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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (31577)	2/2/1999 10:56:00 AM
From: Bill	Respond to of 67261

Again, you present a factual error. Emotion.

To: TigerPaw who wrote (31577)	2/2/1999 11:18:00 AM
From: JBL	Respond to of 67261

Chickens can fly (not very high) : The Washington Post critical of Senate Democrats. Democrats vs the Truth Washington Post 2/2/99 Charles Krauthammer BY CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER THE impeachment trial has produced another pirouette. Some moderate Republican senators have proposed a ''finding of fact,'' meaning that before the Senate decides whether to remove the president from office, it should vote on whether the charges in the articles of impeachment are sustained by the facts. Obviously, one could believe that the charges of perjury and obstruction of justice are true, and yet not believe that they rise to the level of high crimes that warrant removal from office. Democrats are in high dudgeon over this proposal. The Constitution provides impeachment for removing the president. It says nothing about findings of fact. Democrats are aghast at such extraconstitutional innovations. Well, well. Is it not the Democrats who for months have been insisting that Congress censure the president? In the House they protested loudly when their censure motion was not allowed to reach the floor. Some of the Democratic censure proposals -- remember the vogue for ''censure plus''? -- would have required a presidential admission of guilt or a hefty fine, both of which are clearly unconstitutional (the latter an explicitly prohibited bill of attainder). Even simple censure is without constitutional sanction. With one unfortunate exception -- the censure of Andrew Jackson, expunged three years later by the Senate -- censure is unknown in 200 years of American history. And by putting Congress in the business of shaming presidents, it rudely violates the separation of powers. Having lusted mightily for the politically expedient and obviously extraconstitutional notion of censure, Democrats are now shocked -- shocked! -- by the very idea of a senatorial finding of fact. Now, while the Constitution has nothing to say about either procedure, a finding of fact is less offensive to the Constitution. Censure is a substitute for impeachment, a way to dodge it; a finding of fact is an elaboration of impeachment, a way to clarify it, by breaking down the final impeachment judgment into its component parts. These parts are and always have been: Did he do what he is accused of doing? And even if he did, are these crimes high enough to warrant removal from office? How does splitting the vote promote justice? Fifteen years ago, a celebrated trial demonstrated how a split verdict can render a more perfect justice. That was the 1984 libel action brought by Ariel Sharon against Time magazine for claiming that he had encouraged the massacre at Sabra and Shatilla. American libel laws provide a very high hurdle. To win you must prove three things: That the statement (1)is defamatory, (2) is false, and (3) was made ''with actual malice.'' Judge Abe Sofaer asked the jury to return three separate verdicts, days apart, on each of the elements. They found the Time story to be (1) defamatory, (2) false, but (3) not malicious. Time was therefore acquitted, as it should have been. But Sharon was vindicated, as he should have been-- precisely because the findings of fact were issued separately and authoritatively. Splitting the vote on impeachment would have a similar effect. It would allow the correct verdict --acquittal -- to be rendered without permitting a misreading of its meaning. Acquittal alone will invite this president to bring out the bongo drums and cigar and hold another White House lawn pep rally to pronounce himself vindicated. A finding of fact, however, would make clear that the United States Senate found that the president acted criminally, if not grandly enough to warrant the majestic corrective of removal. Democrats don't want such a vote because it would establish for the record -- for history -- the reality of Clinton's offenses. Their protestations about constitutionality, coming as they do from the party of censure, are risible. They fear this vote because it would, for the first time in the impeachment process, force them to risk going against the polls. The public does not want to see the president removed. But it believes that he did perjure himself and obstruct justice. Voting down a finding of such fact would put Democrats at odds not just with logic but with public opinion. This has the Democrats so terrified that on Thursday they offered a motion that would have prohibited a finding of fact. It failed. They fumed. After all, they might now be forced to face, literally, a moment of truth. Charles Krauthammer is a Washington Post columnist.