January 20, 1999

The Last Dogs

As the House Republican impeachment managers mounted their final assault on Bill Clinton -- the political equivalent of the bomb-proof Ho Chi Minh Trail -- one could almost feel sorry for them. The trial was just starting and already they seemed anachronistic, angry men, wailing, Lear-like, at a tremendous moral injustice that, alas, doesn't work up the rest of the nation. Hyde's opening kvetch was tragic -- tragic in the sense that this man has lost his sense of proportion. "Members of the Senate," he intoned, "what you do over the next few weeks will forever affect the meaning of those two words 'I do.' You are now stewards of the oath. It's significance in public service and our cherished system of justice will never be the same after this. Depending on what you decide, it will either be strengthened in its power to achieve Justice [He capitalized the word in his written statement] or it will go the way of so much of our moral infrastructure and become a mere convention, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Nothing? Was Hyde serious? If the Senator-jurors, after hearing Hyde's prosecution, agree with most of the public that Clinton's sleaze-ridden behavior does not warrant overturning national election results, then all is lost? Justice is banished from our society. Our "moral infrastructure" will collapse? Such hyperbole can only further turn off the public and perhaps Senators. Hyde was not alone in his apocalyptic indignation. Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. proclaimed that if the Senate believes Clinton lied and fails to remove him from office, then it will set a "terrible" standard for the "conduct of public officials in town halls and courtrooms everywhere and the Oval Office for generations." Representative James Rogan warned that if Clinton's perjury were countenanced it would help propel a descent into "chaos." Representative Ed Bryant droned on about the sacredness and importance of the oath to tell the truth. One could imagine a Senator saying, "Enough already. I get it. I'm no dummy. Hell, I make laws."

Hyde and the Gang have taken an absolutist position: all perjury is created equal....so, off with his head! In front of the mute Senators, they pushed for the right to call witnesses. The crusade must go on! But after the first day of their over-the-top moralizing, a number of Senators were probably thinking, no way I'm going to vote to extend this spectacle. Hyde's last-stand-against- barbarity act may have been too pompous for even the Senators.

As impeachment mania reaches the point where a final fizzle is possible -- after the presentations are made and the Q&A session is done, the Senators will vote whether or not to keep the trial going with witnesses -- one could also almost feel sympathy for those Clinton chasers on the right who still wonder how this hollow, opportunistic, shame-challenged pol has seemingly escaped a sex scandal that would have driven out of office any other mortal. You know desperation has been reached when conservative pundits rush to defend impeachment and its GOP advocates by conceding that, yes, trying to oust Clinton may cost the Republicans, but, dammit, it's the right thing to do. Several times in the past weeks, I've heard Tucker Carlson of The Weekly Standard, in person and in pixel, proffer this view, hailing those House managers who have fiercely pursued Clinton and those Senators who will vote to convict as brave souls. Why not, he asks, see this band as courageous heroes who put principle above politics?

Good question, Friar Tuck. But your principle is misplaced. One does not need to have read the Federalist Papers to realize that the framers of yore considered impeachment a political matter. After all, if you're going to permit House members to decide whether to impeach and Senators to render a verdict -- without establishing any rules of due process -- you know impeachment will be a political exercise. The Constitution sets no standards other than the vague and debated-until-doomsday "High crimes and Misdemeanors"; it permits the Senate to write its own rules on how to hold a trial -- which may be fairly conducted or not. (During the last presidential impeachment trial, a majority of the Senate would not let Andrew Johnson call his chief witness.) The writers of the Constitution basically set up impeachment and verdict as political judgment calls.

Consequently, it's entirely proper that political considerations shape -- though not necessarily dominate -- the process. As we all know from boring civics class, our republican form of government is predicated on a series of checks and balances. Impeachment, of course, is a check on the chief executive. But certainly the power to impeach and convict requires a check of its own. Enter politics. It is not unreasonable to expect a party in control of both bodies of Congress to meet a high threshold to boot out a president of an opposing party. That's why a two-thirds vote is required in the Senate to find the Commander-in-Chief guilty. But that's not the only check on a party's use of the impeachment club. If a party wants to deploy this weapon, it ought to be able to convince a significant bloc of the president's party and a decent-sized slice of the public that this is a proper and necessary course of action.

