Enrapt, the Very Few Tune In Senate Trial

They snap to attention at the flat, nasal tones of U.S. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. They look up from their chores or hurry in from another room if an objection is heard. They know who Asa Hutchinson and Cheryl Mills are, and are conversant in the main points of their arguments. Their pulses race--or their blood boils--at the oratory of Henry J. Hyde and the methodical legal dissection of Charles F.C. Ruff.

They are the few, the rapt, the isolated. They have spent much of the last month glued to the Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton. And, if polls are to be believed, at most points they have constituted no more than 15% of the American population at any time.

Who are these people and why are they still watching?

They are people like Liz Coyle of Brooklyn, N.Y., an out-of-work telemarketer who watches in spite of a major obstacle. With no cable or satellite service, she has to get a friend who gets Cable News Network to tape daily proceedings for her. As her 6-year-old pops in and out of the room, Coyle watches the tapes at night while she sews or folds laundry.

Coyle watches because she wants to see what Democrats she has supported, such as freshman Sen. Charles E. Schumer, are saying. She likes to watch lawyers at their craft (when she is not footing the bill). And, she said, she is “fascinated” by the historic combination of ego and eloquence that unfolds on her small screen nightly.

At the same time, Coyle thinks that she knows why none of her friends are paying much attention to the proceedings. It is like going to see a movie when you know how it ends and already have formed an opinion about the characters. You just don’t watch as closely, she said.

“At this point, you have to realize it’s a done deal. People basically have made up their minds. . . . We all know that whatever tidbits they put out, it’s still going to come out that he’s not going to be [removed from office]. So it’s not an interesting story, because you know the end.”

Pollsters attribute the general public disinterest in the impeachment proceedings to a combination of factors, and Coyle’s hypothesis figures foremost among them. With so many minds made up, few consider it worthwhile to follow the matter.

“People aren’t paying enough attention” to the proceedings to change their mind, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said. And why are they not paying attention? “They’re not open enough to change.”

Indeed, like about 85% of Americans, those watching the proceedings made up their mind early on the central question of whether Clinton should be removed from office. But in each, a shred of doubt, a willingness to be convinced otherwise, remains. And for many, that is what keeps them watching.

“I felt they were being so unjust to him. But I wanted to see it to make sure I was keeping an open mind on it,” said Donald Schmidt, a retired steel industry manager in Flint, Mich.

There have been some days, added the 68-year-old Schmidt, when his open mind and his sense of history sagged under the weight of repetition and he turned off his television set.

“But I had to put it back on because I didn’t want to miss anything,” said Schmidt. “I kept wanting to make sure things were going to go all right.”

Among those favoring Clinton’s removal from office, many continue to watch in stunned disbelief, hoping against hope that something will happen to change the course of history that now seems foreordained.

“Is truth going to win out or is the other side going to win out?” asked Bob Minnis, a 52-year-old trucking company worker in Texas. “They don’t have enough votes to impeach him, that’s plain. . . . I hate to use the term, but it’s kind of like a circus, watching a circus.”

Indeed, many close watchers, groping for a way to describe their horrified fascination with the proceedings, likened them to a circus.

But if watchers are riveted by the political high-wire act of impeachment, those who have turned off the proceedings see a ring full of bickering clowns and peevish prima donnas. Among those not following the impeachment proceedings, 47% told pollsters from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press that “too much partisanship” had prompted them to tune the proceedings out.

“Unsurprising and unpleasant,” Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Center, said of the Senate proceedings. “It doesn’t lead to opinion change and it doesn’t add up to big ratings.”

Others said that the proceedings have the appeal of a real-life courtroom drama, with consequences that feel more meaningful than, say, the O.J. Simpson trial, which many also watched.

“If it wasn’t so grave and so chilling, with its implications for using the legal system for a vendetta, it would be entertaining,” said Patricia Dieli, a 55-year-old homemaker from Santa Barbara. “But that keeps it from being entertaining for me.”

Dieli and her retired husband, Frank, believe firmly that, although Clinton is far from blameless, his offenses do not rise to the level of impeachment. Although most of their friends think the same way, she said, none wants to discuss anymore the presidential scandal that has preoccupied Washington for a year.

“They’re sick of it,” Dieli said. “It’s a sorry spectacle, we all say. We’re all sick of it.”

Beyond costing the country plenty, Dieli added, the Senate proceedings have set her back in her own life. With a household move planned, Dieli had boxes to pack and things to organize. But when the procession of presidential lawyers Ruff and David E. Kendall and Mills and Gregory Craig stepped out, the packing stopped.

With a break this week in the public proceedings, Dieli saw the prospect of normalcy returning--to her life and to the country.

“I’m so glad” for the break, she said. “I wish they’d end it.”