A Week Beyond Bizarre

by David Corn

Guilty of waffling on global warming. Guilty of suppressing a needle-exchange program that could save lives. Guilty of bumbling health care reform. Guilty of repeatedly abandoning and betraying key constituencies and allies.

Actually, the Republicans did not really have to frame him. On the particulars of Bill Clinton's slippery performances at the Paula Jones deposition and before the Kenneth Starr grand jury, the case against the President is not without foundation. But the GOPers elevated a low crime to an unreasonably high level by deeming it impeachment matter. They have been after him for the wrong reasons. And many of his supporters have been behind him for the wrong reasons.

Last week was beyond bizarre: Impeachment. War. Sex. As the second impeachment in history slowly turned inevitable, the President changed the channel by attacking Iraq.

Next, Speaker-to-be and Clinton-chaser Bob Livingston was forced to confess his extramarital trysts. Then he outed himself out of Congress, rather than remain a poster boy for the family-values- frothing GOP. (Livingston joined the ranks of such libertine Republican leaders as Henry Hyde, who admitted having an affair, J.C. Watts, who fathered a child out of wedlock, Dan Burton, who during an affair sired a child as well and Helen Chenoweth, who dabbled with a married man.)

Shortly after Livingston bailed, as bombs were falling on Baghdad, Rep. Tom DeLay, the Republican whip, praised Livingston as a great American, asserted that impeachment (which has cost the GOP two speakers, so far) must go forward, and proclaimed that "this is God's country and I know He will bless America." If this is indeed God's country, the almighty must be a practical joker.

Don't divide the nation in a time of crisis, the libs warned. We cannot afford to have a liar leading us in a time of crisis, the cons replied. But what crisis? This was a push-button war. Several dozen military personnel on jet fighters may have Mached in and out of harm's way, but the troops were mostly technocrat-warriors who dispatched cruise missiles from explosion-free safety. CNN's dramatic "nightscope" shots of downtown Baghdad may have produced feelings of anxiety among the video-consumers of this clean war and made it seem as if the United States was up against some green-hued netherland of evil, but there was nothing for us at home to worry about. Unless you cared about dead and injured Iraqis and the exercise of excessive presidential power.

Clinton's Hail-Mary attack screwed up everybody. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, a hawk, at first came out sounding like a peacenik-symp. And as Clinton's bombers prepared for Day Two, Jesse Jackson led an anti-impeachment rally in front of the Capitol that morphed into Clinton boosterism. From the stage, a preacher called for "justice and mercy and grace and forgiveness" regarding Clinton, and he attacked the "mean-spiritedness" of the Republican impeachers.

But what of the air strikes? There were no shouts of protest from the stage, nothing of Clinton's mean-spiritedness. Most of the crowd had been turned out by black churches and unions, and demonstrators held signs reading, "Protect the Constitution" and "We Are All For Clinton."

Bronx Rep. Jose Serrano, a Democrat, declared, "We are not going to lose our president." Jackson echoed the sentiment: "Give us back our president." Paragon of virtue Al Sharpton, flashing a beaming smile, sat among the luminaries throughout the event. (He had the best line of the day. In criticizing impeachment as overkill, he shouted, "You don't take a sledgehammer to kill a cockroach.") Rep. Bob Borski, a Democrat from Philadelphia, shouted, "This is not about Bill Clinton. It is about who he represents... He represents Social Security. He represents education. He represents basic civil liberties."

What were these people thinking? Clinton was waging war without consulting Congress or gaining the backing of the UN -- and they were praising and embracing him. ("Why do Americans embrace Bill Clinton?" Jackson asked. "Because they embrace the Bill Clinton that is within them." Sounds like this issue is very personal for the reverend.) And Social Security? The same ones who were cheering Clinton have been huddling for weeks in fear that Clinton will act on his desire to privatize part of Social Security. In fact, those fretting that bipartisan Social Security "reform" will weaken the program and enrich Wall Street money managers can find solace in impeachment: If there is government paralysis or bad blood between Clinton and congressional Republicans, the prospects for a lousy Social Security deal diminish. Progressives worried about Clinton and Social Security might want to cheer on impeachment.

And what was all this our president stuff? Clinton broke with the unions on NAFTA, GATT and China. He appears, comfortably, at Congressional Black Caucus galas but didn't listen to his CBC pals regarding the welfare bill or Rwanda. He wouldn't move on Haiti until Randall Robinson of TransAfrica waged a hunger strike. And let's not forget Lani Guinier.

Or Clinton's support for more wasteful Pentagon spending. Yet speakers at the rally proclaimed that his agenda was their agenda. This is one symptom of impeachment-stress disorder: the confusion of strategic alliances and tactical commonality with actual affinity. The main impulse driving the demonstration was the proposition that the enemy (Clinton) of my enemy (right-wing Republicans) is my comrade. Such thinking, natural as it may be for besieged communities that have cause to fear the radical right, can be dangerous, especially if one takes it so far one loses perspective on the enemy's enemy.

Clinton's ill-scheduled raid was an unacknowledged embarrassment for his defenders on the left. Last Tuesday, at Harvard, Robert Reich and Alan Dershowitz joined others to denounce the impeachment drive. (Clinton has on his side the fellow who championed O.J. Simpson, Mike Tyson and Claus von Bulow.) At NYU, academician Sean Wilentz, Toni Morrison, Alec Baldwin and other liberals banded together. In Los Angeles on Wednesday, Barbra Streisand, Rob Reiner and Norman Lear appeared at a lackluster rally. Jack Nicholson pronounced Clinton a "compassionate" man.

