December 21, 1998
After Impeachment
We must stop the politics of personal destruction. We
must get rid of the poisonous venom of excessive partisanship,
obsessive animosity and uncontrolled anger.
--Bill Clinton, Post-Impeachment
So, with one more jab at the motives of those who solemnly impeached
him, the President now wants to stop personal destruction. Let us pause to
return to the beginning.
With one phone call, Bill or Hillary Clinton could have called off James
Carville. With a mere headshake, the President could have stopped his
attorney, Robert Bennett, from tarring Paula Corbin Jones. He did not.
Instead, Mr. Carville was unleashed to ridicule--"Drag a $100 bill through a
trailer park and there's no telling what you'll find." In May 1994, Mrs. Jones
sued the President for sexual harassment, and on December 19, 1998, the
House of Representatives impeached William Jefferson Clinton for perjury
and obstruction of justice.
Now, Mr. Clinton says, he seeks a compromise from the Senate that is
"proportionate."
Those who got in his way the past six years should have been so lucky. In
1993, the employees of the White House Travel Office were summarily
fired for no discernible reason and its director, Billy Dale, indicted by the
Webster Hubbell Justice Department. In 1995, Jean Lewis, a government
investigator for the Resolution Trust Corp. described to the Senate her
findings about Mr. and Mrs. Clinton in the Whitewater land deal. Within
days a publicly leaked letter, pulled off of Ms. Lewis's computer, was used
to slam her motives.
Back in Arkansas, former S&L official Don Denton was fired from his job
at the Little Rock Airport by a politically connected board, and the Little
Rock Board of Directors revoked municipal judge Bill Watt's pension; the
two had testified at the Whitewater trial and conviction of the Clintons'
Whitewater partners Jim and Susan McDougal and then-Arkansas
Governor Jim Guy Tucker. At the White House, FBI agent Gary Aldrich
was pilloried for writing up what he'd heard about sexual adventures.
But these are small fry. Presumably their personal destruction doesn't matter
against the majesty of the Clinton presidency. Oh, there was also Mr.
Carville's "war" against Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, who at least
had the opportunity to repair some of the personal destruction before a
national television audience. And now, of course, the sudden destruction of
Bob Livingston by someone Ken Starr will never find.
In the wake of all this, we're going to hear a lot in the days ahead about the
spirit of compromise. A simple majority of the Senate--all Democrats and
six Republicans--can adjourn the trial. Compromise, though, is a two-way
street, and it's important to keep in mind what Republicans currently
represent, and should champion in their part of any bargain.
To wit, the rule of law. The issue is not sexual sin, which Mr. Clinton is
willing to apologize for, more or less. Rather, Mr. Clinton was impeached
over his mockery of the judicial system. Congressman Henry Hyde, who
will present the case against Mr. Clinton to the Senate, spoke in his
summation to the House clearly and eloquently about the core issue before
the people of the United States. "The rule of law," he said "is in real danger
today if we cheapen the oath, because justice depends upon the
enforceability of the oath."
In the grave and at times moving debate on the House floor, the Democrats
time and again agreed with their Republican colleagues that Mr. Clinton's
behavior--not merely his appetites but his insistence on what Rep. J.C.
Watts called "the edges of the truth"--was contemptible and condemnable.
But while Republicans sought impeachment, Democrats fashioned the
rubber lifeboat of compromise and censure.
We have a certain sympathy with their plight. Their leader has used any
person or institution of this government to save him from his reckless follies
and crimes. He let his lawyer play the fool, his secretary the procurer and
his Secretary of State the false pleader. This past weekend he used the
whole Democratic Party as his protectors, smiling on the White House lawn
while his Vice President called him one of our "greatest Presidents," hugging
Minority Leader Gephardt, who had just gone down fighting for a censure
resolution calling for the President's civil and criminal prosecution on leaving
office.
If the politics of personal destruction is to stop, the first step is for
Democrats and their media allies to concede that the Republicans have a
point about the rule of law, about the President's Constitutional duty to
"take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." That is, to recognize that
there can be an honest difference of opinion over whether the Presidential
perjury they are willing to admit and condemn is also grounds for
impeachment. Instead, the Republicans who have voted impeachment are
routinely attacked for base motives--partisanship, vengeance, hate,
irrationality, insanity, a coup d'etat, etc., etc.
It would be a great blessing, of course, if we could find a way to close the
long, noxious chapter of U.S. political history that began....when? With
Vietnam? With Nixon? With Bork? Experience suggests Mr. Clinton's trial
in the Senate will take on a life of its own, as with all the roiling events that
have attended his time in office. Frankly, we doubt that a new and more
civil era can begin while Bill Clinton, with his maddening political instincts,
commands the Bully Pulpit. But if Washington's most serious-minded
people really do want to commence a bipartisan mending of their common
institutions, helping Bill beat the rap is not enough. If Mr. Clinton is to serve
out the final two years of his term, any compromise has to include serious
efforts to start repairing the damage.
What needs to be mended, to repeat, is faithful execution of the law. The
one essential step here is clear, and has precedents during the Watergate
scandal. To wit, if as part of any bargain President Clinton is to stay, his
Attorney General must resign, to be replaced with an individual of
unquestioned integrity and independence. Nothing could start the mending
faster than putting the law enforcement apparatus in the hands of someone
who commands the respect and trust of all. Two names that come to mind
are FBI Director Louis Freeh and Manhattan District Attorney Robert
Morgenthau. No doubt there are others.
It's clear from Saturday's vote that Bill Clinton has brought the presidency
to the lowest repute since impeachment threatened Richard Nixon. The
President has been impeached, a negative achievement of almost
unimaginable difficulty, and the capital's political fabric has been torn. It is
up to Senators, and for that matter the rest of Washington, to decide how
best to rebuild their politics now. The clear way to start is not to demand
some further show of phony contrition, but to remove the cronies and
restore the reputation of the Department of Justice.
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