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How "low" crimes and misdemeanors become "high"
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The president's conduct might be excusable anywhere else, but in the Oval Office, it is grounds for impeachment.

Let's begin with an unexpected concession to both sides: It's not about partisan politics. If the Republicans were acting from a desire to advance their party's interests, they would long ago have embraced the censure option and joined Democrats in condemning (and forever disgracing) the White House incumbent, earning themselves universal praise as "statesmen" in the process. Instead, they have defied 65-percent majorities in the polls, disapproval from the media, vitriolic scorn from their Democratic opponents and the prospect of defeat in the Senate in order to stand up for a principle -- that this president is unfit for office and should be removed.

Democrats, who are themselves proposing the formal condemnation of their leader, and who readily describe him as a reprehensible sinner and irresponsible cad, are nonetheless engaged in a desperate battle to prevent removal. From a purely partisan political view, however, impeachment is surely their most desirable option: Get Clinton out of the way as quickly as possible and bring in Al Gore, the heir apparent. This would position the party for the best possible shot at the White House in 2000. Instead, the congressional Democrats have shown a fierce and inexplicable loyalty to a man who has had no loyalty to them. In the course of his administration, Clinton has showed no hesitation in betraying some of their most cherished programs (welfare), cutting crucial deals (NAFTA, balanced budget) with their enemies and generally pursuing policies that can best be described as Republican lite.

Despite the offensive and often preposterous moral arrogance with which the Democrats have flayed their political opponents, it is difficult to pinpoint any clear principle that would explain their position. Of late, the flatulent rantings of party myrmidons Barney Frank, John Conyers and Maxine Waters have been distilled into the accusation that House Republicans are conducting a "political coup d'état." It is a phrase meant to convey the impression that the Republican House is seeking to overthrow the will of the voters and reverse the effects of two popular elections. Well, on such grounds no president could ever be impeached. But it is an even stranger charge coming from left-wingers who have never had a second thought about their impeachment of Richard Nixon, which reversed the elections of 1968 and 1972. The latter, by the way, was won by a larger majority than any Democrat has ever received. It is stranger still that people who fought on principle to reverse the will of a majority who supported the Vietnam War should have so little respect for Republicans trying to assert a moral principle in the face of adverse polls.

But this is only the beginning of what might be generously termed the Democratic hypocrisies in the current debates. Opponents of impeachment, like Elizabeth Holtzman, stress the harm that the process might inflict on the country. Excuse me? Wasn't it the Holtzman Democrats who launched the impeachment process over a third-rate burglary in the midst of a war? Is there any Democrat who has voiced second thoughts about the Watergate inquiries? Wasn't it an extreme step to terminate a president who had run the country well for six years and remained popular with the majority of the voting public until the moment his own party turned against him? Suppose that a few honorable Democrats were to step forward now to provide the concrete evidence of Clinton's obstructions of justice (as White House counsel John Dean did then) and to raise a nonpartisan voice in support of his removal (as Howard Baker and others did then) -- what do you think that would do to the current poll numbers?

N E X T+P A G E +| Who invented "sexual McCarthyism" if not Democrats?