Rep. Bob Barr
Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., is the
id of the Republican Congress, the rage beneath its tense smiles. Republican
leaders cower at Clinton's poll numbers, too fearful even to whisper what they
call "the I-word." Barr, meanwhile, is furiously pushing impeachment. For the
past year, the second-term representative has been shouting out loud what many
of his GOP colleagues only think: that Clinton has betrayed the public trust,
that he has corrupted the White House, that he's deeply sleazy, and that he
should go.
In
November, long before Monica, Barr introduced a resolution to open a
congressional impeachment inquiry: Clinton, reads its text, "has engaged in a
systemic effort to obstruct, undermine, and compromise ... the executive
branch." And since Clinterngate broke, Barr has been in a state of high gloat.
He's now preparing articles of impeachment and happily adding obstruction of
justice and perjury to his list of Clintonian high crimes.
Barr has become what the Gingrich Congress was supposed to
be. After the 1994 Republican revolution, tough tactics and rabid conservatism
were expected to replace give-and-take and moderation. But when Clinton
outflanked them and Gingrich's ethics problems embarrassed them, even the
party's most intransigent ideologues learned the necessity of compromise. Barr,
one of 73 members of the legendary "freshman class" of 1994, seized the
opening. He had campaigned as a run-of-the-mill anti-tax, pro-family,
rock-solid conservative. As the Gingrich crew weakened, Barr repositioned
himself. The GOP leaned left toward Clinton, Barr went right. He advanced
himself as the spokesman for the abandoned conservative fringes, as an
entrepreneur of right-wing anger.
Barr can
afford it. He has one of Congress' safest seats. His west Georgia district used
to be represented by the head of the John Birch Society, and it voted for Pat
Buchanan in 1996. You can't be too conservative for the Seventh District,
though Barr is giving it a good try. He has attached himself to the usual list
of silly far-right causes: no U.S. troops under U.N. command, a two-thirds
majority to raise taxes, a flag-burning amendment, etc. But Barr's real genius
has been igniting nasty fires over issues that Republican leaders would rather
ignore. He is more than willing to embarrass party leaders over matters of
principle. In 1996, for example, the twice-divorced Barr drafted the so-called
Defense of Marriage Act banning gay marriage. Barr forced a reluctant GOP
leadership to move the bill by whipping up support among conservative
Christians. With his usual light touch he blasted "homosexual extremists" and
their "deviant way of life." ("The flames of hedonism, the flames of
narcissism, the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very
foundation of society.") The bill passed.
Barr, the only member of Congress whose
fondness for guns exceeds the National Rifle Association's, also led the
attempt to repeal Clinton's assault-weapons ban. The GOP brass wanted to leave
the ban alone: There is little upside to endorsing semiautomatic weapons. But
Barr's grandstanding threatened to mobilize the gun nuts against the party, so
Gingrich let the bill go to a floor vote.
On impeachment, too, Barr is
happy to buck his party and speak for Clinton-haters. (Philosophy: Extremism in
pursuit of Clinton is no vice.) Besides introducing his resolution, Barr
published a law-review article on the history of impeachment and Clinton's
fitness for it, and wrote a glowing foreword to R. Emmett Tyrrell's The
Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton . Since Clinterngate broke, Barr
has been Capitol Hill's hottest interview. All this has played brilliantly
among those irked by the GOP's silence on impeachment. "He's a hero among
conservatives who have felt abandoned by the Republican Party. He's almost the
only one in the House who is thought of kindly," says Larry Klayman, chairman
of the conservative legal-rights group Judicial Watch and fellow
impeachment-phile.
(Barr,
like many cultural conservatives, is flummoxed by America's continued affection
for the president: "If the poll results are true and Americans really don't
want their leaders to be held personally accountable, then we are in pretty sad
shape as a country," he says.)
Barr has the temperament of a Grand Inquisitor--a moralist
in a rationalist's body. Barr is a former U.S. attorney, and his prosecutorial
zeal is notorious. He interrogates hostile (read "liberal") witnesses with a
chilliness that astonishes congressional staffers. He never smiles when a frown
will do, never skips a chance to seize the moral high ground. At a recent
hearing on partial-birth abortion, Barr told a pro-choice witness that she and
her allies were "very hardened, very cold, very callous ...[and] have
developed, I'm sad to say, a moral blind spot."
Democrats say exactly the
same thing about Barr himself. The family-values defender is not only
twice-divorced but has also been sued for child support. He was also once
photographed licking whipped cream off a buxom woman's breasts. It was at a
charity fund raiser, he says, and he did it to raise $200 for leukemia
research.
Part of
the Democrats' dislike of Barr undoubtedly stems from annoyance with his
persistence and effectiveness. But part of it is personal. Even his admirers
admit he's "dour" and "humorless." (His enemies use words like "mean" and
"heartless.") House Judiciary Committee staffers can't recall a single occasion
on which Barr cooperated with Democrats. During last month's State of the Union
address, every member of Congress, Republican and Democratic, rose repeatedly
to give Clinton standing ovations. Except Bob Barr: He sat, glaring and silent,
through the entire speech.
It would be a mistake to confuse Barr's skill
at setting fires with real power. He has gathered only 20 co-sponsors for his
impeachment resolution, almost all of them GOP wing-nuts. (One, Rep. Sam
Johnson, R-Texas, has suggested that Clinton be court-martialed for his
treatment of Paula Jones. Another co-sponsor, Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho,
belongs to the black-helicopter school of government.) The Republicans who hold
real power keep Barr at a distance. House Rules Committee Chairman Gerald
Solomon, R-N.Y., has so far refused to schedule a hearing on Barr's resolution.
A spokesman for the Judiciary Committee scoffs at the idea that Barr will
introduce articles of impeachment to the committee. House Majority Leader Dick
Armey, R-Texas, has compared Barr to former Rep. Henry Gonzalez, the nuttiest,
most obsessive Democrat of the last generation. If impeachment hearings do
occur, it will be because Gingrich and his lieutenants favor them, not because
Barr does.
Barr, who's a champion
publicity hound, has national ambitions. During Clinterngate, some admirers
have begun comparing him to Newt Gingrich, his fellow Georgia Republican. Barr
throws Molotov cocktails from the back benches, just as Gingrich once did.
Gingrich rose to fame by destroying a powerful Democrat (House Speaker Jim
Wright); Barr is making his name by trying to topple Clinton. Gingrich rejected
the timidity of Republican leaders and held himself out as the true
conservative champion; so does Barr. Barr too may hope to ride right-wing
indignation to national power, but don't count on it. Gingrich may have been a
vicious partisan, but he is also sunny of temperament, cooperative, optimistic.
Barr is none of these: You can't rule Congress with a glower.
