In 1998, I was hot for impeachment. No one was hotter. I couldn’t stand the guy, I admit. And there were all those offenses: perjury, subornation of perjury, witness tampering, etc. (For years, I had all the offenses memorized.)
Above all, in some of our minds, there was the underlying offense (big phrase of the day). There was the moral turpitude (another big phrase). We conservatives were all about character in office at that time.
On December 19, the House Republicans impeached him. The cover of The Weekly Standard said, Their Finest Hour. I agreed entirely.
Quick autobiographical aside: The month before, I had moved from the Standard in D.C. to NR in New York.
In February, the Senate voted to acquit him. It was Republican-controlled; you need two-thirds.
A lot of people thought the impeachment had been Mickey Mouse, trivial, partisan. For a lie about sex. One of those people, of course, was Donald J. Trump. Years later, he thought George W. Bush should have been impeached — but not Clinton. He and Wolf Blitzer discussed this in 2008:
Blitzer: “Nancy Pelosi, the speaker?”
Trump: “Well, you know, when she first got in and was named speaker, I met her. And I’m very impressed by her. I think she’s a very impressive person. I like her a lot. But I was surprised that she didn’t do more in terms of Bush and going after Bush. It was almost — it just seemed like she was going to really look to impeach Bush and get him out of office, which, personally, I think would have been a wonderful thing.”
Blitzer: “Impeaching him?”
Trump: “Absolutely, for the war, for the war.”
Blitzer: “Because of the conduct of the war.”
Trump: “Well, he lied. He got us into the war with lies. And, I mean, look at the trouble Bill Clinton got into with something that was totally unimportant. And they tried to impeach him, which was nonsense.”
They did impeach him, of course. But the Senate acquitted him. No Democrat registered a “guilty” vote in that trial.
Impeachment is a political act, and everyone has a different idea of what an “impeachable” offense is. Everyone has his own “high crimes and misdemeanors.” What Donald Trump thinks is “totally unimportant” may be important to you, or me. Also, I think of a Lyle Lovett song: “. . . it may be no big deal to you / But it’s a very big deal to me.”
If you had been a House member in 1998, would you have voted to impeach Clinton? Would I have? Damn right. Or rather, I’m pretty sure. These days, I have a certain hesitation.
The American people knew what manner of man they had elected. If they didn’t know it in 1992, they certainly knew it by 1996. Would I have been right to overturn their choice? Not by myself, of course, but to vote for such an effort?
He was popular. Almost certainly, he would have been reelected in 2000, but for the Twenty-second Amendment. Remember, his vice president — less popular than he, and an inferior politician — won the popular vote. If not for the Twenty-second Amendment, Billy J. might be president yet today!
Nonetheless, House members have a right to conscience, and you might even say a duty to conscience. So, if conscience impels . . .
Yet to mention “conscience” feels quaint. These things are so tribal. Which jersey do you wear? The blue one or the red one? That probably determines what you think.
Democrats are hot to impeach President Trump. Republicans think it’s nonsense and witch-hunty and hoaxy. But if the shoe were on the other foot — if a Democratic president were dealing with the Ukrainians, or a Republican president had been dealing with Monica . . .
As with Clinton, people knew what they were voting for when they voted for Trump. He is as known a commodity as a commodity can be known. Would it be right to overturn the people’s vote? To annul their decision, so to speak?
To Trump voters, impeachment would look like a coup d’état. “They couldn’t beat him at the ballot box in 2016, and they won’t be able to beat him in 2020, so they’re trying to do it this way. Dirty pool.”
Unlike Clinton, Trump is set to face the electorate again. That event is right around the corner. The “presidential cycle” is already well underway. Democratic candidates have had several debates; there are even Republican challengers to Trump, though the GOP is canceling primaries, just to be sure. Why not have it out at the ballot box? The Senate is not going to convict the guy regardless.
Yet the House — all of whose members were duly elected, like Trump, and like the senators — has a right to conscience, if that word applies. And a right to politics. And that’s what impeachment comes down to (not improperly, you could say): politics.