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Living In the Shadow of the Bomb Thrower

danps's picture
Submitted by danps on Fri, 09/12/2008 - 5:15am
Tags: 
executive power
congress

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

Tuesday marked the ten year anniversary of Independent Counsel (IC) Kenneth Starr sending the report of his investigation to the House. The deafening silence on the occasion speaks volumes. Why haven't Republicans marked it with great ceremony and made sure everyone had the chance to recognize their heroic defense of the Rule Of Law? Going to such great lengths and taking such extreme measures to attempt to rein in the rampant criminality of the Clinton administration had to have been a truly selfless act of public service, no?

Of course not. The fact that the right so studiously ignores mentioning anything about it is an implicit admission that it was a shrill, undignified, hyperpartisan snipe hunt that was undertaken out of pure spite. At this point no one seriously argues impeachment was warranted. It did, however, showcase one of emerging strategies by the GOP: Hopelessly politicize everything to do with government, and thereby render it useless. Grover Norquist's goal of drowning it might not have been realized, but it functions as poorly as if it had. Citizens increasingly do not expect it to act in their interest, and even question its ability to function in that capacity.

The IC law is as clear an example as you could ask for. Giving the legislature the power to delegate authority to an IC sounds like a good idea in principle. I understand the argument that Congress should not be delegating anything, but engaging in investigations directly. On the other hand it makes sense to be able to have someone outside the normal pressures of constituents and lobbyists to follow leads wherever they go. You could argue that the Democrats abused the statute and allowed Lawrence Walsh to go overboard with the Iran-Contra investigation, but again look at the circumstances. Congress forbade the Reagan administration from funding the Contras, so Reagan simply bypassed Congress and set up a shadow foreign policy - and one that involved selling weapons to the same people that had taken Americans hostage just a few years earlier. To me, that is exactly the kind of lawbreaking and abuse of power that an IC ought to be thoroughly examining.

The Republicans instead implemented a perverse concept of equivalence: When Democrats controlled Congress they had an IC running investigations, so logically when Republicans take over they get to have their own - regardless of merit. By the time Starr was finished everyone was perfectly happy to let the authorization lapse. There is an argument for reauthorization but in the current environment it would just repeat the cycle: Creation - politicization - cynicism - obsolescence.

Some people peg the problem back to 1988 and Lee Atwater's Willie Horton/pledge of allegiance brand of content-free campaigning, but to be fair we have a long history in that regard. I trace it to Newt Gingrich, possibly the single most damaging figure in American politics for the last twenty years. He started out simply as a back bencher, but the 1994 elections put him into an actual leadership role - and he was entirely unequipped for it. Remember, he campaigned not just on the Contract With America but on a list of words for his GOP colleagues to use while campaigning (and "'sick,' 'pathetic,' 'bizarre,' 'traitors' and 'corrupt' were some of the choicest"). He also compared Democrats to then-notorious child murderer Susan Smith. It went beyond making fun of foibles, focusing on trivial patriotism narratives or using anecdotal evaluations of policy. Instead he resorted to wholesale attacking the fundamental decency of an entire party by using the crudest terms and vilest comparisons. Unfortunately, becoming Speaker of the House did not moderate his behavior, and he continued to indulge in temper tantrums and breathtaking hypocrisy as though he was still doing nothing more than thunder before an empty chamber.

The undeniable success of his unrepentant demonization set the tone for what was to follow. Karl Rove would not have succeeded without Gingrich's precedent . And when his ideological cousins made it to the White House there was nothing left to hold back the worst excesses of their approach to governance. We have had the great misfortune of living in a time when the party in power believes that every tactic is acceptable and every event - even the most traumatic ones - are fodder to be used in the pursuit of electoral advantage. And we also have a perpetually timid opposition party that refuses to assert itself. Our system can deal with one but not both. Nothing can force restraint on the former or stiffen the spine of the latter. So until this entire generation of leadership is replaced, discussions on the working of government - on the relative value of a proposed reauthorization of the IC statute, for example - will necessarily be purely academic.

