January 27, 1999

The Rule of Hyde

The impeachment trial in the Senate tries the soul of anyone who yearns for honest discourse. The President's lawyers, as they should have, picked away at holes in the Republican House manager's case. But on the big picture -- attempting to show Bill Clinton did not lie before the grand jury -- they are at a disadvantage. After all, the man did testify, "I regret that what began as a friendship came to include this [oral sexual] conduct." Began as a friendship? That's laughable. There was no friendship in those short hours between the initial thong-flash and the initial flesh-press. But the lawyerly perorations of Clinton's legal team -- and their argument that the liar-in-chief should not be removed from office for these particular sins -- were easier to swallow than the phony posturing of the House managers, especially Representative Henry Hyde.

During his closing statement, Hyde went on and on about the rule of law: "That none of us is above the law is a bedrock principle of democracy.... The rule law is one of the great achievements of civilization. For the alternative to the rule of law is the rule of raw power." He reprised the schpiel that David Schippers, his chief lieutenant, dished out during the House hearings -- that the lawmakers owe it to every American who ever died in battle, from Normandy to Vietnam, to dethrone Clinton: "If, across the river in Arlington Cemetery, there are American heroes who died in defense of the rule of law, can we give less than the full measure of our devotion to that great cause?"

What twaddle. Calling on dead soldiers to make a case is offensive and insulting. How does believing that Clinton's pathetic Monica-related misdeeds do not rate as impeachable offenses dishonor the fallen? But Hyde deserves a metaphorical stoning for being two-faced on the rule of law. The evidence of his hypocrisy can be found in his own words. In 1987, he served on the House Iran-contra committee and wrote a dissenting opinion to the final report. In that rambling treatise, he approvingly referred to secretary Fawn Hall's testimony that "sometimes you have to go above the written law." (Hall had helped her boss Oliver North destroy evidence.) Hyde took a far-from-absolute view of the rule of law in this apologia. Responding to Democratic rhetoric that the President must faithfully execute the law, that the U.S. government is of laws not men, and that the ends cannot justify the means, Hyde wrote: "These propositions -- true enough -- deserve a less facile application to the complex events involved in these hearings. All of us at some time confront conflicts between rights and duties, between choices that are evil and less evil, and one hardly exhausts moral imagination by labeling every untruth and every deception an outrage."

In the world according to that Hyde, laws can be bent and broken in certain situations. How does that fit with the rule of law? He pooh-poohed critics of the Reagan Administration and questioned their "concern for Constitutional process." He huffed, "Moreover, we have had a disconcerting and distasteful whiff of moralism and institutional self-righteousness in these hearings." Hyde argued that the acts of the Iran-contra gang -- many of which were found to be criminal acts -- needed to be judged against the backdrop of the Soviet threat. That sounds like an awfully flexible approach to the rule of law. In Hyde-land, if a government official deemed an action necessary for national security purposes, he or she had leeway to ignore the law. Beyond "questions of legality and structure, however, there is an even more fundamental argument being engaged here," he wrote. "It is the question of America's role in the world, and indeed whether we shall have any." (His italics.)

Hyde has always been overheated. But when one of his pet causes -- supporting the secret war of the Nicaraguan contras -- was the issue at hand, he did not hew to a strict reading of the rule of the law. These days he cites it as "the great alternative to the lethal abuse of power by the state." He urges all citizens to visit the Vietnam Wall to pay tribute to those who sacrificed their lives for this principle and who call out from their graves for Clinton's removal. Hyde is as relativistic as Clinton. Now that's an insult.

GOP To Push Soul Food?

Don't buy stock in Republican rhetoric. It really is in decline.

Representative George Gekas babbled quasi-coherently in introducing Hyde's concluding remarks. ("That moment of truth encompasses all of that in one fell swoop at that final time that is upon us.") Representative Jennifer Dunn of Washington used up a large block of her short reply to Clinton's State of the Union speech by referring to an IRS foul-up involving a constituent that occurred "a few years ago." Since the IRS reform bill was passed last year, it was unclear why her anecdote was relevant. It had nothing to do with the GOP plan for a 10 percent across-the-board income tax cut. (Of course, 60 percent of this will benefit the top 10 percent of taxpayers. The average give-back for the lowest 60 percent will be $99. Payroll taxes, not income taxes, make up the bulk of the tax burden of low- and middle-income families, and these taxes will not be affected by Dunn's proposal. And she didn't bother to explain what the Republicans will touch -- the surplus earmarked for Social Security? -- to pay for this.) But single-mom Dunn -- she made sure to refer to taking the kids to soccer practice, though that was decades ago -- looked like Lincoln next to Representative Steve Largent, an Oklahoman, past pro football star, and fave of the Christian right.

