Sunday, December 20, 1998 -- Boy, those "legal hairsplitting tactics" and "technicalities" are a bitch, aren't they? Legal code, be damned! Constitution, pah! (I'm not sure if I wrote this or read it somewhere -- in defense of my memory, I did inhale -- but I keep thinking of a phrase that seems apt for this situation: "To the GOP, The Constitution is a technicality.") Facts? We don't need no steenking facts! You've got to separate the corn from the husk (whatever the hell that means), and use "common sense" instead of "legalese." In other words, you need to get simple.

That's what we're hearing from Henry Hyde, et. al, about every legal defense the President puts forward: it's all just a bunch of complicated legal mumbo jumbo. "Complicated" is the key. We are asked to believe this is in sharp contrast to the legal offensive launched against him, which was apparently simple, non-legalese (perhaps illegalese?), and positively dripping with the homespun wisdom of ol' brer Starr. "Simple."

Just ask Bill Perkins, editorial page editor of The Dothan [Alabama] Eagle, whose opinion column "Still Wanting Clinton Gone" was bafflingly published by The New York Times this Saturday. In it, Mr. Perkins proudly drawls:

"They [the Presidential defense team] argued that Richard Nixon's subterfuge was somehow worse than Mr. Clinton's because he used Government agencies to cover up his lies.

"We think that argument misses the point. Nixon lied. Mr. Clinton lied. Only Nixon stepped down before he caused the nation any more grief."

So that's it, then? "Nixon lied. Mr. Clinton lied." It's so simple, it just might work! Boil Watergate and Starrgate down to a couple of words each. Strip away all the facts and you can come up with a charge that even the unwashed masses like you and me can understand: The President lied, just like Nixon.

Allow me to drawl in reply, "Y'all might be missin' the mark jest a touch." (By the way, I'm not drawling to indicate prejudice against the South. I earned my drawl in the poor Southeastern corner of Missouri, called the Swamp- east. Born in the same Cape Girardeau hospital as Rush Limbaugh from what they tell me, though they had apparently thrown out the dangerously rusty forceps by the time I came along. But I digress.)

The shill from the weekly shopper in Dothan, Alabama has a point, whether he knows it or not. The GOP has played this game better than The President, oversimplifying the case into slogans so lazy right-wingers can easily justify ignoring the facts. The President has properly engaged in a legal defense to a legal accusation. Big mistake. The GOP has a much more effective approach: like one of their biggest supporters, Amway, they're trying to make a sale, and they're selling to each other much more than the general public.

Every time the President or anyone else speaks out in his defense, citing things like history, the law, and the facts, it's just more ammunition for Amway-the-hell-out-there partisans like Hyde to claim the President is avoiding the simple path in favor of complicated legalisms. Ironic, isn't it, that the party who disdains this President for "constantly campaigning" is now running what should be an ethical, honorable proceeding as if it were a sales campaign?

Not that GOP persecutors don't occasionally wander into complicated (even convoluted) details, but when they do, it's only to lure an equally complicated answer which they can pounce on and tar with their favorite cliches: "hair-splitting," "legalisms," blah, blah, blah. For example, the GOP presents the absolute worst case imaginable -- I do not choose the word "imaginable" lightly -- about every incident in the Monica mess, snarling insultingly at any reasonable explanation. And why not? Once you throw out the facts and start inventing situations (think Paula Jones), why not invent the most outlandish scenarios you can dream up? The burden of proof is not on the Judiciary Committee's accusation squad, though it would be in any ethical proceeding. So we got to see majority viper David Schippers literally, and I'm not making this up, accusing the President of using a teddy bear ("a symbol of strength") to coerce Monica into filing a false affidavit. Never mind that this fairy tale contradicts the Schippers/Starr allegation that the President was actually trying to hide all the gifts he gave to Monica, or that all the evidence and testimony says the affidavit was and is true -- those are details, technicalities, even, Heaven help us, legalisms. And as soon as you point out the reality, you're dead meat for the vultures.

Far from offering any compelling evidence or even a coherent set of charges, the GOP is following the classic sales/campaign strategy: KISS. "Keep It Simple, Stensenbrenner." Stay focused on the sale, and dismiss the competition (in this case, the evidence) out of hand with the pejorative or defensive terms that test best with GOP focus groups. And (in the prophetic words of J. T. Walsh in "Crazy People"), "You've got to drill, drill, drill!" A Republican strategist recently told CNN the party needed to make sure everyone in the country heard these phrases at least four times. In marketing theory, as the strategist said, it takes four "impressions" to get a message through to people. (And marketing theory applies to a judicial matter... how, exactly?)

So how do they describe the elements and role of perjury in our justice system? "Technicalities."

Testimony and entreaties by hundreds, thousands of experts, even millions of people if you count last month's elections, opposing this course of action? Consistent public opposition? "We don't read the polls."

Demanding definitions of ambiguous terms? Maybe taking a peek at a dictionary instead of making up your own sanctimonious and overly convenient definitions? "Legalese."

A sense of proportion? "No one is above the law."

Dismissal of contradictory and exculpatory testimony, plus bizarrely sinister plots "inferred" and "suggested" (Starr's own phraseology) by the bought-and- paid-for prosecution? "Judge Starr is not on trial."

The truth? "Legalistic hair-splitting."

Well, hell, if it's that simple to turn our Republic into a Parliamentary Democracy, where the President serves at the pleasure and whim of the Congress, we really missed the boat with Reagan and Bush. You didn't even have to squint at the Iran-Contra evidence to see those two not only demeaned their offices with bald-faced public lies, but subverted the government in their unique roles as Presidents, and as powerful public figures with covert actions even before they were elected in 1980.

Sorry, sorry... Dipped into details there for a moment. Probably "legalese" and "covering up the corn with the husk" or something, too. What I meant to say to the public, who inexplicably refuses to go along with the lame duck Congress' spinterpretation of the Starr allegations, was something simple: Reagan lied. Bush lied. Better?

But I hasten to point out that they fairly won their elections, so we didn't kick them out. We bitched about them. We rolled our eyes when far-right loonies like Grover Norquist started paying serious cash to have airports, post offices, and fire hydrants named in their unearned honor. But we didn't fire them.

And now that the Constitution has been soiled and flushed by a vindictive and wholly partisan American Parliament, it's too late to impeach a doddering Reagan or that kidnappers' assistant and sire of distinguished governors, alcoholics, and fraudulent S&L managers, GHW Bush. They're beyond the reach of everything but history. (Hey, maybe that's why Murdoch bought Harper-Collins! Not only to bribe Newt, but to crank out pro-Reagan/Bush history textbooks. But that's a conspiracy theory for another time.)

I offer this warning to the GOP members of Congress: now that you've pissed on the Constitution and lowered the standard of impeachable conduct to a childish "we just don't like him," we'll see how long the next Republican president stays in office. If there is one, I mean. And yes I am admitting, even hoping, that a Democratic congress would treat your guy or gal (Prince George? Liddy Dole? Dane Quaylee?) with the exact level of fairness/unfairness you exercise with respect to the current President. You are in a position to set the precedent -- one which you and your party will have to live with for the rest of your lives. It might be time to call up Gary Bauer and ask him what the Bible says about judgment and doing unto others.

Your sales scheme may work within your circle of partisans and lobbyists, but on those infamous first Tuesdays every other November, your customers are out here in the real world. We don't appreciate arrogant and lazy customer service.

Ask D'Amato.

Ask Newt.

Ask GHWB.

Don't worry -- they'll explain everything very simply.

-- Dave Gibbons