Bombing or Not, Wilson Says Clinton Should Go

“Life imitating art,” Gov. Pete Wilson commented--only half facetiously--as an aide walked in with the news.

Wilson was picking at a fruit salad Wednesday and talking about President Clinton’s pending impeachment when he learned the White House was telling Congress that a military strike was imminent. U.S. House leaders, consequently, were delaying today’s scheduled impeachment vote.

The aide’s next comment was inevitable: “Wag the Dog.” Grin. The staffer no doubt was echoing countless millions of people all over America.

Who could not be reminded of the movie in which a political strategist and a film producer stage a phony war to divert public attention from the president’s sexual tryst with a teenage girl?

Could Clinton be trying to divert Congress’ attention from impeachment and rally Americans to demand that Republicans leave him alone?

Naw. No president would be that cynical, we all agreed--the governor, the aide and myself. But still . . .

Wilson, with a barely perceptible smile: “Life imitating art.”

*

Clinton is credibility-challenged, the governor continued. And one of the dangers of this, he noted, is that aggressive tyrants like Saddam Hussein may misjudge U.S. resolve.

“I think you’re required to go along with the president’s military initiative,” he said. “But do I think he has damaged his credibility and undermined his capacity to lead? Yeah, I do.”

Later, Wilson watched Clinton’s TV address and noted that the president seemed to be trying to justify the attack’s timing.

“He may very well be the victim of the timing rather than someone trying to manipulate it,” the governor said. “But the suspicion undoubtedly is raised by the fact that this coincides with the House vote on impeachment. ‘Wag the Dog.’ ”

Will the missile attack on Iraq help or hinder impeachment prospects in the House?

Wilson--a former U.S. senator who still has presidential aspirations--couldn’t predict, sitting 3,000 miles from Washington in the Ronald Reagan Cabinet Room, just off the governor’s private office.

Regardless, he said, Clinton should be impeached. And if Wilson were still a senator, he’d vote to convict the president and remove him from office.

After all, he asserted, there’s really no difference between what Clinton and Wilson’s old mentor, Richard Nixon, did. The impeachable offense in both cases, he said, was the cover-up. It wasn’t the third-rate Watergate burglary, “which was not only criminal, but criminally stupid,” or the “remarkably reckless” repeated sex acts with a young intern a few feet from the Oval Office.

“This president has lied and done so under oath,” Wilson continued. “He could have spared us all a great deal, had he done what Nixon did and stepped down.”

Now, he said, the House has “no alternative” but to impeach the president--military attack or not. Nothing has changed.

And if he were in the Senate, he “would reluctantly and sadly” vote to boot Clinton. “It is not a step to be taken lightly, but he has forced a lot of people into a position where they find themselves compelled to vote for removal.

“Now, having said that, we all know it isn’t going to happen. Because there will never be [the necessary] 67 votes to convict.

“So the Senate ought to get on with its business. The debate should have a time limit. Get it done. Then, I expect, there will be a resolution of censure. . . .

“This president is going to be a very, very lame duck.”

*

But many GOP strategists, I reminded, worry that in 2000, voters who vehemently oppose Clinton’s ouster will, in turn, oust the Republicans who voted for it.

“There’s a point,” replied the governor, “at which [politicians] should say, ‘I am not going to try to be too clever by half.’ They ought to do what they feel they have a legal duty to do.

“I don’t think Republicans will be permanently injured by this if they do it properly and are seen as doing what is necessary without artificially exploiting it.”

I was polite and didn’t remind the governor that he, himself, often has been accused of being “too clever by half” and “artificially exploiting” things.

It was a farewell lunch, after all. And what better topic? It was one, I suspect, that millions of Americans were discussing Wednesday at the noon hour.

I also suspect that Wilson’s views represent Republican thought, as much as wailing liberals can’t understand it.

And Monica’s name didn’t come up once. Maybe we’re beyond her now.