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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Liatris Spicata who wrote (9242)	12/11/1998 8:20:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Respond to of 13994

If parties in sex suits can lie under oath, then the law is unenforceable. "The line that it's just about sex is hogwash," he says, because sexual conduct is always the basis of sex-harassment claims. Some of us may wish those laws didn't exist, but liberals who made those laws a crusade now want them enforced against everybody but Bill Clinton. December 11, 1998 Impeachment Is GOP's Finest Hour By PAUL A. GIGOT It has come down to this for Bill Clinton: Al D'Amato has become a role model. Only a month ago Democrats ousted the New York Republican from the Senate with a campaign theme of "too many lies for too long." But this week they found new depth of character in the man when he declared that Mr. Clinton's lies weren't impeachable. You can't say Mr. D'Amato's not an expert witness, and Democrats around the Judiciary Committee were citing him, without irony, as evidence that political momentum was moving their way. Joining Rep. Peter King, Mr. D'Amato's endorsement means that the entire Nassau County GOP machine, which makes Tammany Hall look like a Socrates seminar, has now swung behind the president. Mark up one more Clinton triumph. The beauty of a debate as serious as impeachment is that it opens a window on political character. The phonies get sorted out from the fearless, the D'Amato-Clintons from the Henry Hydes and Tom DeLays. This column has beaten up Republicans all year for putting polls above ideas. But the way most non-D'Amato Republicans have marched ahead with impeachment since election day has been their finest hour. All the more so because the usual wisemen say Republicans must be crazy. Their pollsters are alarmed, Ivy League grandees denounce them as "fanatics," their own governors (Pennsylvania's Tom Ridge) are whining for the cameras, and even Ralph Reed wants them to cop a censure plea. The same commentators who denounce politicians as slaves to polls now call Republicans fools for ignoring them. A White House that won't cough without polling has been astonished by Republicans who act out of conviction. If anyone could justify running in retreat, it's Judiciary Republican James Rogan. His Pasadena district is just 38% Republican, and becoming less so. He won this fall with just 50.8% of the vote, a landslide compared to his 50.1% of 1996. Mr. Clinton easily carried his district twice. The White House has him on its list of members who may oppose impeachment, but the president shouldn't count on it. From the first Mr. Rogan told me he'd vote his conscience come what may. All politicians say this, but few of them get to prove it so publicly. "I do get a little impatient with some of these guys who are winning by 60% or 65% but say, 'Can't you please make this go away?'" he says about some of his House colleagues. A former judge, the 41-year-old has used his periodic five-minutes of hearing fame to expose the damage Mr. Clinton's lying and obstruction of justice does to sexual harassment law. "It's where this all generated," he says, regarding the Paula Jones case. If parties in sex suits can lie under oath, then the law is unenforceable. "The line that it's just about sex is hogwash," he says, because sexual conduct is always the basis of sex-harassment claims. Some of us may wish those laws didn't exist, but liberals who made those laws a crusade now want them enforced against everybody but Bill Clinton. Mr. Rogan hasn't announced his conclusions. But the logic of his questions is that Mr. Clinton's lying before grand juries isn't harmless self-protection but is an assault on the civil justice system. The lying and obstruction in the Lewinsky case compound the felony. While not Watergate in detail, this is similar in kind. It is a "crime against the state"--the judiciary--which is the Clinton White House's own standard for an impeachable offense. Mr. Rogan's guts should instruct those GOP fence-sitters who Mr. Clinton still hopes will rescue him with a wrist-slap censure. They include New York Rep. Michael Forbes, who opposed Newt Gingrich for speaker on ethics grounds but seems confounded by presidential perjury. Then there's Mike Castle, a media favorite from Delaware who won in November with a mere 66% of the vote. After the election Mr. Castle was sounding impeachment retreat and talking up House censure. But once his colleagues showed stiffer backbones Mr. Castle began to hide his--and now he's dodging interviews. Mr. Clinton's Democratic defenders didn't help Mr. Castle this week by offering a censure draft so tepid it doesn't even mention lying under oath. Rogan Republicans, on the other hand, are showing what Edmund Burke told the voters of Bristol, England, they deserved from their representatives --independent "judgment." Burke said legislators shouldn't merely be guided by "local prejudices" or voter "instructions." They were elected to deliberate and make their own judgments about the public good. One thing we know about Bill Clinton is that he will do whatever it takes to avoid the historical stigma of impeachment by the House. And the White House will offer blandishments and threats to waverers that will be hard to resist. Mr. King, the D'Amato protege, may end up as ambassador to Ireland for life. But history will best remember those who stood for unpopular principle and voted for the constitutional form of censure called impeachment for a president who lied repeatedly and without remorse, even after he got caught. interactive.wsj.com