Impeach, No; Censure, Yes

President Clinton’s lawyers will be making their case against impeachment before the House Judiciary Committee today and Wednesday, though with slim hope that their arguments will change any minds. By week’s end the committee is expected to approve one or more articles of impeachment on a straight party-line vote. And so next week the full House, for only the second time in our history, will have to decide whether to impeach a president. It now appears that the decisive votes will rest with a small number of moderate Republicans who, though they are disgusted by Clinton’s odious and contemptible behavior, do not believe his actions warrant removal from office. We share that view.

We also strongly believe that what Clinton did, both in carrying on an affair with White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky and in subsequently lying about it both in judicial proceedings and to the American people, demands formal and preferably unanimous congressional condemnation. His actions were shameful, reckless and indefensible, and his failure to this moment to forthrightly acknowledge the full extent of his dishonesty and deceptions deepens the already ineradicable stain on his record. But Congress cannot issue the formal rebuke that Clinton deserves unless it is allowed to consider that option. Some in the GOP leadership are determined to prevent that.

Their thinking is that if impeachment is the only choice before Congress, Republican waverers will be forced to toe the line and vote for impeachment or risk being accused of moral laxity and infidelity to party principles by rejecting the only punishment option they have. Sound partisan tactics, perhaps, but certainly myopic statecraft. For even if the House votes to impeach, it’s as certain as anything can be in politics that backers of impeachment in the Senate, which is composed of 55 Republicans and 45 Democrats, won’t be able to get the 67 votes needed to convict and remove Clinton from office. A failure to convict would not exonerate Clinton. But a failure to provide an alternative means by which Congress can condemn his actions, like a joint resolution of censure, would spare him from the formal chastisement he has earned.

Lawyers, historians and partisans can argue from now into the next century about the implications of Clinton’s behavior and its effect on how Americans view the presidency. But as despicable, dishonest and stupid as his behavior has been, his actions fall short of being what could be reasonably interpreted as high crimes and misdemeanors. Clinton has brought shame and disgrace on his office, and for that Congress ought to reproach him in the strongest terms. Congress can do so only if Republican leaders allow such condemnation as an option.