Lessons from the impeachment trial
by Don Feder
Monday, February 15, 1999
With anticlimactic Senate votes that failed to remove the president on either article of
impeachment, a 13-month drama is finally over.
But before we leave the field of battle, a few reflections are in order.
When you fight for principle, you win even when you lose. Since the end of the Reagan
era, Republican profiles in courage have been scarcer than hen's teeth. Henry Hyde and
his fellow House impeachment managers showed the stuff of which legends are made.
House prosecutors became the incarnations of Jimmy Stewart's character in ''Mr. Smith
Goes to Washington.'' Listening to Hyde's moving summation, I recalled the most
memorable line in the film, ''Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.''
The tragicomedy now concluded also says much about Clinton's defenders - none of it
complimentary.
The Democratic Party has been exposed for the thoroughly corrupt institution it is.
Senate Democrats were so disappointed by Clinton's conduct, they told us. What
disappointed them the most - his repeated lies under oath, obstruction of justice or
making a mockery of his constitutional mandate to see that the laws are faithfully
executed?
To their everlasting shame, they showed themselves willing to sacrifice the rule of law
to protect the leader of their party.
Feminists threatened to give hypocrisy a bad name. It's the women's cause (as
interpreted by them), not particular women, who matter. Their hero broke faith with one
woman, sexually exploited another, sexually harassed Paula Jones, may have molested
Kathleen Willey and tried to use his secretary, Betty Currie.
Their message to men in power: You can do anything you want to individual women
and we'll provide political cover for you, as long as you oppose restrictions on
partial-birth abortion and support comparable worth legislation.
Who could have predicted that the last major political battle of the 1990s would find
feminists allied with Larry Flynt, who once illustrated the cover of his wretched
magazine with a picture of a naked woman going through a meat grinder, an apt
metaphor for the way their president interfaces with the women in his life.
Once upon a time (long, long ago), liberals were in the forefront of the fight against the
abuse of political authority, whether by kings, tyrants or elected leaders.
Today, liberals define themselves exclusively by their enemies. If conservatives are for a
thing, they're against it.
Harvard law Professor Alan Dershowitz tipped their hand, just before the House vote,
when he declared that a vote against impeachment was a vote against
''fundamentalism,'' ''anti-environmentalism'' and the ''right-to-life movement.''
In other words, if a politician supports progressive causes, he can break any law, betray
any trust, abuse the authority of his office, and we'll defend him to the end.
Liberals - who championed civil rights legislation, pushed laws against sexual
harassment and inveighed against imperial presidents - now find themselves running
interference for a leader who tried to subvert a civil rights case, behaves like a drunken
frat boy on spring break and views the presidency as an extension of his ego.
Conservatives should take heart. Had the House Judiciary Committee simply ignored
Starr's report, or the full House not impeached the presidential felon, that would have
been tragic. Ditto, if the Senate had gone through the charade of a few hours of
arguments, followed by a test vote, followed by adjournment of the trial.
None of that happened. The trial may have been pathetic, but at least there was a trial.
House managers had an opportunity to make their case and this had an impact.
Opinion polls show that a majority of Americans now believes the president is guilty as
charged, though they still oppose his removal. It was always a given that finding 12
honest Democrats in the Senate was an impossibility.
Still, Clinton is the only elected president to be impeached. His sins - not of the flesh
but against the Constitution - will follow him to his grave. Lincoln said it best, you can't
fool all of the people all of the time. There will be a reckoning, someday.
In the meantime, in victory, the left has lost its last shred of credibility. In defeat, House
Republicans shine.
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