A Tale With No Heroes

As the Senate trial of President Clinton staggers toward its foregone conclusion, opinion polls continue to find both broad public indifference to the impeachment process and growing unhappiness with its duration. Esteem for the Senate has plunged, while approval of Clinton’s political leadership remains high, to the frustration and puzzlement of his political foes. It has undoubtedly helped the president that most Americans instinctively mistrust the kind of heedless zealotry directed against him by both independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr and the most active of the anti-Clinton congressional Republicans. To a probably considerable extent, Clinton is admired for the enemies he has made.

A comfortable standing in the polls does not, however, confer forgiveness or exculpation. The scandal of an affair with a White House intern that set in motion the yearlong march toward impeachment was Clinton’s responsibility alone; the recklessness underlying his behavior cannot be blamed on his critics. It has been a virtual textbook study of hubris: a career politician who had reached the pinnacle of his ambitions, only to invite near-extinction because of his arrogant sense of invulnerability. Richard Nixon’s inclination toward political self-destruction was carried to its ultimate end. Clinton appears lucky to stop just short of that finality, in no small part because the impeachment case against him was constitutionally weak from the start.

There has never been any doubt that Clinton played fast and loose with the truth about his relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky in testifying before a federal grand jury last August, that he used every semantic trick and legalistic quibble to dodge, obfuscate and misdirect. If a future edition of Bartlett’s Quotations contains only a single memorable line from the 42nd president, it is certain to be the infamous “that depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”

Nor has there been any doubt that Clinton lied to his associates in trying to escape the legal consequences of his deceptions. The only question has always been whether these wrongs are deserving of impeachment and removal from office, the supreme sanction provided by the Constitution.

There is no definitive answer, only an interpretive one, and here the weight of the evidence seems clearly to suggest that the Constitution’s impeachment clause was intended to protect the state against a tyrannical abuse of power by a president, not to punish a craven evasion of truth-telling about adultery. What Clinton did in trying to cover up his affair was legally and morally indefensible. But the Republican attempt to punish by removing him from office was wildly disproportionate to the offense. The proper response would have been a resolution denouncing him for disgracing his office. Congress had that opportunity. The Republican majority chose instead to gamble, all or nothing, on impeachment. It was one of many misjudgments in this matter.

The first and greatest misjudgment was Clinton’s failure to settle Paula Jones’ claim of sexual harassment when it was raised in 1994. Had that been done, neither Lewinsky nor Clinton would ever have been questioned under oath. Another whopping misjudgment was made by the Supreme Court when it unanimously ruled that Jones’ civil suit could be heard while Clinton was in office, dismissing concerns that it would distract the president from his official duties. The extent of the court’s naivete about the wholly predictable course of political events continues to astonish.

Partisans will disagree, but we find it impossible to identify any heroes in this long and sordid story, though of poseurs, hypocrites and liars there has been an abundance. Decorum too has been in limited supply. One notable low point came when the Republicans gave a standing ovation to Starr as he finished testifying on his report to the House Judiciary Committee. So enraptured was the committee majority with Starr’s findings that they eagerly embraced his recommendations on impeachable offenses as their own.

Another low point was when Democrats held a pep rally at the White House immediately after Clinton entered the history books as only the second president ever to be impeached. Defiant speeches were made before the TV cameras, the president bit his lip and clenched his jaw to show how deeply touched he was, and a grand if tasteless time was had by all.

The end of this distracting and embarrassing business mercifully approaches. Clinton is headed toward acquittal on the articles of impeachment, and a White House spokesman promises there will be no gloating over the outcome. The best guarantee of that will come if Congress finally chooses to do what it should have done in the very beginning and puts a strong bipartisan stamp on the resolution of rebuke that Clinton deserves. Then the Republican Party can stop to consider the incalculable damage it has inflicted upon itself, as well as upon the nation.