| If the Watergate standard had been applied to my case, there would have been no impeachment
This was about power, about something the House Republican leaders did because they could, and because they wanted to pursue an agenda I opposed and had blockedI have no doubt that many of their supporters out in the country believed that the drive to remove me from office was rooted in morality or law, and that I was such a bad person it didnt matter whether or not my conduct fit the constitutional definition of impeachabilityBut their position didnt meet the first test of all morality and just law: The same rules apply to everyoneAs Teddy Roosevelt once said, no man is above the law, but no man is below the law either
In the partisan wars that had raged since the mid-1960s, neither side had been completely blamelessI had thought the Democrats wrong to examine the movie tastes of Judge Bork and the drinking habits of Senator John TowerBut when it came to the politics of personal destruction, the New Right Republicans were in a class by themselvesMy party sometimes didnt seem to understand power, but I was proud of the fact that there were some things Democrats wouldnt do just because they could
Shortly before the House vote, Robert Healy wrote an article in the Boston Globe about a meeting that had occurred between Speaker Tip ONeill and President Reagan in the White House in late 1986The Iran-Contra story was out; White House aides John Poindexter and louis vuitton backpacks Oliver North had broken the law and lied about it to CongressONeill did not ask the President if he had known about or authorized the lawbreaking(Republican senator John Towers bipartisan commission later found that Reagan did know about it According to Healy, ONeill simply told the President that he would not permit an impeachment proceeding to go forward; he said he had lived through Watergate and wouldnt put the country through such an ordeal again
Tip ONeill may have been a better patriot than Gingrich and DeLay, but they and their allies were more effective in concentrating power and using it to whatever extent they could against their adversariesThey believed that, in the short run, might makes right, and they didnt care what they put the country throughIt certainly didnt matter to them that the Senate wouldnt remove meThey thought if they trashed me long enough, the press and the public would eventually blame me for their bad behavior, as well as for my ownThey badly wanted to brand me with a big I, and believed that for the rest of my life and for some time thereafter, the fact of my impeachment would loom far larger than the circumstances of it, and that before long no one would even talk about what a hypocritical farce the whole process had been, and how it was the culmination of years of unconscionable conduct by Kenneth Starr and his cohorts
Just after the vote, Dick Gephardt brought a large group of the House Democrats who had omega de ville men's watches defended me to the White House so that I could thank them and we could show unity for the battle aheadAl Gore gave a stirring defense of my record as President, and Dick made an impassioned plea to the Republicans to stop the politics of personal destruction and get on with the nations businessHillary commented to me afterward that the event almost had the feel of a victory rallyThe Democrats had stood up not just for me but, far more importantly, for the Constitution
I certainly hadnt wanted to be impeached, but I was consoled by the fact that the only other time it had happened, to Andrew Johnson in the late 1860s, there were also no high crimes and misdemeanors; just like this case, that was a politically motivated action by a majority party in Congress that couldnt restrain itself
Hillary was more upset about the partisan political nature of the House proceedings than I wasAs a young lawyer, she had served on John Doars staff for the House Judiciary Committee during Watergate, when there was a serious, balanced, bipartisan effort to fulfill the constitutional mandate of defining and finding high crimes and misdemeanors in the official actions of the President
From the beginning, I had believed that the best way to win the final showdown with the Far Right was for me to keep doing my job and let others handle the defenseDuring the proceedings in the House and Senate, thats what I tried to do, and many people told me they appreciated it
The cartier santos wit strategy worked better than it might haveThe release of the Starr report and the determination of the Republicans to proceed with impeachment brought with them a marked shift in the media coverageAs Ive said, the media was never a monolith; now even those who had previously been willing to give Starr a free ride began to point out the involvement of right-wing groups in the cabal, the abusive tactics of the OIC, and the unprecedented nature of what the Republicans were doingAnd the TV talk shows began to show more balance, as commentators like Greta Van Sustren and Susan Estrich, and guests like lawyers Lanny Davis, Alan Dershowitz, Julian Epstein, and Vincent Bugliosi made sure that both sides of the case were heardMembers of Congress also made the case, including Senator Tom Harkin, House Judiciary Committee members Sheila Jackson Lee, and Bill Delahunt, himself a former prosecutorProfessors Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago and Susan Bloch of Georgetown released a letter on the unconstitutionality of the impeachment process signed by four hundred legal scholars
As we headed into 1999, the unemployment rate was down to 4 percent and the stock market had rebounded to an all-time highHillary had hurt her back while making a Christmas visit to employees in the Old Executive Office Building, but it was getting better, after her doctor told her to stop wearing high heels on the hard marble floorsChelsea and I decorated the tree and went on our cheap chanel bags for sale annual Christmas shopping spree
My best Christmas presents that year were the expressions of kindness and support from ordinary citizensA thirteen-year-old girl from Kentucky wrote me to say that Id made a mistake, but I couldnt quit, because my opponents were meanAnd an eighty-six-year-old white man from New Brunswick, New Jersey, after telling his family he was going to Atlantic City for the day, instead rode the train to Washington, where he took a cab to the Reverend Jesse Jacksons houseWhen he was greeted by Jesses mother-in-law, he told her he was there because the Reverend Jackson was the only person he knew of who talked to the President, and he wanted to send me a message: Tell the President not to quitI was around when the Republicans tried to destroy Al Smith [our presidential nominee in 1928] for being a CatholicHe cant give in to themThe man got back in his cab, returned to Union Station, and took the next train homeI called that man to say thank youThen my family and I went to Renaissance Weekend and into the new year
O n January 7, Chief Justice William Rehnquist officially opened the impeachment trial in the Senate, and Ken Starr indicted Julie Hiatt Steele, the Republican woman who wouldnt lie to back up Kathleen Willeys story
A week later, the House impeachment managers made a three-day presentation of their caseThey now wanted to call witnesses, something they hadnt done in their own hearings, with the exception of Kenneth gucci laptop bags Sta |
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