-Caveat Lector- >From Int'l Herald Tribune Paris, Monday, December 21, 1998 What Happens Now? The Political Path Is Uncertain ------------------------------------------------------------------------ By R.W. Apple Jr. New York Times Service ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WASHINGTON - The only thing certain now is uncertainty. The smart money shouts that President Bill Clinton will never resign, and he concurs. The smart money argues that the Senate could not muster the 67 votes that would be needed to remove the wounded president from office, which would require the defection of 12 Democrats if all the Republicans stand against him. The smart money insists that someone will cut a deal to end all this. Maybe so. But the smarter money whispers, ''Remember.'' Remember that everyone in Washington, including Representative Henry Hyde, Republican of Illinois, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the House would never, ever, treat impeachment as a partisan issue. Wrong. Remember that all the pundits predicted Democratic losses in the midterm elections, and when the opposite happened, they said impeachment was dead. Twice wrong. And remember that in the New Year the nation may travel down a road it has never traveled before. One other president, Andrew Johnson, has been tried by the Senate, of course. But that happened more than a century ago in a different country -one with only 37 states, with primitive communications, with a simple economy based largely on agriculture, with only minimal commitments abroad. In the toxic politics of century's end in Washington, the inconceivable has become the commonplace. The wholly unexpected announcement Saturday morning by Representative Bob Livingston, Republican of Louisiana, that he would not serve as speaker and would resign from Congress, following his equally unexpected disclosure on Thursday night of several extramarital affairs, only deepened the capital's profound sense of insecurity. The deadly sweep of the scythe of neo-puritanism appears unstoppable, at least for the moment, and Mr. Livingston's forthcoming resignation will increase the pressure on the president to do likewise. ''You've set before us an example,'' the leader of House Republican majority, Representative Dick Armey of Texas, told Mr. Livingston on Saturday. ''The example is that principle comes before power.'' The Democrats made the opposite point, arguing that the Livingston case showed how very wrong it was to savage people for personal pecaddillos. One transcendently important thing remains the same: Although surrounded by judicial trappings and presided over by the chief justice, trials of presidents are political processes, with power residing in the hands of elective politicians. In addition to narrow legal issues of guilt or innocence, they can weigh considerations of party, the nation's future, their own individual political well-being and almost anything else they care to weigh in reaching a verdict. The longer they took, the more numerous the calls for resignation would probably be. Even before Saturday's epochal roll-calls, 4 of 10 Americans interviewed in the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll said they thought the president should step down if he were to be indicted, even though a large majority voiced disapproval of the impeachment proceedings. What lies behind that seeming contradiction, of course, is the fear that Mr. Clinton, and the country with him, will be incapacitated. No one took Andrew Johnson very seriously after he escaped conviction by a single vote. But Mr. Clinton, a man of powerful will whose life has been a series of comebacks, has already embarked on an effort to show that he can do the nation's business. Richard Nixon clawed his way back to respectability after leaving the White House when no one thought he could; Mr. Clinton intends to re-establish his authority while still in office. He has one great advantage: Two-thirds of the American public continues to voice its approval of his political stewardship, whatever people think of him as a man. The president will press hard, despite his much-reduced leverage, for a deal on censure. Indeed, in as fine a piece of political irony as one could ask for, he has already sought to enlist former Senator Bob Dole, the Republican he defeated in 1996, as an emissary to the Senate majority. The numbers are not unpromising: with the help of 6 Republicans, the 45 Democrats could end the trial at any time and pass a censure resolution that the House would surely take up. It is clear that Mr. Clinton's reputation has been stained forever, no matter what the Senate does. History will remember this man who so coveted a glowing legacy not as an impresario of economic growth, not as the Moses who pointed the way to the 21st century, but as the second president ever to be impeached, if not as the first to be ousted. That harsh word, ''impeachment,'' will cling to his name as surely as ''Teapot Dome'' clings to Warren Harding's and ''Depression'' to Herbert Hoover's. But he is not alone in having suffered grievous injury in the political avalanche that was shaken loose by the disclosure of Mr. Clinton's sexual relationship with a former intern, Monica Lewinsky. The Republicans' public support has shriveled to 40 percent in the new Times/CBS News Poll, its lowest level in 14 years, and it could go lower once the fact of impeachment sinks in. Journalists are seen by many as jackals, indifferent to whatever personal suffering or national angst they may cause and none too concerned about accuracy. In fact, the whole political culture of the 1990s, with its criminalization of political conduct and its seeming indifference to important national and international issues, has fallen into disrepute with Americans. If some of the threats and dire predictions uttered by House Democrats in recent days are to be taken at face value, the nation is entering an Era of Bad Feelings, the polar opposite of a second Era of Good Feelings, similar to that of the 1820s, that Mr. Clinton had hoped to preside over. But amid all the loose talk about permanent damage to this institution or that, remember: Things change with startling speed in modern American politics, and the institutions of American government have proved extraordinarily resilient. