the scarlet "I"
BARNES, FRED
THE SCARLET "I" by Fred Barnes The line from President Clinton's camp is that the people have spoken on impeachment and they're massively against it. "The message of last month's election," said...
...Bad as Clinton's sins are, the public doesn't believe they warrant termination of his presidency...
...In a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll in October, 42 percent said just that, and another 18 percent didn't know...
...Mere censure wouldn't do this...
...It can drop the case hastily, for instance, and pass a censure resolution...
...But Senate majority leader Trent Lott has given assurances it would be concluded quickly...
...If they really believed polls should govern, they'd urge Congress to pass a school prayer amendment because 78 percent of Americans want one...
...Who remembered that President Andrew Jackson was censured...
...They're all wrong...
...Former Democratic representative Elizabeth Holtzman advised the Judiciary Committee that "Impeachment is not a kind of super-censure, designed simply to besmirch a president's reputation...
...Impeachment qualifies...
...For many Americans, says pollster Bill McInturff, "impeachment is a surrogate for removal from office...
...And here's a poll result to mull: 61 percent in a Gallup poll on December 9 said they oppose impeachment, but 50 percent said they wouldn't be angry if Clinton were impeached...
...Now, how would the public respond to impeachment without conviction and ouster...
...How should House members regard poll numbers...
...It is what members of Congress make it...
...Jerry Nadler, Democrat of New York, was simply, forget about impeaching Clinton...
...Nearly every poll, including the Election Day exit poll, has found the public to be roughly 2-to-1 against ousting the president...
...But some milder punishment...
...The White House acknowl- edges Clinton faces virtually no risk of a Senate conviction...
...So, given this context, impeachment can be seen in a different light, not as a step toward the final punishment of expulsion, but as the likely final punishment itself...
...If it did, representatives who've been elected to the Senate beginning in 1999—Republicans Jim Bunning and Mike Crapo and Democrat Chuck Schumer— wouldn't be permitted to vote on impeachment in the House, then serve as jurors in the Senate...
...And columnist E.J...
...And the anti-removal majority has remained unchanged over the months since the Clinton scandal broke...
...Neither of which is appealing...
...Lowell asserted that "impeachment is not a form of rebuke or censure for the president's conduct...
...Calmly, perhaps even favorably, I'd bet...
...Think of this as defining impeachment down...
...Former attorney general Nicholas Katzenbach told the committee that "for whatever reason, the public remains unper-suaded" by the case for impeachment...
...And censure would loom small in the history of the Clinton years...
...The beauty of impeachment is that it would be a punishment that indeed punishes...
...To others, it's endless deliberation...
...What's before the House, said special Clinton counsel Greg Craig, is not simply a vote to impeach but "a vote to impeach and remove the president...
...They'd be for a flag-burning amendment (63 percent) and a balanced budget amendment (74 percent) and they'd ask Clinton to sign a ban on partial-birth abortion (55 percent...
...But nothing bars them from this, and all three intend to vote on the House floor...
...No pollster, so far as I know, has asked directly about impeachment as censure...
...He underlined "not" in his text...
...Zogby says the public wants a punishment that's "stronger than a slap on the wrist but they don't want to see the president thrown out...
...Which leads us to the most appropriate form of punishment: impeachment as censure...
...Law professor Jeffrey Rosen, like Katzenbach a Clinton ally, insisted in the New York Times that "the people have repeatedly instructed their representatives to bring to a close" the impeachment process...
...A sizable chunk, then, of the two-thirds of Americans who say they oppose impeachment are really expressing their opposition to Clinton's removal...
...Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Says pollster John Zogby: Even "a lot of people you'd think would know better don't understand what impeachment is...
...To some, it's a summary execution...
...The fact is, the impeachment process is sui generis...
...The House doesn't sit as a grand jury in impeachment cases...
...Well said, Mr...
...This, in fact, is what many Republicans (and several Democrats) in the House plan to vote for...
...Should the Senate be sent an impeachment count, it has great flexibility in responding...
...It is a form of punishment only slightly harsher than the public seems to want...
...Clinton understands all this, which is why the White House and Democrats have begun to mobilize against impeachment as the ultimate form of censure...
...Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde told reporters polls are "worth consideration," but they shouldn't be "determinative...
...Clinton defenders are disingenuous when they claim the public has made up its mind, as evidenced by poll results, and that decision should be controlling...
...And many others have cited public opinion polls and the November 3 election in arguing for abandoning impeachment...
...There's a double misunderstanding...
...Their tack is to portray a vote for impeachment as more than it necessarily is...
...They think when we vote for impeachment it means [Clinton] is going to be removed...
...Practically no one...
...No, think of it as the toughest and most appropriate punishment available, given knee-jerk opposition by congressional Democrats to calling Clinton to full account for his crimes...
...Still, pollsters have a pretty good read on the public's attitude about impeachment...
...Nor is seeking impeachment as censure outside constitutional bounds...
...Thus, while a grand jury shouldn't indict someone who stands no chance of being convicted, it's perfectly proper for the House to impeach even when conviction appears remote...
...Instead, surveys invariably treat impeachment and censure as separate options...
...This, the public hasn't ruled out...
...Dionne, a Clinton sympathizer, wrote in the Washington Post that impeachment as "High-Test Censure" is wrongheaded...
...Chairman...
...For one thing, much of the public still thinks impeachment means removal...
...It would be seen, correctly, as Clinton's slipping the noose again...
...In one of his polls, 37 percent said Clinton should be entirely left alone, but the others wanted "something more than censure but not resignation...
...Yes, they know impeachment on a single count would necessitate a trial in the Senate...
...And the president would almost certainly be acquitted and allowed to stay in office...
...The message of last month's election," said Rep...
...Fine...
...One more thing...
...The effect would be to stamp an "I" (for impeached) on his breast in the history books...
...People's consciences should trump everything else...
...Far from it...
...It would forever stigmatize Clinton...
...I'm extrapolating this from the somewhat muddled view people have of impeachment...
...Allies like James Carville would instantly declare Clinton vindicated...
...Abbe Lowell, Democratic counsel on the House Judiciary Committee, claimed in his final argument against impeachment that "the public has been telling us for months" to back off...
...The public has so far sent only one clear message both in polls and the election: Don't toss Clinton out of office...
...Analogies to the criminal justice system don't quite fit...
...Schumer has participated fully in deliberations in the Judiciary Committee...
Vol. 4 • December 1998 • No. 14