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bringiton's picture
Submitted by bringiton on

for the last twenty years."

Sounds like a contest to me. Not meaning to jack the thread, a wonderful and insightful post that I very much enjoyed reading, but one of these days it might be fun - no, that can't be the right word - how about instructive - to look over the rogue's gallery and choose the worst of the worst. I'll hold back for now, not wanting to start a stampede.

Thanks for this post, danps, an anniversary that certainly should be observed, no less harmful to the nation than 9/11, but why avoid harming the AP? They aren't fur-bearing creatures; I say, kick them in the ass, then skin 'em alive - metaphorically speaking, of course.

danps's picture
Submitted by danps on

Here's why. They are dead to me.

Feel free to hijack the thread. Another parlor game to spin off: Which current members of Congress voted for impeachment, and has anyone asked them if they still think it was a good idea?

Glad you enjoyed the post! There's plenty more at Pruning Shears.

danps's picture
Submitted by danps on

One thing I left as - I hope - a pretty clear implication in the post is that getting people talking about the Clinton impeachment will pretty quickly turn into a compare & contrast exercise with the current occupant. If we can get that conversation started we might see fireworks pretty quickly.

elixir's picture
Submitted by elixir on

of Bill and the categorizing of the onslaught as a "vast right wing conspiracy" was pretty much on point. Boy, I really miss the idea of Hillary as president and Bill travelling the world to improve the US' image. I guess the Bill part can still happen and Hillary can hit her stride in the senate. Maybe that's not such a bad scenario.

I love this job!

hobson's picture
Submitted by hobson on

Here's what one senator said as he voted to remove Clinton from office. Judge for yourselves. You can guess who it is:

Mr. Chief Justice, I intend to vote to convict the President of the United States on both articles of impeachment. To say I do so with regret will sound trite to some, but I mean it sincerely. I deeply regret that this day has come to pass.

I bear no animosity for the President. I take no partisan satisfaction from this matter. I don't lightly dismiss the public's clear opposition to conviction. And I am genuinely concerned that the institution of the Presidency not be harmed, either by the President's conduct, or by Congress' reaction to his conduct.

Indeed, I take no satisfaction at all from this vote, with one exception--and an important exception it is--that by voting to convict I have been spared reproach by my conscience for shirking my duty.

The Senate faces an awful choice, to be sure. But, to my mind, it is a clear choice. I am persuaded that the President has violated his oath of office by committing perjury and by obstructing justice, and that by so doing he has forfeited his office.

As my colleagues across the aisle have so often reminded me, the country does not want the President removed. And, they ask, are we not, first and foremost, servants of the public will? Even if we believe the President to be guilty of the offenses charged, and even if we believe those offenses rise to the level of impeachment, should we risk the national trauma of forcing his removal against the clearly expressed desire of the vast majority of Americans that he should not be removed even if he is guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice?

I considered that question very carefully, and I arrived at an answer by reversing the proposition. If a clear majority of the American people were to demand the conviction of the President, should I vote for his conviction even if I believed the President to be innocent of the offenses he is charged with? Of course not. Neither, then, should I let public opinion restrain me from voting to convict if I determine the President is guilty.

But are these articles of impeachment of sufficient gravity to warrant removal or can we seek their redress by some other means short of removing the President from office? Some of those who argue for a lesser sanction, including the President's able counsel, contend that irrespective of the President's guilt or innocence, neither of the articles charge him with high crimes and misdemeanors. Nothing less than an assault on the integrity of our constitutional government rises to that level. The President's offenses were committed to cover up private not public misconduct. Therefore, if he thwarted justice he did so for the perfectly understandable and forgivable purpose of keeping hidden an embarrassing personal shortcoming that, were it discovered, would harm only his family and his reputation, but would not impair our system of government.

