Thursday, September 17, 1998

White House lawyers playing a foolish game

On the one hand, President Clinton is tearfully apologetic for the misdeeds that have landed him in such hot water, but on the other, he isn't. His lawyers continue to split hairs about whether he really committed perjury in a civil case deposition, and that's a way of denying transgressions the president simultaneously says he is sorry for. The president really ought to tell the lawyers to cut it out.

As Kenneth Starr's extraordinarily detailed report makes inescapably clear, Clinton lied in his testimony in the Paula Jones case. Everything he said added up to a denial that he ever did much more with Monica Lewinsky than thank her for the pizza she brought him. Even if in some finely shaved technical sense he was not committing perjury, that would be a mere demonstration of his legalistic cleverness. This man, the president of the United States of America, was telling a whopper, was telling it under oath and was telling it to save his hide.

The president's lawyers seem to think that clearing him of perjury - which is a dubious proposition even on their technical grounds - is tantamount to saving him from impeachment. They misconstrue the issue. The impeachment clause of the Constitution is written in purposely vague language to allow Congress to depose a sitting president when his actions are convincingly seen as seriously betraying his trust and jeopardizing the republic. If the president committed perjury, he has committed a felony, and no one should take that lightly. But the perjury, in and of itself, does not necessarily mean he should be ejected from office.

What could compel Congress to take the drastic step of unhinging the popular will and impeaching and then expelling this duly elected president is not the perjury or the other legal charges that are more difficult to prove, such as obstructing justice. Rather, it is a loss of credibility that would so hamper this president as to make it impossible for him to deal effectively with foreign and domestic issues that threaten national security and well-being.

At least conceivably, especially given his continued high job-approval rating in the polls, the president's admissions and his contrition can help restore some of his credibility, but not if he keeps urging his lawyers to play this other foolish game.