For the Record, and Effect, Weighty Words Flow Freely

There was no better evidence that people in the nation’s capital are not listening to each other any more than what happened Friday afternoon.

At the very moment President Clinton was in the Rose Garden making one more stab at contrition, at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue a congressman from California was taking another shot at him.

Rep. James E. Rogan of Glendale was going on about how hard his fellow Republicans were trying to be fair by using the same rules to impeach Clinton as a Democratic-controlled committee used in 1974 to stain the presidency of Richard Nixon. In a time warp, Rogan was waving a copy of impeachment rules used against Nixon at the very moment Clinton went into full mea culpa in another attempt to avoid losing his job.

“Mere words cannot fully express the profound remorse I feel for what our country is going through and for what members of both parties in Congress are now forced to deal with,” Clinton said.

But committee members, without even stopping to weigh his words, were dispensing with his future. Within minutes after he finished, lawmakers approved the first article of impeachment, the one charging him with perjury before the grand jury.

Committee members self-consciously enunciated their historic yea or nay votes. Several lawmakers did not use just their voices, they shook their head in the negative or threw forward their chin in the positive. Democrat Maxine Waters of Los Angeles whispered her nay to emphasize solemnity. And if that was not enough, after the vote she immediately asked for time to talk about how her vote should be considered in the history of the Republic.

“Let history record, I, Maxine Waters, member of Congress representing the 35th Congressional District of the United States of America, am of sound mind, excellent health and a clear conscience,” she began.

Directing her remarks to her grandchildren, mother and siblings, “living and dead,” she asked that history note that she fought against impeachment. “Let history treat me kindly.”

Waters’ remarks reflected the occasional moments of civility that have punctuated the weeks of relentlessly rancorous and repetitive debate of this impeachment process.

Between late Wednesday and Thursday, each of the 37 committee members was given 10 minutes to hold forth before the voting began. They used their time with varying degrees of success, producing rare moments of respectable oratory. Aware that their words could be used for and against them in campaign ads in the future, they and their aides wrote and rewrote their speeches, reaching for help from a variety of sources, including the writings of Alexander Hamilton and video clips of John F. Kennedy, played on the hearing room VCR.

Those who tuned in looking for the rhetorical fire of evangelical tent preachers saw only a few sparks.

Republican Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina, a relatively new but high-profile member of the committee, was forthright about his reasoning behind a vote that he said he would “remember for the rest of my life.”

“The biggest enemy of Bill Clinton, just like with all of us, is Bill Clinton,” he said. And then he addressed the president, as if he might really be listening:

“The president’s fate is in his own hands,” Graham said. “Mr. President, you have one more chance. Don’t bite your lip. Reconcile yourself with the law.”