Reject Revenge

The U.S. House of Representatives Saturday, in a largely partisan vote, impeached President William Jefferson Clinton and thereby became a House of Atreus. We come to that conclusion courtesy of Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who unlike most of his colleagues had the good sense at the beginning of the House debate Friday to put the poisonous war in Washington in perspective.

In a trilogy of ancient Greek plays by Aeschylus, Schumer noted, “the warring factions of the House of Atreus trapped themselves in an escalating chain of revenge such that Atreus serves his brother a pie that contained his brother’s own murdered children. It was the end of what was once a noble family. A noble house.”

There was nothing noble on display this past week on Capitol Hill. Rejection, with double-digit Republican help, of the shakiest two of the four articles of impeachment produced a glimmer of reasonableness, but the passage of even a single article was all that was needed to send the matter to trial in the Senate.

There’s so much that’s been lost in all of this. The respect that the presidency ought to command has been terribly diminished, first by Clinton himself. His compulsive, foolish and wrong activities, from the affair with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky to his evident lying about it, led to the House hearings. Clinton’s consistent lack of judgment in this matter brought ridicule upon himself and the nation. At the White House after the votes, Clinton told reporters “I have accepted responsibility for what I did wrong in my personal life” and sounded a call for bipartisanship.

There is something else lost in this mess, but it’s something that can be regained: a sense of proportion. Clinton’s wrongdoing demands a strong official rebuke of some form. But it’s important to remember that impeachment is a legal means of taking out of office a president who threatens the well-being of the republic. Even Clinton’s most committed enemies, and he has made many, can’t claim that standard has been met.

Bar of Impeachment Diminished

“What has brought us to this day?”

Another good question from Schumer. This editorial page addressed that question in August: Whether it was Democrats successfully going after Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork or unsuccessfully trying to keep Clarence Thomas off the court or Republicans going after Justice Department nominee Lani Guinier or Hillary Rodham Clinton, no side displayed an ability to lose gracefully. Those who never could accept Clinton’s election victory targeted his only real political liability--the character issue--from virtually the first day he was in office, and he helped them.

“I expect history will not view this day kindly,” Schumer said. “I expect history will show that we have lowered the bar on impeachment so much--we have broken the seal on this extreme penalty so cavalierly--that it will be used as a routine tool to fight political battles.”

The Senate’s Opportunity

It need not be that way. The matter now moves to the Senate, historically a more deliberative body, which has the legal responsibility to try the president but also the opportunity to rectify the ill-advised action taken by the Republican majority in a bitterly divided House. The Senate should seize that opportunity by putting aside the articles of impeachment and instead adopting a resolution that would rebuke Clinton in the strongest terms.

It should do so not as a favor to Clinton, whose conduct has earned unqualified condemnation, but as a service to the American people, who have been left fatigued and disgusted by the endless political mischief and moral posturing that have embroiled Washington far too long.

This has been a year of salacious scandal, and worse it has been a year when the integrity and processes of government--in Congress no less than in the presidency--have been distorted, shamed and demeaned by the selfish, intemperate and dishonest behavior of elected officials. This has been a year when destructive precedents were set that are likely to haunt the nation’s political culture far into the future: the precedent of obsessively pursuing alleged presidential criminality arising from stupid but nonetheless private sexual misbehavior; the precedents that diminished the tradition of confidentiality between a president and his lawyers and a president and his Secret Service protectors; the precedent of a Congress whose majority responded to the most solemn of constitutional responsibilities by abandoning good sense in a rush to humiliate and destroy a president of the opposing party.

The Republicans’ legal case for impeachment comes down to this: The rule of law must be upheld, and no one is above the law. If Clinton lied under oath, as we believe he did, then he should certainly be punished. The all-important question is how he should be punished, and here context becomes crucial.

As it happens, that is precisely the point made more than a decade ago by Judiciary Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) when he sought to excuse or at least diminish the importance of the lying under oath by Oliver North and others in the Iran-Contra affair. Some crimes, some excesses, Hyde held then, are mitigated by the context in which they occur. The crimes of which Clinton stands accused in the articles of impeachment are serious and certainly dishonorable. But did those alleged crimes imperil the security of the nation or constitute an assault on its institutions? Do they meet the standards for impeachable offenses and so require Clinton’s removal from office? No.

The Subtext of Hatred

It is impossible to ignore or downplay the element of personal loathing for Clinton that underlies so much of what has been said and done in the impeachment process. To many of Clinton’s fiercest critics, the character flaws that came to national attention in his first campaign for president should by themselves have disqualified him from office. The refusal of the nation’s voters to agree with that view in both 1992 and 1996 only fueled their resentment and hostility.

For a time the keyword in criticism of Clinton was “values,” referring especially to evidence of his infidelities. The lengthening parade of Republicans admitting adulterous affairs in recent months makes it less likely that “values”--especially family values--will be evoked any time soon again in an effort to distinguish Clinton from his critics.

On Thursday House Speaker-designate Bob Livingston (R-La.) admitted that “on occasion” he had been guilty of his own “indiscretions.” On Saturday Livingston shocked his colleagues by announcing he would not serve as speaker and would resign from the House in six months, one more life scarred in this year of scandal.

The Senate is now required to hold an impeachment trial following Saturday’s House votes. The trial is expected to commence in January, but what happens then is more a matter of political judgment than constitutional mandate. Under Senate rules a vote by 51 of the 100 senators can halt the trial at any time. Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) promises “there won’t be any deal-making,” indicating he’s ready to see the trial through to its end.

That end, if some Republican senators have their way, won’t come soon. As they calculate it, the longer a trial goes on, the more vulnerable Clinton becomes, if not to conviction then to pressures from within his own party to resign. To convict, a two-thirds majority is needed, meaning a dozen Democrats would have to join the 55 Republican senators. Although Clinton has failed to cultivate many friends among Democrats in the Senate, a defection of that size seems unlikely.

Greater Sense of Justice

Regardless of its outcome, a prolonged trial would be harmful to the nation, both at home and abroad, holding up work on necessary legislation and raising doubts overseas about the ability of the United States to lead. That must be avoided. There are thoughtful people on both sides of the Senate aisle, and it should not take them long to decide, objectively and responsibly, that what Clinton did does not call for his removal from office.

Instead the Senate should adopt and send to the House a resolution expressing its abhorrence of Clinton’s behavior and specifically condemning him for lying under oath. Clinton should agree beforehand to accept this condemnation, thereby, at long last, acknowledging his falsehoods and the dishonor he brought on his office.

Then our nation must move on, with the American people grateful that this vile and dispiriting business finally has been brought to an acceptable end.

Finally, back to Schumer, who issued a plea worth repeating, now directed to the Senate: “Let’s not become a House of Atreus. Let’s reject the instinct for revenge and embrace instead a greater sense of justice for the sake of our republic.”