Southland Seems to Favor TV Soaps Over the One in the House

If Watergate once transfixed America, many Southern Californians ignored or went out of their way not to watch the House debate on impeachment Friday, reacting with disgust and anger that something they thought should have ended months ago was still the Capitol’s central focus.

As holiday shopping collided with the U.S. bombing of Iraq, the spectacle of a U.S. Capitol still obsessed with sex, lies and Linda Tripp’s tapes seemed to put Southern Californians not just outside the Beltway, but across the Great Divide.

South Coast Plaza shopper Pat Scully, for one, said the drawn-out impeachment spectacle has put a damper on the holidays.

“There’s a great sadness,” said Scully, a 55-year-old Democrat. “It’s just very depressing.”

From Calabasas to San Diego, television sets at many crowded stores were tuned to the Martha Stewart show, the latest Batman movie, football, soap operas, even Iraq--anything but the impeachment debate.

To some, the admissions that Republican House leaders--most recently Speaker-elect Bob Livingston--had been unfaithful to their wives gave the event a farcical touch. The majority, like other Americans polled this week, said they opposed impeachment. Calls to the office of a San Diego Republican congressman, Brian Bilbray, ran 60-40 against it. Even those who said they want President Clinton out, still seemed irritated that the House had not wrapped up the affair.

“Let’s do what we’re going to do and get it over with,” said impeachment proponent Angella Janis, 35, as she lugged her 2-year-old Robert through a crowded mall in the predominantly white, generally Republican community of Calabasas. She was, she said, trying to avoid television and radio coverage of the event.

Minds Made Up Months Ago

Most people seemed to have made up their minds about the affair months ago, giving the debate an anticlimactic feel, an event more likely to polarize opinions than change them.

The President “lied under oath and something should be done about it,” said Costa Mesa resident Ted Nehrenberg, 68, who favors impeachment.

“I don’t believe anything that comes out of his mouth,” said Karen Wheatcroft, 31, of Huntington Beach. “He says what people want to hear. He’s an opportunist and is not trustworthy,” she added, saying she believes the president deployed troops to Iraq to delay the impeachment process.

Democrat Carole Hansen, 59, has long since made up her mind as well--the other way.

“The Democrats got Nixon. Now the Republicans are going after Clinton,” said Hansen, shopping at South Coast Plaza.

At Carson Senior High School, some students and teachers listened to the radio, but “I got so mad and bored with it, I just turned it off,” said Principal Anne Schwab, who opposes impeachment. “I know he lied and I know that’s wrong. But to me, it’s such a human frailty thing, not high crimes and treason.”

“I think he should step down and remove himself from office,” said Henry Gallegos, 34, of Downey. “It would save the country the disgrace of having him removed.”

Raul Acebedo, 59, of Montebello, barely glanced at the mall television set as he complained that he was “sick of what’s going on” in Washington. He said censure would be “fine,” but impeachment is “too much.”

Some schools tried to turn the event into a civics lesson.

Jacqui Heiland, a history teacher at Garfield Senior High School in East Los Angeles, said her students had compared the current crisis with the Watergate scandal and the McCarthy era. “The general feeling of the kids is, it’s a big bunch of baloney,” Heiland said. “I just haven’t heard any kids say that they think what he [Clinton] did is worth impeachment.”

The perception that partisan politics were driving the affair was endemic.

“He lied under oath. OK. But it is turning into a big ugly witch hunt,” said Anne Catherine Winant, a USC freshman from Los Altos, Calif.

Even many of those who believed Clinton’s actions legally justify impeachment worried aloud about U.S. stability.

“Legally, they are doing the right thing. But they have to question if it’s the best thing for the country. I don’t think so,” said Chrysta Wilson, a freshman majoring in public policy from Danville, Calif.

“I think he’s guilty, but the process has been politicized,” said Tom West, 48, of Sherman Oaks. “I’m concerned about what the process is doing to Congress and the American people.”

Few Listeners at Ladera Heights Cafe

Few listened or looked up as the televised debate droned on in the background at Jordan’s Cafe in the middle-class black community of Ladera Heights.

“We’re spending millions of dollars on this mess,” said Nathaniel Sullivan, 52, a black sales representative from Baldwin Vista. “What difference is there between what the president did and what the new speaker did?”

His wife Annette, her eyes brimming with tears, said she believed “some right-wing Republicans are out to get the president at all costs.”

Though he believes Congress is acting out of “hypocrisy,” Tony Price, 40, a health imaging consultant for Eastman Kodak, also blamed Clinton. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” he said.

In San Diego, many Christmas shoppers at Horton Plaza said they were too busy to worry about moment-by-moment developments in the impeachment process and had not bothered to watch the proceedings on television.

“I know it’s happening but I don’t really plug into it on a daily basis,” said Leland Spar, 43, a business consultant. “I don’t want him kicked out, but if he is, I’ll deal with it. I think most people are like that.”

Standing in line at the San Diego Sports Arena to buy tickets to a Gulls hockey game, Mary Simpson, 38, said she favors ousting Clinton but is “outraged” that the impeachment debate is underway while the U.S. military is bombing Iraq.

“What happened to respect for the commander?” she asked. “I just wish it would all go away.”

Though most interviewed in Los Angeles seemed to oppose impeachment, they were anything but united.

Sam Wolfson, a 71-year-old self-described “staunch Republican” from Agoura Hills, said “I don’t think censure would do anything to this guy. He’s an inveterate liar. They need to throw that bum out.”

But to Topanga Canyon resident Abbas Daneshvari, “the Republican Party has become this party of angry old men.”

“Livingston violated the oath to his own wife,” he said. “So did Henry Hyde and Dan Burton. These oaths are as important to me as the oath Clinton violated, and for these morally bankrupt men to pass judgment sickens me.”

Some Thought Debate Was Over

At the Montebello Mall, all the TVs on sale were tuned to soap operas and “I Love Lucy” reruns. When the news came on, breaking in, a couple of people in line watched, but were careful not to lose their place in line. Some thought the debate had already taken place Thursday.

Cesar Martinez, 27, said, “I really don’t care what’s going on with that. I’m just trying to get my Christmas shopping done.”

Robert Kimball, 54, the owner of two Chinese herbal stores in Beverly Hills, worried that, in the Geraldo era, American political culture has moved away from issues toward empty scandal--with frightening implications.

“It’s the Puritanical self-righteousness that angers me,” he said. “That the presidency could fall on Paula Jones just boggles the mind. No one cared about Livingston’s private life until now.”

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Times staff writers Tina Nguyen, Art Marroquin, Miguel Bustillo, Nick Anderson, Tony Perry and Agnes Diggs contributed to this story.