There may be an argument that any lying -- in or out of a courtroom -- qualifies an officeholder for impeachment. (Wouldn't it be nice if all of Washington played by such a rule?) The articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon whacked him for unsworn lies. But principled Republicans did not shove politics aside and plea for impeachment when Ronald Reagan and George Bush were discovered prevaricating about arms sales and secret warfare. In practice and in history, impeachment has not followed the strict guidelines of principle that Carlson and his colleagues now wish to impose. Remember Aaron Burr? In 1804, when he was vice president he shot and killed his rival Alexander Hamilton in a duel sparked by a political dispute. Was Burr, an ally of the dissident Republican faction of the Democrat-Republicans, impeached for having killed a man? No. He served out his term.

Impeachment has always been a relativistic endeavor, reality-checked by politics. When the Democratic-controlled Congress began its investigation of the Iran-contra affair, mega-lawyer Arthur Liman, who had been hired as counsel for the Senate Iran-contra committee, decided that impeachment was off the table. Bad for the country, not politically feasible, Liman reasoned. Hyde, a prominent member of the House Iran-contra committee, did not complain.

These days Hyde and his posse reside in a world of their own. On the premiere of 60 Minutes II last week, David Schippers, Hyde's investigative counsel, was informed that some people think he just doesn't get it. In response, he harrumphed, "I get it...and if I have my way, everybody else is going to get it before I leave town." He declared that he would not care if 95 percent of the American people opposed impeachment: "You want my opinion? The polls be damned." No, this is not principle, not bravery; this is arrogance. Mixed with artificial and hypocritical (see below) self-righteousness and adorned with sky-is-falling moralistic hype.

A Low Barr

It was too bad that Larry Flynt bumbled his strike against Representative Bob Barr, the leading Clintonphobe on the House prosecution team. Flynt, with the lure of big bucks, had obtained records of Barr's second divorce that quite clearly suggest this crusader had committed adultery in the mid-1980s. When Barr and Wife Number Three-to-be were deposed by Wife Number Two's attorney, they both were asked questions crafted to determine if the couple had been having an affair while Barr was married to Number Two. Barr and Three-to-be repeatedly cited a Georgia state privilege under which a witness can be silent in order to avoid bringing public disgrace upon him- or herself. Only an idiot could read these depositions and not tell what had happened. Yet Flynt's maladroit handling of the material -- he could barely explain it on Rivera Live -- lessened its impact. The hit drew less attention than Henry Hyde's tryst of thirty years ago.

Since I am a known defender of "truthing" the family-values hypocrites of the GOP, my phone did not stop ringing, with calls from disappointed friends and associates who wanted to know if this was the best Flynt could do. My reply -- wait for the release of the tapes Flynt had been hinting about -- was thin gruel for in-the-closet Flynt backers. But Barr helped save Flynt. By rushing on to CNN talk shows to cast himself as the latest victim of the "politics of personal destruction," Barr kept a deflating story alive. Since he refused to speak to the details or explain his divorce testimony, it was easy to accept the obvious interpretation. Not only did the documents expose him as an adulterer, Flynt's packet included a recent affidavit signed by Gail Barr, the second wife, in which she claimed Barr, who is renown as a rabid abortion opponent, helped her obtain an abortion in 1983.

The affidavit is a sad document, no doubt reflecting the bitterness of divorce, lost love, and broken vows. In it, Gail Barr reports that in 1984 she underwent an operation for breast cancer and then received chemotherapy. That year, she notes, "Bob was running for a state representative seat in Georgia against an incumbent. I asked him to stop campaigning after my cancer surgery and while [I was] going through chemotherapy, but he refused. He told me that the campaign would take my mind off my health problems."

What a guy. If that's true, it says as much about Barr as his adulterous behaviour and his alleged hypocrisy on abortion. This is a law-maker who has appeared before a white supremacist group, who has accused Clinton of being an agent of Beijing, who has licked whipped cream from the breasts of women at a 1992 fundraiser. Is it any wonder that most of Americans have not rallied behind the GOP's impeachment drive? When the get-Clinton brigade -- burdened with the tough task of convincing the public that Clinton's lies merit political decapitation -- is led by a fellow like Barr, the public can be forgiven for regarding it as a busload of clowns.

The Real Thing

Let's have an impeachment wrestle over serious stuff. That's the call of Jesse Lemisch, a history professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at CUNY, and Joane Landy, a longtime peace activist. At the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in Washington earlier this month, the pair circulated a petition opposing Clinton's removal from office on the basis of the Hyde articles but urging his impeachment for bombing Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan. The petition asserts that by launching these politically convenient assaults Clinton violated the war powers clause of the Constitution, the War Powers Act, an executive order prohibiting assassination, and a treaty (the UN charter). To sign or obtain a copy, email Lemisch at this appropriate address: utopia1@ibm.net.

-- David Corn