Impeachment? Congress Has Other Ways to Punish Clinton

With feeble support for impeachment and a vote of censure still problematic if not unconstitutional, a frantic Congress is posting suggestion boxes all over Capitol Hill in the search for a punishment to fit President Bill Clinton’s moral and legal crimes before he escapes unscathed at the end of his term.

“We love the idea of handcuffing him to the first lady for life,” says an insider of one early submission, “but, hey, we’re not sadists! On the other hand, passing legislation to ban Clinton from ever eating another doughnut--that’s a mere wrist slap. He’d still have cookies and pies. Sewing up his tear ducts? Without that sincerity trick, he’s dead meat. But it does feel kind of, you know, medieval.”

Punishment ideas aren’t limited to those suggestion boxes. A blue-ribbon panel has reportedly recommended confining Clinton to the state of Arkansas for the rest of his natural life, shaving him bald to make his nose look even bigger, thus repelling all babes, or sentencing him to a perpetual life on the road as sax player to Monica S. Lewinsky’s torch singer in a lounge act. “Pure vindictiveness,” snorts one Democratic panel member. “The American people want justice, not the destruction of a human being.”

Meanwhile, independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr is rumored to be talking up his own ideas. These allegedly range from making the president inscribe the Ten Commandments on the head of a pin and then stick himself with it until he bleeds, to copying out the complete King James Bible on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah using only his fingers, to wearing a glow-in-the-dark “Jesus Saves” beanie at all times. Definitely not in the running as a presidential punishment is televangelist Pat Robertson’s outright demand that Clinton rassle Satan on his cable-TV channel during sweeps weeks.

Would the interests of fairness be served if, as one legislator suggests, Clinton had to play the starring role in an Oliver Stone movie about his own life and career? Congress is weighing the idea.

The banning of various favorite Clinton activities--no more Bel Air dinner parties with leading Hollywood political philosophers, for example--vies with confiscatory penalties as the most popular form of punishment. “Take away Bubba’s Fleetwood Mac record collection,” gloats one Republican, “and he’d be a broken man.” Another GOP punishment buff chimes in, “How’s this? He has to write an as-told-to book on the spiritual odyssey of Stevie Nicks! That would make him a crazy man!”

Clinton, for his part, is said to be trying to bargain for a deal with his congressional critics in hopes of negotiating a milder sentence. So far, his compromise offers--resigning his office early to become master of ceremonies of the Miss America competition, doing 1,000 hours of public service as manager of a McDonald’s, paying to send wife Hillary Rodham Clinton on a five-year round-the-world goodwill tour--have been rejected as being no compromise at all.

Similarly, the unsolicited proposal of Clinton’s close friend Vernon E. Jordan Jr. was reportedly dismissed out of hand. “Don’t they ever learn?” harrumphs one anonymous source. “The idea of Bill Clinton selling kisses at country fairs, with the Golf Caddies of America Rainy Day Fund getting the proceeds--of all the unmitigated gall!”

Would Clinton’s transgressions be repaid by his legally adopting Linda R. Tripp, as House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) has proposed? “That’s Newt!” sighs a Gingrich watcher. “Sticking in the knife and turning it like a corkscrew.”

Is it true, meanwhile, that the first lady herself has come forward with a punishment scheme? Those inside the Beltway say yes. Hillary Clinton’s punishment scenario for her husband supposedly involves a multipoint program: Clinton’s knees would be tied together at all dinner parties attended by women under 50; he would be denied a separate telephone line; with daughter Chelsea now away at college, he could no longer insist on hiring baby sitters or driving them home; and all personal classified ads would be torn out of any publication before he reads it.

From among these and myriad other alternatives, will Congress ever settle on a punishment to fit Clinton’s crimes? Only time will tell. In the interim, the president is said to be keeping a low profile and sticking close to home.

“Last time I saw him,” reports an aide, “he was upstairs in the White House giving a tour of the Lincoln Bedroom to the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. But mind you, that was several hours ago.”*