How to End Clinton’s Mess and Be Happy

The second-most amazing fact about the looming impeachment of President Bill Clinton--next to the fact that it is looming at all--is the degree of disagreement over who to blame. Spend a week reading editorials and columns in leading newspapers and journals of opinion. Read the letters to the editor. Listen to shout shows and call-in shows. There are roughly six different positions, excluding the views of fiction writers and critics who are having a wonderful time deconstructing independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s report as if it were a novel and reviewing the president’s televised grand-jury testimony as if it were a film. Opinions are expressed with a passion characteristic of parental behavior at a Little League game.

These intense but discrepant views leave us all prisoners of impeachment until we can identify a common ground broad enough to support a compromise. But compromise won’t work unless combatants believe their views are receiving due respect and fear they could wind up with less if they hold out for more. Let’s summarize the various positions and then see if we can make a deal.

The Anti-Clintons: Clinton is a disgrace and, worse, an unindicted felon. He has no regard for the truth, only for what can be safely denied. It harms the nation for him to lead it. It will be corrosive for generations if we let him finish his term. Clinton’s remorse is phony. Everything he does is an act because he believes in nothing except his own survival. Impeachment and conviction are necessary if the nation is to reaffirm its core values. We honor ourselves when we throw him out. Sure, Starr may not be a poster boy for prosecutorial moderation, but his faults are no excuse for Clinton’s abysmal conduct.

The Anti-Starrs: The case against Clinton is based on sex and lies about sex, things he did as a man, not as a president. Without defending Clinton, the fact is that Starr, a right-wing ideologue, has behaved like a prosecutor in a totalitarian country, ignoring constitutional values, including privacy. Starr exceeded his jurisdiction in pursuing the Monica S. Lewinsky case, then set perjury traps for the president before the grand jury, whose evidence he illegally leaked. He did this while investigating “crimes” no other U.S. prosecutor would pursue. Starr is obsessed with Clinton’s sex life. Clinton must remain in office, not only because the country elected him--and the country is in fine shape--but because removing Clinton will validate Starr’s unconstitutional tactics, endangering us all.

The Process Supporters: The framers of the Constitution provided for this very situation more than 200 years ago. We must let the process take its course. It is described in the Constitution, which we fail to follow at our peril. Everyone involved--Starr, the courts, but most of all Congress--must understand that to turn the process to political advantage dishonors the Constitution no less than if we ignore the disturbing evidence Starr has amassed. We understand the desire for closure, but the process was not built for speed. It is cumbersome because the stakes are high. It demands investigation and deliberation. Waiting may be painful, but, in the long run, the country will be better off.

The Democratic Partisans: You should see it for what it is: an effort by House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and conservative Republicans, in league with the Christian right, to exploit Clinton’s troubles for political gain. They talk about bipartisanship, but they don’t mean it. Their goal is to destroy Clinton, his policies and the Democrats by keeping this story on Page 1. They aim to elect a GOP president in 2000, while they hold on to both houses of Congress and possibly achieve the 60 Senate votes needed to stop Democratic filibusters. Then watch what they’ll do with school prayer, abortion rights and social programs. We can also expect three Supreme Court vacancies after the 2000 election. Think Antonin Scalia in triplicate. Think Chief Justice Starr. We have no love for Clinton, but we stand with him to stop the far right.

The GOP Partisans: You should see it for what it is: an effort by mostly liberal Democrats to protect their discredited policies and hold on to power by embracing a damaged president, whom most of them never liked anyway, and by trying to shift blame to Starr, who simply obeyed the independent-counsel statute. It’s our job to reveal Clinton for what he is and expose his adolescent erosion of the moral stature of the presidency. Luckily, we can win a vote of impeachment in the House. Maybe we don’t have the 67 votes needed to convict in the Senate, though that could change if we pick up seats in November and Starr unearths more evidence, but this is not about the Senate. It’s about unmasking the moral relativism that the Clintons brought to the White House. It’s about exposing Clinton as ethically hollow, so voters will remember when they vote for president in 2000.

The Go-Awayers: Clinton has two years to go on his term. Then he’s history. Good riddance. History can have him. We don’t like Starr either. We’re angry at Clinton for his lies and self-indulgent conduct, and we’re angry at Starr for his obsessive pursuit. But we’re tired of this. It’s taking too long, and it’s costing too much. The country’s OK. We’re OK. We do not want to read descriptions of the president’s sex life. The only people who want to keep this going are in the media or inside the beltway. Unlike them, we have real lives. All those smart people better make this go away before we get really mad.

So, things look glum. What possible exit strategy can satisfy these constituencies and make compromise possible? Let’s eliminate the two extremes: Senate conviction and ignoring the whole thing. Neither will happen. Congressional censure of the president has been suggested as a middle option, but it’s not constitutionally recognized, it endangers separation of powers and too many people find it inadequate. Besides, a censure can be reversed if Democrats regain control of Congress. President Andrew Jackson was censured, then uncensured.

The Clintons can’t even pay their lawyers, so forget a fine. A solution that offers Clinton immunity from prosecution if he confesses to federal felonies requires cooperation from too many players, would still allow Arkansas to use the confession to disbar him and is not likely to get Clinton’s consent. No, the solution is simpler.

First, have quick but complete House impeachment hearings. If the facts warrant it, impeach Clinton with a House vote large enough to make the rebuke clear and bipartisan: 80% of the 435 House members will suffice. The articles of impeachment must not be a laundry list of gripes and disagreements. Rather, each article must specify conduct that has been convincingly proved and which Congress is prepared to say, now and forever, is properly an impeachable offense. If no such conduct is found, end the hearings.

Second, ask Clinton for no confession but offer no immunity, leaving him to the discretion of whatever prosecutorial offices have jurisdiction in 2001. This plan doesn’t require Clinton’s cooperation. It’s not a plea bargain.

Third, schedule no Senate trial unless, improbably, the president demands one. What purpose would a trial serve? We know how it will end: 67 senators will not vote to convict. Although Clinton might see a Senate “acquittal” as a way to claim vindication, he won’t want the entire story retold a second time. The House hearings will produce the complete record that history requires us to compile.

The advantages of this plan are several. Every American schoolchild will hereafter learn that the only two impeached presidents were Andrew Johnson and Clinton. Johnson’s impeachment, they will learn, was politically motivated. But Clinton’s impeachment, by a lopsided margin, will stand as an enduring reminder of the nation’s repudiation of his conduct. This should satisfy the anti-Clintons and also the GOP partisans, who will be able to use the blot on Clinton’s record for electoral advantage.

On the other hand, because Clinton will be allowed to finish his term, he will have the chance and strong incentive to redeem himself. His good behavior in the remaining two years can help the Democrats. That should satisfy the Democratic partisans. Because Clinton will not be removed from office, the anti-Starrs can take satisfaction that the independent counsel failed in an allegedly political attempt to “get” the president.

The process supporters will be pleased that hearings were held, that facts were found and that the remedy, impeachment, is recognized in the Constitution, even if its use here will be a bit unusual.

Best of all, this compromise will satisfy the vast majority of Americans who just want an end to it. If everyone cooperates, we should be able to have the whole thing wrapped up by President’s Day.