Christian Coalition Puts Pressure on GOP

In a measure of rising pressure from the Republican Party’s conservative flank for decisive action against President Clinton, Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson on Friday criticized Congress for timidity and urged that the impeachment process move forward promptly.

Offering a sweeping denunciation of the president, Robertson insisted that Congress must proceed toward impeachment because even a resignation from Clinton would not send a strong enough message of disapproval about the president’s behavior. “While resignation may be easiest for America, it is not best for America,” Robertson said. “Healing never is easy. Healing may be not necessarily painless.”

By contrast, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), appearing before the influential Christian Coalition’s fall conference, struck much more cautious notes. The sharp difference in tone underscores the challenge facing Republican leaders as they try to navigate between a party whose stalwarts are infuriated by Clinton’s behavior in the Monica S. Lewinsky affair and a broader public that does not now support his removal from office.

While more than 60% of all Americans opposed resignation in a Los Angeles Times Poll conducted last weekend, a roughly equal percentage of Republicans who attend church at least once a week said Clinton should resign. That fervor in the party’s religious base was vividly displayed at the sprawling Christian Coalition gathering Friday, which drew more than 3,000 activists and a platoon of leading GOP politicians to a Washington hotel.

By far, the loudest applause of the day went to Robertson and House Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who already has called on Clinton to quit and has belittled suggestions that a vote to censure the president could resolve the crisis.

“Any time you hear anybody calling for censure, they’ve never read the Constitution,” DeLay declared to an enthusiastic ovation. “The only choice of the House of Representatives is to impeach or not to impeach--there’s no other way to get out of it.”

At a news conference, Gary Bauer--the president of the Family Research Council, a competing social conservative group, and a potential candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000--also warned that Republicans in Congress could face a backlash from the party base if they delay impeachment proceedings.

“Move as swiftly as you can, consistent with fairness,” Bauer said. “Stop reading polls and fulfill your responsibilities.”

That was Robertson’s message to the GOP majority too, although he characteristically delivered it in more pointed terms. “In the main, our leaders have been strangely silent,” Robertson complained, “sitting in foxholes of political safety, surrounding themselves in polls and commentaries.”

Gingrich, Lott and even former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed all struck more judicious tones in their remarks. “We won’t rush to judgment, and we won’t refrain from judgment,” Gingrich said.

Robertson urged the activists to “forgive” Clinton in a spiritual sense yet to work “as citizens” for his removal from office.

“We are watching the office ennobled by Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln become the playpen for the sexual freedom of the poster child of the 1960s,” Robertson said in a formulation that underscored the broader cultural implications many conservatives draw from the scandal.

Responding to those remarks, Barry W. Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, cited a series of ethical questions that have been raised about Robertson’s business practices and insisted: “Frankly, for the president to be judged unrighteous by Pat Robertson is like being judged ugly by a frog.”