Democratic Questions
Barkan, Joanne
For the past year the United States was immersed in the impeachment drama that finally ended in January. We have asked some thoughtful authors, most of them Dissent regulars, to reflect on key...
...A handful of votes seems like flimsy armor for democratic institutions...
...Presidents can no longer speak freely to lawyers and aides...
...We worked, sent children to I0 n DISSENT / Spring 1999 school, bought food, and slept with adequate security...
...Only a foolish cynic would claim that life went on because Americans were ignorant of or indifferent to impeachment...
...We counted all along on the Senate's sixty-seven-vote threshold to stop them...
...Pie-eyed with their own moralizing, junked-out on personal antipathy toward Clinton, they trampled legal protections, twisted precedents, and would have gladly demolished the separation of powers...
...And the other one-third of Americans...
...During that time, he couldn't capitulate to Republican pressure to privatize Social Security...
...THE YEAR of the Ex-intern will have concrete consequences, some good, some bad...
...Gergen misses the mark on both the 1974 pardon (but let's leave Watergate aside) and this year's ordeal...
...They all require endless cultivation...
...Will future presidents use dangerously furtive methods to shield themselves...
...No, two-thirds of them applauded the verdict...
...We don't know yet, but it looks nasty...
...In fact, the one benefit of the protracted trial was a common sense of closure when it finally ended...
...Finally, in the realm of custom rather than law, the pool of presidential candidates might be limited to certified monogamists for the foreseeable future...
...Speaking on a panel aired by C-SPAN, Gergen explained oh-so-gravely that the American people remain "deeply troubled" by Bill Clinton's lying...
...On the negative side, the right to privacy has suffered serious damage...
...Angry frustration, not profound angst, probably describes their feelings...
...Congress won't throw itself into such an effort again unless would-be impeachers can guarantee closer to sixty-seven votes in the Senate...
...Now everyone understands the peril of an openended mandate to investigate...
...EDS...
...Will the illiberal precedent affect citizens outside the White House...
...THE END of Bill Clinton's impeachment trial was a signal to the nation's varsity pundits—time to begin overall evaluations of l'affaire Monica...
...First, on the positive side, the Independent Counsel Statute, which loosed Ken Starr on the nation, comes up for renewal in late June...
...I base this optimistic prediction on the fact that, despite previous taboos, we elected as president an uncloseted Catholic and a cardcarrying divorce...
...I don't minimize the threat to Constitution and political institutions posed by Ken Starr and the Republicans in Congress...
...JOANNE BARKAN is a freelance writer living in New York City...
...Congress will either modify the law by limiting the powers of the independent counsel or let the statute die...
...Instead of Gergenesque mourning, a historically oriented moment of celebration seemed appropriate after the trial...
...they continue to separate Clinton's lying about a sexual liaison from his responsibilities as president...
...Americans had been able to go about the necessary business of everyday life during a long and serious political crisis...
...On the contrary, most Americans knew all the arguments as well as the pundits did and took positions early on...
...Yet everything that protects a democracy—freedom of the press, independent judiciary, reasonable public opinion, engaged citizenry—is fragile...
...Eventually, however, some lusty soul will break the fornication barrier...
...This smacks of a police state...
...Third, Democrats in Congress held Clinton's fate in their hands for many months...
...Their representatives fought hard to get rid of Clinton and lost...
...We have asked some thoughtful authors, most of them Dissent regulars, to reflect on key issues raised by this unpleasant moment in the country's history...
...Their words—even those overheard by Secret Service agents—can be used against them in court...
...We got grade-A closure as soon as William Rehnquist, presiding over the Senate trial, proclaimed the not-guilty verdict and banged the gavel...
...Most leftists cheered special prosecutors when they went after the Reagan administration during the Iran-Contra affair...
...let us hope that they won't let him wiggle out of his debt...
...The award for "most lugubrious wrap-up" goes to David Gergen...
...For Gergen, Watergate gets a higher rating for closure: Richard Nixon resigned, Gerald Ford pardoned him, people felt the system worked...
...THOUGHTS AFTER IMPEACHMENT Second (and contrary to early predictions), events have probably raised the standard—numerically, if not substantively—for launching impeachment proceedings...
...Are the American people—that mythic whole—deeply troubled...
...He still owes Democratic lawmakers for his acquittal...
...It doesn't hurt to recall now and then that "the orderly vote" isn't the species' primary mode of conflict resolution...
...Business as usual during a political conflict is a hallmark and a boon of democracy...
...they crave "closure," but the system failed to provide it...
...Who else would want to face the scrutiny...
Vol. 46 • April 1999 • No. 2
