Clinton Foe Concedes Battle but Not the War

When Rep. John T. Doolittle decided he would boycott the president’s State of the Union address last week, he didn’t fire off a blistering press release and stomp out of the Capitol in righteous indignation.

He went to the dry cleaners, picked up his shirts and called his wife. “I’m not going to the speech. Do you have something planned for dinner or do you want me to bring home some chicken?”

Across the country, conservatives like this ultra-right Republican from the small Northern California town of Rocklin are coming to terms with reality: William Jefferson Clinton will not likely be removed from office.

For six years they have despised this president. When the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal surfaced, they were the driving force that kept it alive. Their zeal to see Clinton brought to justice gave the House the thrust to pursue impeachment even when the majority of Americans wanted it gone.

But every time they think they have Clinton on the ropes, he pops back to the center of the ring, stronger than ever. And once again, as the Senate trial threatens to descend into a partisan slugfest, the GOP is on the defensive for pressing the case.

For Doolittle, it’s like some perverse parable that teaches the wrong lesson. The king breaks the law but he isn’t punished--he’s praised! It runs against the grain of everything he believes is right, every teaching of his Mormon faith. And sometimes it’s just too hard to watch.

So after considerable deliberation, the four-term congressman made sure he was miles away from the Capitol before Clinton took the podium to, in Doolittle’s view, disgrace the honorable House with his very presence. Had Doolittle stayed, he would have had to sit without applauding to show his disdain, and what would be the point of that? Better to just get the shirts, pick up the chicken, get on with life.

“I must say, were I in the Senate, I would vote to convict, to remove this man who is not fit to hold office,” Doolittle said in his characteristic slow burn, a simmering anger that rarely boils. “But I must admit at this point, it does seem like an uphill battle.”

The ground seemed to shift that chaotic Tuesday when the president’s men unveiled a better-than-expected defense immediately followed by a Clinton State of the Union performance that could only be called grand. The president looked stunning in his dark suit, his silver hair perfectly coiffed, his water pitcher with three glasses, already poured, at his left hand. No “i” undotted. No “t” uncrossed.

Doolittle, 48, sat in his Northern Virginia kitchen with his wife, Julie, and his 6-year-old daughter, Courtney, the television off. Even so, it was Topic A at the dinner table. Finally, they couldn’t resist taking a couple of peeks. Every time they flipped to the speech, members were on their feet cheering. Windbag was the word that came to Doolittle’s mind.

The next day, the media gave rave reviews. The president looked “frisky,” his GOP accusers like “grumps.” No wonder, thought Doolittle; there was hardly a promise unmade. One of his conservative comrades put it just so: “The speech that promised $3 trillion in 77 minutes over the next 15 years.”

A little something for everybody. What’s not to like?

In the speech’s aftermath, television evangelist Pat Robertson suggested it was time to pull the plug on a process that seemed to be doing the GOP more harm than Clinton. Hard to hear.

“Pat Robertson is a fine man and a good conservative,” Doolittle said later. “It isn’t something I was happy to hear, but sometimes the truth isn’t pleasant to hear.”

There is a matter-of-factness about the anger expressed by Doolittle, a former enfant terrible of the California Senate who brought his propensity for legislative insurgency from Sacramento to Washington. If you ask him whether “detest” is too strong a word to describe his feelings for the president, he pauses for a moment and says, “No, not too strong.” He compares Clinton to O.J. Simpson--”guilty as sin”--and to Juan Peron--”a popular dictator.”

“It’s a very sad commentary on the state of the country when our country will tolerate a man who has broken the law,” he simmers.

“Am I frustrated? Yes.

“Am I angry? Yes.

“Am I shocked? No.”

He blames the Democrats. If there were a popular conservative Republican president who committed these crimes, his party wouldn’t wait for the Democrats to impeach him, they’d give him the boot.

“Bill Clinton did it right in the Oval Office . . . and on the day he is impeached, he holds a party! The man has just thrown it in our faces and gotten away with it.”

But you have to hand that to the liberals. They stick together, he thinks. They get knocked on their behinds in ’94 and what do they do? They come back swinging.

“However stupid their ideas, they never give up,” he said late last week from his room at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples, Fla., where he attended a convention of conservative thinkers. “Their icon is caught in the act, embarrassed, impeached, but they keep on with their socialistic programs and their big government and their bold approach.”

Good lesson there, he thinks. The conservative wing is at a crossroads. Time to decide what to do next. Wasn’t it Victor Hugo who said people don’t lack strength, they lack will?

“We are not going to just rest on our laurels and do nothing,” he vows. “Reduce the size of government. Cut taxes. Put more money in the people’s pockets.”

Some of his colleagues are less resigned, still charging up the hill, still waiting for the appearance of an Alexander Butterfield, the White House aide who revealed the secret taping system that ultimately brought down President Nixon.

But Doolittle is ready to change the subject. His wife puts it nicely: “What’s meant to be will be. It’s a shame not to be able to let go of things.”

Anyway, even if they didn’t get rid of the man, they stained him. Indelibly. And that’s something.

“He is the first elected president in history to be impeached,” Doolittle said, his voice rising. “We have affixed a permanent black mark to his record, which is, at the minimum, what we intended to do. In that sense, we succeeded.”