office. One White House aide put it succinctly: "Why should we give an inch when the American people are with us all the way?" President Nixon voiced the same thought when he observed that if his administration gave the people peace and prosperity, he could get away with anything.
The Democrats have apparently adopted that cynical view of leadership. Here are the credos for which the party seems to stand today: (1) Character doesn't count. (2) Lying to a federal judge and a grand jury is OK, at least in a sexual-harassment suit, because everybody does it and it is a private matter. (3) A CEO may take sexual advantage of a young employee as long as the employee consents. (4) As with professional basketball players, so too with Presidents: It is unfair to expect them to be role models. (5) All presidents lie. (6) Presidents may use executive privilege and the secrecy privilege with government lawyers to defend themselves against charges of personal wrongdoing.
Democrats have embraced these "principles" out of pure political expediency. They have turned the impeachment inquiry into a sporting event in which the only object is to win. In so doing, they have built upon Mr. Clinton's lies with new obfuscation, distractions and simple falsification of history.
This shameless dust campaign demeans us. Mr. Clinton's defenders tell us that our national heroes have always lied about sex. They trash seriatim a new hero-offender every week: Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Wilson, FDR, Eisenhower, JFK and LBJ. None of these men committed perjury or obstruction of justice. All trumpeted noble ideals and called on citizens to sacrifice for the sake of freedom. Can the same be said of Mr. Clinton?
Democrats also rewrite the Nixon impeachment history. How many times have we heard Reps. John Conyers and Charles Rangel and former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman -- all of whom were there for the Watergate inquiry -- cite the House Judiciary Committee's rejection of the proposed article of impeachment regarding President Nixon's alleged income tax fraud? The rejection of this article, they argue, is conclusive evidence that criminal acts aren't impeachable unless they involve a gross abuse of governmental power.
But a quick review of the 1974 debate reveals otherwise. The income tax article was indeed defeated, by a 26-12 committee vote. But the basis for this defeat was that the evidence fell short of proving fraud because the investigation was incomplete and the special prosecutor was still trying to affix criminal blame. Only five of the 38 committee members even discussed the possibility that tax fraud was not impeachable. And Democrats, by a 12-9 vote, favored impeachment despite the incomplete investigation. The record of votes on the income-tax article shows: "Mr. Conyers. Aye; Mr. Rangel. Aye; Ms. Holtzman. Aye."
Instead of a bald-faced distortion of their 1974 impeachment conduct, Democrats should be admitting that they believe -- and indeed voted in 1974 -- that defrauding the Treasury was not a private matter. Likewise, lying to a judge, to a civil plaintiff, to a federal prosecutor and to a federal grand jury are not private matters today. The integrity of our tax system and the integrity of our justice system are issues of the utmost public concern.
Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed that "the presidency is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership." But Bill Clinton is the postmodern president, adhering to the worldview described by Edmund O. Wilson in his book "Consilience": that reality is a "state constructed by the mind, not perceived by it. In the most extravagant version of this, there is no 'real' reality, no objective truths . . ., only prevailing versions disseminated by ruling social groups." The Democrats in 1998 proclaim that the President need conform only to the action of John Q. Everyman. Indeed, when deciding whether to tell the truth, Mr. Clinton commissioned a Dick Morris poll, which showed the public would forgive adultery but not perjury. The president chose perjury and then insisted it never happened. And if it did, blame Snowball.
It is particularly galling that liberal Democrats have been so vehement in the defense of a president who so often mocks their ideals. During the 1992 campaign, then-Gov. Clinton made a great show of executing a mentally retarded convict, Ricky Ray Rector, to demonstrate that he was "tough on crime." Last year, when a remarkable young woman from Vermont won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on a treaty banning land mines, Mr. Clinton did not even phone her, because he opposed the treaty.
Morality and decency are all relative, Mr. Clinton seems to believe, and there is no real reality. And so it goes as he defends his own conduct. Mr. Clinton admits that he wronged his family and friends, "misled" the public and had an "inappropriate" relationship. Through such slippery language, and through his spokespeople's attacks on his critics, he aggressively denies the reality of his lies -- and the reality of anything. In responding to the House Judiciary Committee's 81 questions, Mr. Clinton would not even acknowledge that he is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States!
The Democratic Party, meanwhile, continues to flirt with the idea of either no action at all, or at most a mild censure limited to the president's misleading the American people. They should consider a warning that Richard Ben-Veniste, a Watergate prosecutor, issued in his 1977 book, "Stonewall: The Real Story of the Watergate Prosecution." Mr. Ben-Veniste wrote that the 1974 Nixon impeachment inquiry was an "unpromising precedent" for dealing with future presidential wrongdoing. Why? In part because of "the unwillingness of so many in Congress to recognize objectively the stark facts of criminal wrongdoing." Mr. Ben-Veniste was referring to Nixon's Republican defenders. Today the Democrats have put themselves in precisely the same position.
A few weeks ago, when it appeared as if the president would not even be impeached by the House, Hillary Clinton reportedly told a congressman: "It looks like nothing is going to happen to us. Isn't that great?" Democrats who are tempted to agree with the first lady should read Edwin O'Connor's "The Last Hurrah." After the funeral of Governor-Mayor Skeffington, whom the voters had loved, a wise old philanthropist who had befriended Skeffington laments: "If only he had not been such a rogue." And the perceptive cardinal of the church, in lamenting Skeffington's amoral approach to political success, told a church official: "Whether you realize it or not now, you will later on. This man cheapened us forever at a time when we could have gained stature. I can never forgive him for that."
In pursuing the central Clinton strategy of diversion, Rep. Barney Frank performs his best Jay Leno impersonation by framing the issue as "what did the president touch and when did he touch it?" The serious answer to Mr. Frank's funny but cynical question is this: Mr. Clinton has touched all us Democrats in ways that, although we may not realize it now, we most certainly will in November 2000 if we continue to denigrate the presidency and ignore presidential perjury and obstruction. When the "game" is over and competition makes way for contemplation, and if the Republicans choose a candidate who is thoughtful and ethical, Democrats and independents will rebel against a presidency that rejects individual responsibility and has no ideal higher than the lowest common denominator.
As human beings, we all have moral failings. But presidents should help us strive to meet impossible ideals and prepare us for sacrifice when peace and prosperity do not abound. New York's Sen.-elect Charles Schumer offered this wisdom: "I don't want my children or grandchildren reading in the history books that someone lied under oath, which I think the President did, and was not rebuked for it." I agree. And so should you.
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