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Paris, Monday, December 21, 1998 White House Hopes That Senators Will Warm to Censure ------------------------------------------------------------------------ By Helen Dewar and Ceci Connolly Washington Post Service ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WASHINGTON - With the impeachment battle lost in the House, President Bill Clinton is voicing hope that the Senate will embrace censure, but the prospect of reaching the kind of compromise preferred by the White House faces a variety of political and logistical hurdles. White House aides said over the weekend that they hoped some kind of censure compromise might be worked out over the next several weeks, though they cautioned that there were limits to what they would accept. And if negotiations are unsuccessful, one adviser said, Mr. Clinton intends to wage a vigorous defense that could take months. ''He's going to get his due,'' the Clinton adviser said. ''If this goes to trial, we're going to have a full trial, and we'll show what this whole thing has been about from day one.'' At least a half-dozen Republican senators say they are open to some kind of censure, underscoring how the idea seems to have more traction in the Senate than it did in the House. Senators are amenable to the idea because of the difficulty of getting the two-thirds majority needed to remove the president under the Constitution; Republicans hold a 55-to-45 advantage in the Senate, and few Democrats appear likely to push to convict Mr. Clinton. Senators of both parties also wish to avoid a contentious trial that could sour public opinion and cripple any hopes of approving major legislation. Some Republicans are worried that dragging out the process could damage the party politically. ''The Senate is the appropriate place to consider censure,'' said Senator William Frist, Republican of Tennessee, echoing the views of many members of both parties. ''Our role will be to either convict or not convict, but while that process is going on, consideration of alternative punishments should be discussed.'' The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Orrin Hatch of Utah, is also receptive to some other sanction if there is no chance of a two-thirds majority for conviction. ''We should take a hard count right at the beginning,'' Mr. Hatch said, adding that if there were 34 or more senators who would not vote to convict Mr. Clinton, then ''why put the country through this?'' But the situation is complicated because some senators believe that the U.S. Constitution requires a full-blown trial, and the Senate majority leader, Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, last week ruled out any ''deal-making'' early in the proceedings. ''Senators will be prepared to fulfill their constitutional obligations,'' Mr. Lott said Saturday after the House approved two articles of impeachment against Mr. Clinton. Mr. Lott said pretrial proceedings would not begin until after the Senate reconvened on Jan. 6. He said it was not possible yet to say when a trial would start. ''The timing will depend greatly on the president and his lawyers,'' Mr. Lott said, apparently reflecting concern among some Republicans that Mr. Clinton may try to drag out the preliminaries to build pressure for a negotiated deal. The Senate minority leader, Thomas Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota, called the impeachment vote a ''sad day for all Americans'' and rejected calls for Mr. Clinton's resignation. While ''the behavior of the president in this matter was deplorable'' and merits punishment of some kind, he said, ''we cannot allow any president - Republican or Democrat - to be forced from office by a party-line vote in the House of Representatives.'' Mr. Daschle said he was committed to a less partisan process in the Senate. Mr. Lott remains the crucial wild card. Strong-willed but prone to missteps, he was recently re-elected without opposition, and he generally gets his way with Senate Republicans. He has fought Mr. Clinton on many issues, most recently over the administration's policy on Iraq. But he has scrupulously avoided tipping his hand about his plans, except to say some time ago that a trial could be completed in ''three days to three weeks.'' Mr. Lott will be pulled two ways: by conservative allies who want a tough enough trial so that Mr. Clinton might be prompted to resign, and by the need felt by most Republicans, reinforced by the party's disappointing showing in the November elections, to produce dramatic legislative results on tax cuts, Social Security financing and other matters. If a deal is to be struck, many senators agree with the White House that the next two and a half weeks before Congress reconvenes will be crucial. The problem is that most senators believed until recently that the House would reject impeachment, and little of the critical political groundwork has been laid, according to several senators. On censure, the Clinton adviser said the president was prepared to accept some financial or other penalties, but that he was not willing to accept punishment that he believed would retrospectively deny legitimacy to his presidency. That means he would not agree to forgo a presidential pension or federal funds for a presidential library, as some have suggested. ''Don't think for a second he'd agree to that,'' said the adviser. Any trial would be virtually uncharted territory, the first time in 130 years that the Senate would be called upon to decide whether an impeached president should be convicted and removed from office. The Senate has 26 specific impeachment rules dating from the trial of President Andrew Johnson in 1868 and updated after the Watergate scandal. But there are important questions still to be addressed, such as what rules of evidence would be used in a trial, the burden of proof and what constitutes an impeachable offense. The chief justice of the Supreme Court, William Rehnquist, will preside and rule on questions of evidence, but a bare majority of 51 senators can overrule him. By those same 51 votes, the Senate could force an early vote on conviction, dismiss the charges or adjourn the trial and turn to consideration of other sanctions. In this context, pro-censure Republicans are critical because - if there are enough of them - they could combine with most, if not all, of the Senate's 45 Democrats to create a majority in favor of concluding the trial and drafting a resolution of censure. A major point of early dispute is when that moment might come. Some Democrats would like to see it occur either before a trial or, more likely, early in the process, and at least one Republican appears open to such an approach. ''I think there should be an opportunity for senators to consider and debate an alternative to a trial,'' said Senator Thad Cochran, Republican of Mississippi. Others do not want censure considered until after the trial starts, possibly well into the proceedings. Senator John Chafee, Republican of Rhode Island, said any censure resolution would ''have to include some kind of a penalty other than a scolding.'' Senator Gordon Smith, Republican of Oregon, wants to keep all options open while the trial proceeds. ''We should proceed with a trial and retain all potential remedies so we can select the one that is appropriate to the facts that the trial develops,'' he said. A consensus, he added, will ''emerge from the middle.'' ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A<>E<>R The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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