This, too, is an appealing rationalization for acquittal. But it is just that, a rationalization. Nowhere in the Constitution or in the expressed views of our founders are crimes intended to conceal the President's character flaws distinguished from crimes intended to subvert democracy. The President thwarted justice. No matter how unfair he or we may view a process that forces a President to disclose his own failings, we should not excuse or fail to punish in the constitutionally prescribed manner evidence that the President has deliberately thwarted the course of justice.

I do not desire to sit in judgement of the President's private misconduct. It is truly a matter for him and his family to resolve. I sincerely wish circumstances had allowed the President to keep his personal life private. I have done things in my private life that I am not proud of. I suspect many of us have. But we are not asked to judge the President's character flaws. We are asked to judge whether the President, who swore an oath to faithfully execute his office, deliberately subverted--for whatever purpose--the rule of law.

All of my life, I have been instructed never to swear an oath to my country in vain. In my former profession, those who violated their sworn oath were punished severely and considered outcasts from our society. I do not hold the President to the same standard that I hold military officers to. I hold him to a higher standard. Although I may admit to failures in my private life, I have at all times, and to the best of my ability, kept faith with every oath I have ever sworn to this country. I have known some men who kept that faith at the cost of their lives.

I cannot--not in deference to public opinion, or for political considerations, or for the sake of comity and friendship--I cannot agree to expect less from the President.

Most officers of my acquaintance would have resigned their commission had they been discovered violating their oath. The President did not choose that course of action. He has left it to the Senate to determine his fate. And the Senate, as we all know, is going to acquit the President. As much as I would like to, I cannot join in his acquittal.

The House managers have made, and I believe some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would agree, a persuasive case that the President is guilty of perjury and obstruction. The circumstances that led to these offenses may be tawdry, trivial to some, and usually of a very private nature. But the President broke the law. Not a tawdry law, not a trivial law, not a private law.

The tortured explanations with which the President's attorneys have tried to defend him against both articles fail to raise reasonable doubts about his guilt. It seems clear to me, and to most Americans, that the President deliberately lied under oath, and that he tried to encourage others to lie under oath on his behalf. Presidents may not be excused from such an abuse no matter how intrusive, how unfair, how distasteful are the judicial proceedings they attempt to subvert.

The President's defenders want to know how can I be certain that the offenses, even if true, warrant removal from office. They are not expressly mentioned in the Constitution as impeachable offenses. Nor did the founders identify perjury or obstruction as high crimes or high misdemeanors. Were an ordinary citizen accused of perjury in a civil proceeding he or she would in all likelihood not be prosecuted or forced out of political necessity into a perjury trap.

No, an ordinary citizen would not be treated as the President has been treated. But ordinary citizens don't enforce the laws for the rest of us. Ordinary citizens don't have the world's mightiest armed forces at their command. Ordinary citizens do not usually have the opportunity to be figures of historical importance.

Presidents are not ordinary citizens. They are extraordinary, in that they are vested with so much more authority and power than the rest of us. We have a right; indeed, we have an obligation, to hold them strictly accountable to the rule of law.

Are perjury and obstruction of justice expressly listed as high crimes and misdemeanors? No. Why? Because they are self-evidently so. Just as the President is self-evidently the nation's chief law enforcement officer, despite his attorneys' quibbling to the contrary. It is self-evident to us all, I hope, that we cannot overlook, dismiss or diminish the obstruction of justice by the very person we charge with taking care that the laws are faithfully executed. It is self-evident to me. And accordingly, regretfully, I must vote to convict the President, and urge my colleagues to do the same.

hobson's picture
Submitted by hobson on

Of course it was McCain. I was going to put up some of Fred Thompson but it was as long as an entire season of Law and Order.

Many of them went out of their way to recap the more sordid details of the charges but the dominant theme of those who voted to remove Clinton from office was how he had undermined the rule of law.

It's insteuctive to read when you consider voting for the R's.