The impeachment vote was a Christmas present from the Republican Right
in the House to the Fundamentalists and Charismatics, but the issue goes
mush deeper than this. The Republicans in Congress, in thrall to the
Radical Christian Right, have refused for 6 years to consider the
appointemts of replacement federal judges nominated by Clinton who,
although they receive superior ABA ratings, do not pass the fundy litmus
tests (mainly on abortion, but also on a host of other issues, such as
separation of church and state, gender discrimination and sexual
orientation discrimination, to name a few); this even though for the 12
years previous an overwhelming majority of the Reagan and Bush
appointees were considered and approved. The shortages have gotten so
severe that the U.S. Supreme Court has publicly complained about
Congressional footdragging, an unprecedented event. By the millennium,
the Christian Right want to impeach first Clinton, then Gore (on
allegations of fundraising improprieties, like accepting donations from
Buddhist nuns instead of millions of church voter guides financed by the
700 Club), and install either a fundamentalist president, or someone so
beholden to or scared if them that he will do their bidding and appoint
droves of radical reactionary fubdamentalist Christian judges to carry
out a judicial social & cultural coup to follow their
legislative/special prosecutor coup of the executive branch and
radically Christianize America in preparation for the Second Coming,
regardless of either the Constitution or the desires of the majority of
the American people. At the very least, they want to tie up Congress
with the impeachment issue until Clinton's term of office is over so
that they do not have to consider his appointees, and hope for a
Republican president in Y2K who will nominate "their" kind of judges, to
dispense "their" kind of justice. Joe Dees
