WHAT I SAW AT THE IMPEACHMENT

FERGUSON, ANDREW

WHAT I SAW AT THE IMPEACHMENT by Andrew Ferguson RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, TUESDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 8 At last! Finally! It's about damn time! The president has found a counsel who looks...

...You mean this was the . . . He stands up and points his finger...
...Point of order...
...He gives every impression of being a well-meaning fellow doing his darnedest to ensure that everybody just calms down, takes a deep breath, gives a fair reading of the evidence, plumbs his conscience, and then lets the boss off scot-free...
...Talk about contempt for the evidence...
...So we are on to yet another panel of experts—panels of experts being this committee's stock-in-trade—beginning with a pudgy Princeton historian named Sean Wilentz, whose area of expertise is condescension...
...So this is Greg Craig: a spokesman so nice they named him twice...
...But they're appalled at Graham, not the president...
...Now, powerful men who use their-- positions to slander young women are a great bugbear of Democrats, as we all know, and by the time Graham is reaching a rhetorical climax they are indeed on their feet, appalled...
...The chair recognizes the gentlelady from California, Ms...
...Have you read his testimony...
...Father Robert Drinan speaks dreamily of the "dignity of the majesty of the Rodino committee" and seems at times to be lapsing into reverie...
...This is something, in my opinion, ladies and gentlemen, where a high public official is using the trappings of his office, the White House, to go after a potential witness who possesses information that would hurt his political and legal interests...
...Liz Holtzman thinks the president is "reprehensible," and the third panelist, an ex-politician from Utah who keeps referring to himself appropriately as an "old has-been," says President Clinton almost certainly perjured himself before the grand jury...
...After the hearing concludes, and the hallways empty out, I find Frank sitting alone on a table outside the hearing room...
...But to impugn Charlie Rangel, as though Charlie Rangel is some kind of dupe, as though he's some poor dupe who can't think for himself...
...Bauer...
...It allows every member a chance to have attention (and TV cameras, if present) focused on himself, while simultaneously making it impossible to elicit substantive information in any sustained manner...
...Picture James Carville with a bunch of Campfire Girls...
...This is something that is more than consensual sex," he's saying...
...and "The" in the third...
...Presidential aide Blumenthal testified before the grand jury about a conversation he'd had with the president shortly after the scandal broke, in which the president, in some detail, told Blumenthal that Lewinsky was a stalker—one sick little intern...
...I think I'm getting this straight: Because Richard Nixon was almost impeached for asking the CIA to mess with the FBI, for misusing the IRS, and for authorizing the plumbers (the plumbers...
...I notice that when he settles himself at the witness table, Ben-Veniste, a short fellow, perches atop a copy of the thick appendix of supporting materials that Ken Starr submitted to the committee...
...And Bono says, "I yield my time to Mr...
...Am I getting this straight...
...Wilentz even cites an article he wrote in the New Republic, proving that he thought the president was scum as far back as 1996...
...The most despicable thing I've ever seen in Congress...
...And "evasive" and "misleading" and "blameworthy" and "maddening...
...By the close of tomorrow, all the world will see one simple and undeniable fact," he says...
...Bono...
...When Graham's time is up again, another member yields his five minutes to Graham...
...He is joined by Richard Ben-Veniste, another Watergate veteran who served under the second Watergate special prosecutor, St...
...Open your heart," he advises members of the committee...
...Heh-heh...
...WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, DECEMBER 9 Committee Republicans keep complaining that the White House is not addressing the facts of the case, but now, when chief White House counsel Charles Ruff appears before the committee ostensibly for that purpose, the Republicans scarcely ask him any factual questions at all...
...The second theme is a delightful inversion of common sense: that the "rule of law" is under assault not by a chief executive who lied under oath in legal proceedings and employed the vast resources of his office to impede the administration of justice but by the congressmen who are now following the constitutional procedure to remove him for doing that...
...Maybe she was...
...Ben-Veniste says the president's behavior was "improper," since all the other insults have already been taken...
...Why would the president tell Blumenthal all that...
...Greg's velvety presentation goes over very well with the committee...
...This afternoon is for wallowing in Watergate, and as a Nixon-hater who lapped up every yummy morsel of the scandal as it happened, I fully understand the impulse...
...Greg is reasonable and calm and he promises the moon...
...Suddenly the atmosphere changes...
...Doesn't anybody like this guy...
...Wilentz calls them myopic cowards, fanatics and zealots, guilty of "a degradation of conscience," and tells them that, if they disagree with him, "history will track you down and condemn you for your cravenness...
...Do you understand what I'm saying...
...Which confirms my suspicion: This man knows how to party...
...Leon of Jaworski...
...The reasoning behind the rule reveals all you need to know about the purpose of congressional hearings...
...At least I think I'm getting this straight...
...Top that, Mr...
...The first is that, as a defender of the president, Wilentz is absolutely emphatic that he is not defending the president, who is "reckless" and "devious...
...a president cannot be impeached unless he has done the same thing...
...Today is the long-awaited day when the president's men have journeyed up to Capitol Hill to make the president's case, and Greg is the man they have chosen to speak first...
...The president has found a counsel who looks like someone you might leave alone in a room with your children...
...Sure, Greg volunteers...
...the very word brings a thrilling shudder...
...His statement lasts a full 15 minutes, and normally, according to the traditional work schedules of congressional committees, this would be a good time for the honorable members to call a recess and knock off for some well-earned R&R...
...All the members labor under the traditional "five-minute" rule, allotting everyone 300 seconds to address the witness...