Only in Hollywood. Ask the Rwandans, the immigrants deported without due process or the people on death row about Clinton's compassion. In a wonderful media free-association, The Washington Post article on the celebrities- against- impeachment event was placed next to a profile of Denis Halliday, the former UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq. He resigned in September to protest the sanctions against Iraq that have led to the deaths of 239,000 children under the age of five (the conservative estimate). "We are knowingly killing kids," Halliday notes, "because the United States" -- he could easily say, Clinton -- "has an utterly unsophisticated foreign policy." Send that clip to Jack.

Here's an intriguing question: Which is the greater threat to the Constitution? A partisan impeachment vote against a scoundrel who has been pilloried for the wrong transgression, or against a president's use of life-taking force in a non-emergency situation that is not sanctioned by Congress or the UN? Are Wilentz, Jackson, Morrison, et al., griping as vociferously against the latter as the former? If not, then let's start up a new outfit: Leftists for Warmongers.

Of course, not all anti-impeachers are pro-Clintonites. But Monicagate and impeachment mania have pushed many to the edge. Republicans in the House have absurdly equated Clinton's prevarications about his personal improbity with presidential lies about break-ins and secret wars. Across the divide, many of those who have argued against impeachment have denied the reality of Clinton's misdeeds, some claiming errantly that the scandal is only about sex (not lies) and that the President is a victim of an ill-defined phenomenon dubbed "sexual McCarthyism." Blinded by the troubling excesses and inanities of Kenneth Starr and his GOP cheerleaders, Reps. Maxine Waters and Bobby Scott, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, could not bring themselves even to support censuring Clinton.

And in the other corner, the Republicans are crazy. "As an American," a Democratic staffer on the House Judiciary said before the vote, "I am saddened and pissed off that impeachment is happening; as a Democrat I am happier than a hog in shit. This plays into the stereotype. They're mean, and they're extreme." He had a point: What's more extreme than impeachment?

A few blips in the polls last week provided the pro-impeachers slight cause for optimism, yet the GOP remains on a dangerous course. Republicans nervously argued that by the next election the impeachment vote would be long forgotten. That's difficult to see.

On Thursday, Trent Lott said that there would be no censure deal in the Senate and that a trial would occur. Should that come to pass, a trial could stretch into next summer. The event should be memorable enough to leave an impression with most voters. Moreover, will George W. and the rest of the GOP presidential contenders want to have to answer questions about the Republican impeachment drive through at least the first half of 1999? (Dismiss it and you anger Republican party activists; support it and you could alienate voters in the general election.) The impeachment trial spectacle will define either Clinton or the Republicans, perhaps both.

Republicans have done all they could to dumb down the impeachment debate, which, granted, few Democrats wanted to see conducted on serious-minded grounds. It is not nutty to assert that if a president undermines the right of a citizen to pursue a lawsuit (even a baseless one) or if he violates his oath before a grand jury, then impeachment is worth consideration. That doesn't mean, however, the President ought to be beheaded for his Monica-related sins. But the GOPers foolishly put known liars at the head of the charge -- remember Newt Gingrich? They exploited rather than explored Starr's over-the-top report. They relied on Starr's evidence without conducting a true inquiry. They displayed more glee than deliberation. Instead of crafting a serious and somber national conversation, the Republicans focused on silly matters.

Why all the handwringing over Clinton's contrition? A president who has done something truly impeachable shouldn't be allowed to apologize his way out of a jam. Would the 1974 House Judiciary Committee have been right to drop everything had Richard Nixon confessed and begged for forgiveness? ("Sorry...I am a crook?")

With Livingston's confession of adultery, the party of anti-Clinton outrage appeared more hypocritical than ever, even if Clinton's problem is technically not infidelity but inaccurate testimony. And there may be other GOP values-pushers to fall. (The White House is not behind this. Follow the money: Larry Flynt's offer of up to $1 million for evidence of congressional philandering has loosened many a tongue.)

As the Republican Party becomes known as the party of fornication and broken vows, it will have a tougher time pursuing its crusade against Clinton and arguing that he cannot be trusted. Yet the GOP is blind to its own foolishness. After Livingston delivered his first come-clean speech, Watts, who won't say whether he provided financial support for his out-of-wedlock daughter, hailed the remarks, which were designed to preempt media stories about his catting around, as evidence Livingston was accepting "personal responsibility." But Livingston told the truth only because Hustler was on his heels. These guys are clowns -- phony moralists -- and the public may catch on.

Perhaps in a better world what Clinton did should be an impeachable offense. But Washington is a culture of lies. In such a land, Clinton's Lewinsky falsehoods do not seem serious enough to warrant upending a national election, especially when many of the upenders are miscreants in their own right. Alas, the whole affair has befuddled partisans and prompted sloppy thinking in all quarters.

During the impeachment debate, Democratic House Whip David Bonior declared on the floor: "There is something about the whole process that shows a lack of judgment, a lack of proportionality, a lack of common sense." Bonior was slamming the Republicans' handling of the impeachment vote and their bully-like denial of the opportunity to vote for censure. But he could have been speaking about the whole sordid, sorry shebang. Monica has driven many mad. Some of her victims vote to impeach; others sacrifice principles for political positioning. And one launches air strikes that kill.