Henry Hyde's Last Harrumph

by David Corn

"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. Its 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 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."

Hyde and his 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, 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 on whether to keep the trial going with witnesses -- one can 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, but his principle is misplaced. One needn't 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.

There may be an argument that any lying -- in or out of a courtroom -- qualifies an officeholder for impeachment. The articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon whacked him for unsworn lies, yet principled Republicans did not shove politics aside and plea for impeachment when Ronald Reagan and George Bush prevaricated 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, didn't 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 wouldn't 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 self-righteousness and adorned with sky-is-falling moralistic hype.