...And it cannot be tolerated...
...Was she...
...As a result, Ruff's potentially illuminating Q & A proceeds at the customary stuttering pace...
...Well . . . "And neither do you...
...She giggles...
...His shoulders sag...
...But there's more...
...But not a liar...
...Prof...
...Do we have some kind of language barrier here...
...Like their predecessors, the two lawyers insist that any article of impeachment has to be approved on a "bipartisan basis," which means that there can't be an impeachment unless the people who oppose impeachment vote to impeach...
...Morally wrong...
...Maybe there's no point in asking questions any longer...
...TUESDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING, DECEMBER 8 For the second panel, the White House has assembled a trio of former Democratic congressmen who served on the House Judiciary Committee in 1974...
...It's not hard to imagine what he's thinking...
...I'm beginning to think the president needs some new friends...
...And now the vulgarians, these Republicans with their clip-on ties and Wal-Mart Sansabelt slacks, are threatening to violate the memory...
...The Democrats begin to stir...
...Since when did the White House decide that Republicans have hearts...
...A little impeachment humor...
...He said she was a stalker...
...Ruff," says Graham, in his Huck Finn drawl, "do you know Sidney Blumenthal...
...Greg himself is a Harvard man...
...Chairman, a point of personal privilege," hollers Maxine Waters...
...I do not know what Blumenthal testified to...
...He draws three boxes and labels them "Draft Articles of Impeachment...
...Earnest...
...I don't know that the president said that...
...Or maybe napping...
...Greg Craig, despite carrying the title of special counsel to the president, dares to be inoffensive...
...O Days of Blessed Memory...
...Sincere...
...He calls the president "disgraceful...
...in the next he writes "An...
...It is—finally!—a moment of great drama, electrifying, even...
...Graham," and Graham continues without pause, reading the press clips about Lewinsky the stalker, including one in which Charlie Rangel, the New York Democrat, repeated the accusation...
...Blumenthal is the White House's Leaker in Chief, and sure enough, stories started to appear in the papers that Lewinsky was . . . a stalker...
...As he settles into his opening statement—his voice is like a purr—it becomes quickly apparent that his job is to insult Bill Clinton as thoroughly as possible while still maintaining that basically, deep down, the president is a sweetheart who never lied but feels terrible about all the lies he's told...
...Articles, get it...
...For legal reasons, of course, Greg can't use the word "lied...
...the deployment of the word "sinful" is a masterstroke...
...Graham starts reading out Blumenthal's testimony, and the air in the hearing room thickens...
...What a contrast...
...Lewinsky scandalphiliacs like me know immediately where he's headed—straight toward one of the more curiously unremarked elements in the case...
...He's obviously . . . " No, the president...
...This seems to be the argument made, chorus-like, by the three Watergate veterans brought before the committee...
...Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Wilentz broaches two themes that are becoming de rigueur as the president's defenders make their case...
...Sure...
...But what do you think of what he said...
...Everyone succumbs to drowsiness...
...HIS LAWYER'S JOB IS TO INSULT CLINTON AS THOROUGHLY AS POSSIBLE WHILE STILL MAINTAINING THAT, DEEP DOWN, THE PRESIDENT IS A SWEETHEART...
...I bet he's a tough grader...
...As the professor sputters away and steam begins to seep slowly from the ears of the assembled congressmen, poor Greg Craig stares at his hands...
...For the first time in hours Democrats are paying attention...
...At least I think I'm getting that straight...
...But Chairman Hyde has promised to run today's session straight through, without breaks for bathroom time or even feeding...
...I'm sitting behind the president's personal attorney, David Kendall, and I notice he's taken to doodling in a notebook...
...This is fast thinking on Maxine's part...
...Graham...
...David Kendall and John Podesta have faces so pinched and crabbed they can only reflect some soul-deep turmoil...
...He elbows his law partner Nicole Seligman, sitting next to him, and points to his doodle...
...To coax committee members gently toward accepting his view, Prof...
...They are followed this evening by James Hamilton, a Washington lawyer...
...Congressman, you've been in Congress almost twenty years...
...You bet...
...Sinful...
...There is nothing in the record—in either the law or the facts—that would justify his impeachment and removal from office...
...No sooner has the heroic counsel achieved what heretofore had been deemed impossible—defending Bill Clinton and seeming like a decent guy, all at the same time—than in a wink his hard work comes undone through the self-righteous mewling of this pasty Princeton puke...
...When order is restored she accuses Graham of sexism and especially of "trying to set [Lewinsky] up to be angry at the President of the United States in case she's called as a witness...
...Maybe the Republicans are right...
...I don't know what Blumenthal testified to...
...But Craig is normal...
...The minutes tick by, and Hyde announces: "The gentleman's time has expired...
...The single most despicable thing I've ever seen in Congress," he says...
...shouts Barney Frank...
...Rahm Emanuel was so oily you could have bottled him for salad dressing...
...For Democrats of Clinton's generation, Watergate in general, and the committee's impeachment vote in particular, endures in memory as a sacramental occasion, a divine consummation, a moment of unearthly bliss whose perfection rests somehow on the condition that it never, ever be repeated until they can figure out a way to do it to another Republican president...
...Good hair...
...You can imagine him going home at night to wife and kids in a center-hall brick colonial in Bethes-da and coaching Buddy's soccer team and helping Sis with her Campfire Girls candy sale...
...In the first box he writes "A...
...I ask him what he thought of Graham's accusations...
...Lanny Davis quivers and snuffles like a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown—long overdue, by the way...
...To drag in a man of Charlie Rangel's integrity...
...I notice a couple of Republicans have passed on their allotted five minutes, and when the questioning comes to the next-to-last Republican, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, I see why...

Vol. 4 • December 1998 • No. 14


 
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