Largent revealed that after he was elected to Congress as a Republican he did not even know what the abbreviation GOP stood for. (The answer: Grand Old Party.) Good idea: advertise your ignorance. He then tossed out the usual Republican fare: less government, end abortion, set a date for scrapping the tax code (without designating a replacement). Next came a bizarre riff: "It is no longer the aggression from without that is America's greatest threat, but alienation from within; alienation at every level -- husband from wife, mother from father, parent from child, black from white, Republican from Democrat, liberal from conservative. And there's only one solution -- reconciliation.... Reconciliation requires the humility and courage to say, 'I'm sorry, I was wrong.... You see, the body of our country is strong. It's the heart that needs attention." Anyone care to interpret? What was he talking about? It wasn't Clinton and the whole mess, was it? For how has that alienated mothers from fathers? Largent is an impeachment hawk and a true-believer from the raucus, take-no-prisoners House class of 1994 -- the ones who tried to overthrow Newt Gingrich. And he is calling for reconciliation? What precisely is the crisis here? What's the heart that needs attention? Does America have a soul problem? It's too bad Largent didn't spell it out. No doubt, his thoughts on this front would make a great platform for the Republicans when they are finally done swinging at President Weeble.

Lott's (Pro-)White Lies

After Clinton finished his annoyingly masterful State of the Union address (Remember his grand words about Universal Savings Accounts? Only a trifling $100 will be placed into these individual retirement accounts, according to current estimates), Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott griped, "that's got to be the worst I ever heard." He added, "the man has no shame." Quite true on the shame front. But Lott's been doing his best to prove that shamelessness is not an uncommon trait in Washington. Over a month ago, after reporters raised questions about Lott's hobnobbing with the white supremacists of the Council of Conservative Citizens, his press secretary said that Lott "vaguely" remembered talking to the group "over a decade ago. (Here's a self-congratulatory pat on the back: In these pages, last July -- long before the CCC became an issue -- I pointed out Lott's membership in this outfit.) In a statement in December, Lott said he did not consider himself a member of the group. All that proved to be whopping lies. Two weeks ago, a member of the council's executive board confirmed to John Kifner of The New York Times that "Trent is an honorary member." In 1997 Lott held a private meeting with the CCC in his Washington office, and the group circulated literature with his endorsement of the council. In 1995 he addressed its Mississippi chapter. In 1992, he praised the council when he was the keynote speaker at a national board meeting. In 1991, he spoke to the Mississippi branch. He also has shown up at rallies held by the council.

If you had one mud pie to toss, and the targets were a man who may have perjured himself about a consensual one-sided sexual affair and a fellow who lied about his association with white supremacists, who would you splatter? Lott doesn't understand that as long as the Clinton chasers are led by liars, self-righteous hypocrites, bigots, and scoundrels, their j'accuse project will gain no traction. It will slip and slide and on the oil slick of their own unrecognized shame.

Beware of the Jews

Monicagate has been good for the Reverend Jerry Falwell. The onetime leader of the Moral Majority had not been visible since his heyday in the Reagan days. Lucky for him, the scandal created a crisis for television talk show bookers. How could they fill all that air time? They scanned the horizon for moralists and rediscovered Falwell. He's become a regular and was particularly handy when his old nemesis, pornographer Larry Flynt, blustered his way into the national soap opera. (Flynt's most noteworthy legal case, dramatized in The People vs. Larry Flynt, began when Hustler ran a scathing and scatological parody of Falwell, a man of no humor who promptly filed suit.) So these days when Flynt unloads a stink bomb, Falwell is in a box on a screen pronouncing judgment. In his own newsletter, Falwell writes, "Larry Flynt and I have struck up an unlikely friendship in recent months. I truly care about Larry....I continue to earnestly pray that the Lord will provide me the opportunity to win him to Christ."

Let's hope that Flynt does not fall under the sway of Falwell. If he did, he could end up truly a kook, for Falwell recently declared that the Antichrist is presently alive and well on Earth -- and a Jewish male. In delivering a speech on the millennium, Falwell said of the Dark One, "Of course he'll be Jewish. Of course, he'll pretend to be Christ. And if in fact the Lord is coming soon... he must be alive somewhere today." Falwell, after taking flak for this, later explained that since Jesus Christ was Jewish, the Antichrist, who cleverly walks among us as a counterfeit Christ, must be of the chosen tribe as well. He said his is a view "that most theologians have embraced for two millennia," and he obligatorily declared that he has "love and respect" for Jews.

There's a thin line between such fundamentalist theology and anti-Semitism. Will Falwell's flock be on the watch for that evil Jew? Surely, the Antichrist must be a Jew of prominence, a man of influence who, when the time is right, will be able to use his power and influence to do battle with the forces of Christ. Who might it be? Jerry Seinfeld? Senator Joseph Lieberman? Abe Rosenthal? Or -- my pick -- Henry Kissinger? It's too bad for Falwell that Flynt isn't Jewish.

-- David Corn