The Republicans tried to replicate that effort with their impeachment of Bill Clinton, but that campaign never quite impacted the same way. Everyone knew by then about Paula Corbin Jones and the zipper, Kathleen Willey and the pawing, Monica Lewinsky and the cigar … and the dress … and the stain. Yet the Clinton affair was marked by the unexpected drama that came when an honest politician in Washington arose on the Senate floor, Democrat Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, and spoke truth to power, giving voice to the shame of a nation. That was it, but it was something.
The Senate never was going to convict Clinton. Those in the House who instigated the impeachment all paid a steep price, and the Republicans lost their momentum. Yes, Clinton had lied under oath, and he even had to be disbarred in Arkansas — but, at the end of the day, the revelation that a married man had denied having an extramarital affair just did not measure up to, say, a standard that had been set previously when a sitting President appeared to have covered up a felony and paranoiacally had wiretapped his own White House to record his own private conversations with most everyone. Nixon had microphones installed in the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, the Lincoln Sitting Room, his Executive Office Building office, and even in the Aspen Lodge at Camp David.
The Nixon Impeachment was supposed to happen again that same way this time with Nancy Pelosi reliving the historicity of her youth and with Adam Schiff taking down the high and mighty in the manner of Edward R. Murrow. But it has fizzled. There is no John Dean. There is no high crime or misdemeanor. Perhaps a moment we all remember from the Nixon hearings was when Presidential aide Alexander Butterfield was asked whether the President had recordings. Butterfield responded: “I’m sorry you asked. But, yes, there was a taping system that taped all...
Read More HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment