Just Say No
Every meeting of the House
Judiciary Committee about the Lewinsky impeachment inquiry ends with the same
bizarre ritual. The Democrats go to the nearest microphone, call the
committee's conduct of the inquiry unfair, and accuse the Republicans of
partisan warfare. Then the Republicans step before the same microphone, deny
that the inquiry is partisan, and insist that everyone is getting along. "No,
we're not," say the Democrats. "Yes, we are," snap the Republicans.
It's not
hard to figure out who's going to win this fight. Politics, like litigation and
sports, is stacked in favor of the defense. In football, it's far easier to
disrupt an 80 yard drive than it is to sustain it. In soccer, one good tackle
ruins a brilliant sequence of passes. In a criminal trial, one slick
cross-examination of a state's witness can plant enough doubt to hang the jury.
And in Congress, every eruption of "partisanship" or "unfairness," whether real
or manufactured, bleeds away the institutional credibility necessary to impeach
the president.
The conservatives who dominate today's GOP don't like to
view politics this way. Cursed with a combination of irrational idealism and
irrational narcissism, they insist on interpreting public opinion and behavior
in ideological terms. On ABC's This Week a few days ago, Weekly
Standard Editor and Publisher Bill Kristol argued that the politics of the
impeachment inquiry "reminds me of 1994. It was four years ago on this date
that the Republicans announced the Contract With America, and the consensus in
Washington was ... Republicans [had] overreached." Critics of the GOP were
mistaken then and are mistaken now, Kristol suggested. "The underlying tide, I
think, is anti-Clinton."
Of course,
hardly anyone who voted in 1994 knew what was in the Contract With America. The
contract was designed not to win the election but to spin it, by inflating an
essentially negative referendum on Clinton and his health care reform plan into
an affirmative referendum on the conservative agenda. The public wasn't
endorsing conservatism when it threw out the Democrats in 1994, any more than
it was endorsing liberalism when it turned against the GOP's proposals for
Medicare reform in 1995 and 1996. It was just saying no.
In recent polls, Americans have essentially
said no to the question "Should Clinton's behavior be tolerated?" But once
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr released his oversexed report and Republicans
in Congress began parlaying it into impeachment proceedings, the question
changed to "Should he be impeached?" Again, Americans said no--not because they
love Clinton or his agenda, but because they don't trust the impeachment
process any more than they trust national health insurance. Democrats in
Congress are deliberately and successfully exacerbating that mistrust.
Some
Republicans understand this strategic disadvantage but mistakenly think that
House Speaker Newt Gingrich is the problem. They propose that House Majority
Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, replace Gingrich as the GOP's high profile "bad cop."
But no matter who becomes the "bad cop," Democrats will attack him, and the
media, always hungry for conflict, will flock to the fight. Other Republicans
console themselves by noting that some Democrats will vote for a formal
impeachment inquiry. They're missing the point: The longer the inquiry drags
on, the more it will invite resentment, acrimony, and backlash. Conversely,
some Democrats worry that by accusing Gingrich and the GOP of bias, Clinton's
allies are making a nonimpeachment deal more difficult. But who says Clinton
really wants a deal? From a purely political standpoint, now that he's
confident he won't be convicted in the Senate, his best move might be to let
the GOP antagonize more and more voters by marching all the way to an
impeachment vote.
Recognizing the futility of arguing with the Democrats,
House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., has begun to yield to their
demands. He agreed to send a bipartisan staff delegation to inspect documents
Starr withheld from Congress (which Democrats suspect may include exculpatory
evidence), ordered a hearing to address the Democrats' query on what
constitutes an impeachable offense, and endorsed the idea of giving the
Democrats subpoena power. The Democrats "would like to make process, procedure
... the issue," Hyde observed. "We are doing our level best to be credible. If
we aren't credible, what we do amounts to nothing."
Hyde's
accommodations are noble but futile. The Democrats can always find further
"unfairness" and "partisanship" to complain about. No sooner had Hyde announced
his concessions than Democrats amended their objections: The hearing on
impeachable offenses should have been at the committee level, they argued, and
the delegation to examine Starr's records should include committee members
themselves, not just staff. "These are concessions, no question," admitted Rep.
Barney Frank, D-Mass. "But it's still not bipartisanship."
The Democrats will be satisfied only if the
inquiry is transformed so thoroughly that the GOP no longer stands to gain from
it. Democrats would like to investigate Linda Tripp's encouragement of the
alleged quid pro quo in which Monica Lewinsky supposedly secured help in her
job search in exchange for submitting a false affidavit denying her affair with
Clinton. They'd like to investigate Tripp's taping of Lewinsky as well as
Starr's use of those tapes to launch his investigation. A federal grand jury
recently questioned conservative mogul Richard Mellon Scaife in connection with
alleged witness tampering by Clinton's enemies in Starr's Whitewater
investigation. Democrats won't shut up about partisanship unless Republicans
agree to include those matters in the inquiry. And at that point, from a
Republican standpoint, the inquiry isn't worth it.
So how do
the Republicans break through the Democrats' defense and carry the ball into
the end zone? The cynical answer is: They don't. They punt or fumble, and the
Democrats carry the ball the other way. Indeed, the Democratic counteroffensive
has already begun. Bill and Hillary Clinton are on the campaign trail, accusing
Republicans of substituting partisan impeachment proceedings for legislation to
address the nation's ills. Clinton ally James Carville is conferring with
liberal activists about a nationwide ad campaign to bolster Clinton and
denounce Republicans for bogging down Congress in "scandal, cynicism, and
partisanship." Eventually, the Democrats will overreach again, and the public,
ever wary, will turn against them. It's not about ideology. It's about
cautiousness.
Recent
"Frame Games"
The GOP's Gamble:
Why the Republicans will save Clinton by destroying themselves. (posted
Friday, Sept. 25, 1998)
The Unjust War: Clinton's
moral theory, point by point, as expressed in his testimony. (posted Monday,
Sept. 21, 1998)
