Beware the Wrath

On Thursday, the House of Representatives is scheduled to begin a historic debate before voting on four articles of impeachment against President Clinton. Let’s be clear on why this is occurring. All four articles have to do with Clinton’s attempts to conceal his extramarital affair with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky.

It’s long come down to this: Clinton lied. He ought to say so. He lied pretty much every time he had a chance. Clinton said Sunday and again Monday that he did not commit perjury. In a technically legal sense, he may be right. But that is beside the point. For a man who has shown himself to be a brilliant politician, his lawyerly evasions have never masked his lies. Americans saw them clearly. But because most Americans possess something that many in Washington lack--a sense of proportion and context--voter backlash in November awaited the dragging out of prurient details from the Kenneth Starr investigation. Voters thought they had sent a message of sorts, not only in polls but in the midterm elections: We don’t condone Clinton’s dishonest, boorish behavior, and he should pay a price for it--but removal from office is too high a price for the country.

When it seemed that Republican midterm defeats would surely clear the way for a deal to resolve the impeachment crisis, Clinton, who resists learning from his close calls with political death, thumbed his nose at the House Judiciary Committee. He forgot, or didn’t care, that there’s no worse sin in Washington than making the gentlemen and gentle ladies in Congress feel unimportant and disrespected. Clinton’s non-answers and continued obfuscation stirred the fury that led us to where we are today: deadlock.

Clinton won’t admit to perjury, and the Republican leaders in the House say they won’t consider censure, only impeachment. Many have said that Clinton’s most recent apology, on Friday, was useless, since he largely repeated his “really sorry” line without giving some Republican moderates what they wanted to hear--an admission of perjury. But an admission of perjury would probably lose Clinton as much support as it would gain. The one noteworthy thing he said was that he would accept censure as punishment. That acceptance would demolish the supposed concern expressed by Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) and others that censure by the House would be in violation of separation of powers.

Some form of rebuke, short of impeachment, is what Americans want. The Constitution does not forbid it. The House leadership has no right to preclude it. While many supporters of impeachment have sanctimoniously worried about the precedent of a censure, what they ought to worry about is the precedent of impeaching a president who, outside the Beltway, maintains popular support, in this country and abroad. A Capitol so out of step with the people it claims to represent, one so easily whipsawed by a group of small but vocal extremists, is a greater danger to the Republic than all of Bill Clinton’s selfish lies.

The House should heed an almost biblical warning from Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) issued earlier this year: “. . . The American people are watching. Beware the wrath of the American people. . . . Beware.”