Sunday, November 29, 1998

House has no choice but to impeach

By WILLIAM A. RUSHER

Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

The House Judiciary Committee hearings still have a ways to go, but there is a sense that with the testimony of Kenneth Starr, the whole issue of the president's possible impeachment has at last reached its climax and is approaching its resolution.

There can be no question but that Starr's long day on the witness stand did his own reputation a world of good. It was bound to: More than a year of nonstop demonization by James Carville and the whole corps of White House mud-gunners, without any rebuttal at all, had driven his public approval rating down into almost the single digits. Now the American people have seen this monster in the flesh: good-natured, invariably polite and clearly determined to do an honorable job under extremely difficult circumstances.

Far more important, however, is what his testimony, and the Democratic response to it, effectively establishes concerning the president's behavior. Clinton not only committed serial perjury, but also conspired to obstruct justice, tampered with witnesses and gravely abused the high powers of his office. The Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, their counsel and David Kendall, the president's counsel, did not even bother to deny it. They spent their entire time trying, with very little success, to discredit Starr's investigation.

Now the question is what the Judiciary Committee, and the House, should do about this state of affairs (if anything). Under the Constitution, the House has the power to "impeach" the president for suitable cause, whereupon he must be tried by the Senate and, if two-thirds of its members concur, can be removed from office. Congress has no power to punish him in any other way.

But we are told "the American people," according to various polls, do not want him removed, apparently not regarding his conduct as affording suitable cause. Even the polls indicate this view is far from unanimous, and moreover it is clear that many of those polled might answer very differently if they were asked to assume it has been proved, not only that he had sex with Monica Lewinsky, but that he also committed perjury, obstructed justice, tampered with witnesses and abused his powers.

But let us assume, even then, a majority of the American people would oppose his removal from office. Let's assume they would stick to that view even if reminded that 115 people are in prison today for similar acts of perjury, in some cases about sex. What, then, is the obligation of the members of the House of Representatives?

Every one of them has sworn to uphold the Constitution, quite regardless of what the polls say the American people want. They are also politicians with a lively survival instinct, though that may cut two ways: None of them will face the voters again for two years. Despite such considerations, no member of Congress has any moral choice but to defend the rule of law as defined in the Constitution he or she has sworn to uphold.

Being human, and partisan to boot, they will interpret that obligation differently. Most Republicans (though reportedly not all) will vote to impeach. Most Democrats (though again perhaps not all) will oppose impeachment. Each member will have to live with that decision for the rest of his or her life. The result in the House is very much in doubt.

Many congressmen will feel perfectly comfortable voting for impeachment; indeed, they would feel acutely uncomfortable doing anything else. But many others, who claim not to believe an impeachable offense has been proved, badly want (and believe the American people want) some punishment for Clinton short of impeachment, however unwarranted by the Constitution: some reprimand or censure, perhaps accompanied by a fine. They not only want it; they will try to insist on it, for the sake of their consciences and the historical record.

The House Republican leadership should resist such a slap on the wrist (expungeable by the next Democratic House), or some fine to be paid by Clinton's wealthy friends. Every vote for impeachment will be a vote for truth, and the Constitution.

William A. Rusher is a Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy.