TRIAL DAZE
FERGUSON, ANDREW
TRIAL DAZE by Andrew Ferguson UNITED STATES CAPITOL, JAN. 14, 11:00 A.M. Today the Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton begins in earnest, and if you are a member of “The American...
...Kids: Please don’t try this at home...
...Minutes pass...
...The House managers say they’ve got a strong case...
...If a senator makes a motion, will it delay the trial...
...A brief break in the proceedings, but the senators, who normally could be counted on to appear before the press to palaver, are staying in their cloakrooms, incommunicado...
...Is my hair okay...
...Sorry to tell you this,” he says to Kennedy, “but we lost the audio...
...Good...
...Then they say, they can’t make their case unless they call witnesses...
...This is history, after all, an occasion of great moment...
...she asks him...
...They leave...
...Senators love being senators, and they love other people who love being senators, and when they enter the Senate chamber they simply cannot keep their hands off each other...
...But look, they can’t have it both ways...
...I seriously consider going home to watch this thing on TV...
...To pick up the slack, word comes that James Kennedy, the White House scandal spokesman, will make a statement on the Capitol plaza...
...He doesn’t cover his coughs, incidentally...
...Paul Sarbanes is a compulsive ice-muncher...
...When will the trial end...
...He walks toward the camera...
...Joe Biden keeps fingering his hairline, as though he’s making sure the plugs are still in place...
...But what fun would that be...
...I misjudged them...
...There’s Chuck Schumer and Bob Torricelli and Tom Harkin...
...On the one hand, the House tells us they’ve got a compelling case...
...Excuse me...
...I EXPECTED THE CHAMBER TO RESEMBLE A SPECIAL-ED CLASS JUMPING WITH KIDS WHO FORGOT TO TAKE THEIR RITALIN...
...4:45 P.M...
...If he’s feeling really good, a senator can use the Mitch McConnell Hammerlock...
...I’m just doing what I’ve been told, ma’am...
...And not a senator appears...
...But I needn’t have worried...
...Up in the press gallery a beefy young man in a buzz cut appears, toting an enormous black canvas bag...
...Gas masks, ma’am,” he says, eyes staring straight ahead...
...But now we’re into the meat of the matter, as Ed Bryant, soon to be followed by Asa Hutchinson and James Rogan, lays out the facts...
...And then they say, we can’t make our case unless we call witnesses...
...After the call to order and a prayer, Henry Hyde opened with a brief statement, introducing the House managers...
...In fact, “white guys in suits” has become the favored dismissive term for the poor House Republicans—“out of touch white guys trying to fathom truth in sex,” is what the New York Times’s Maureen Dowd called them, in a column earlier this week...
...Rogan is a former California state judge and Los Angeles County District Attorney . . . Rep...
...Amazingly, after almost two hours of lecturing, they don’t look bored...
...The session is over for the day, but still the senators aren’t talking...
...Schumer stands in front of the camera...
...And back in the epochal Year of the Woman, in 1992, Senate rules were revised to allow the Barbara Boxer Hug, although the Carol Moseley- Braun Air Kiss seems to have been retired, out of respect...
...He drops the bag by the door and stands at attention...
...A camera has been set up for him outside, in the freezing rain...
...restricted to areas set off with red-velvet rope lines...
...Strom Thurmond is still awake...
...Majority Leader Trent Lott’s press secretary, John Czwartacki, has come to the press gallery two hours before today’s session begins...
...With a few conspicuous exceptions—Barbara Mikulski, Pat Leahy, Paul Wellstone— the senators follow the presentations closely, turning to exhibits in their briefing books, making notes, attending to the occasional video clips...
...But someone might trip...
...With all this senatorial affection gushing like a geyser around them, the House managers look painfully out of place...
...It’s beginning to hit me: Maybe they really are taking this seriously...
...Which is it...
...she says...
...Kennedy turns to an aide...
...And tomorrow’s session—how late...
...Senators, as any senator will tell you, are accustomed to working long, hard hours, but typically it is hard work doled out in half-hour increments: a quick office meeting with the Pleasant Hills chamber of commerce, then a brief appearance at a subcommittee hearing, a drop-by at a LULAC reception, followed by a round of phone calls in the cloakroom, and so on, throughout a day of constant motion...
...They were just trying to make a case for calling witnesses...
...And they’re off...
...Could you come out and read your statement again...
...They sit, stiff-backed and unspeaking, at a specially designed table in the Senate well, amid a mountain of paper and bound volumes...
...2:45 P.M...
...Our movements around the building are THE FLOOR IS A SWARM, AN ORGY, OF COLLEGIALITY...
...Now they are being asked to sit for hours on end, silently, and I expected the chamber to resemble a special-ed class jumping with kids who forgot to take their Ritalin...
...The thing we should emphasize,” he says, “is that after six and a half hours, there was really nothing new here...
...We can’t see Rehnquist, and we can see only the top of the back of the heads of the presenters, which means we are forced to stare at the senators...
...12:50 P.M...
...Can’t you . . .” “These are for you and your protection, in the event of airborne chemical attack,” he repeats...
...SENATORS LOVE BEING SENATORS, AND THEY LOVE OTHER PEOPLE WHO LOVE BEING SENATORS...
...The Kennedys always had people who would cover their coughs for them...
...Of course, today is not, technically, the first day of the impeachment trial...
...Then they say they can’t make a compelling case unless they call witnesses...
...And last, reining in the appetites of Washington bureaucrats...
...There’s the Robert Byrd Lower Back Rub and the John Warner Shoulder Wraparound and the Chuck Robb Back Slam...
...Third, making the tax system fair...
...The gallery is packed with reporters, and Czwartacki sits in an armchair before an ornate (and defunct) fireplace, fielding questions about procedure...
...It’s just how they’re built...
...By the time I get there, Kennedy has finished his statement and is NOW THE SENATORS ARE BEING ASKED TO SIT FOR HOURS ON END, SILENTLY...
...Second, creating the world’s best schools...
...I should just make one point,” he says...
...And he charges back outside, to get the word out to the American People, and I can hear his reedy voice rising above the pitter-pat of the rain: “The House Republican Managers have begun to lay out a case that is both unsubstantiated and circumstantial . . .” 7:00 P.M...
...11:20 A.M...
...One of the cameramen approaches him...
...The press seats, set up high behind the rostrum where the chief justice sits, are the worst seats in the chamber...
...In case of airborne chemical attack, ma’am...
...According to Maureen, apparently, black guys fathom sex instinctively...
...trying to dry off in the carriageway...
...They look like a strange tableau from Madame Tussaud’s (“And here we have a collection of late-twentieth century American white males...
...A few minutes later, Senator Reid of Nevada appears...
...He unfolds a sheet of paper and begins reading...
...And Senator Kennedy— he’d lost weight right after he got married a couple of years ago, but he’s really beefing up again...
...Well, you can’t leave the bag there,” she says...
...The senators decided this contentious issue as they so often do...
...Chabot has experience as a criminal defense lawyer and . . .” He sounded like Bob Eubanks emceeing a Dating Game in Hell...
...And the most important question of all: Will we have to work on Saturday, for God’s sake...
...But do not worry...
...Someone might trip over it...
...Today the Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton begins in earnest, and if you are a member of “The American People”—and I’m assuming for the sake of argument that you are—then you are worried that the nation’s business will be paralyzed for the duration of the trial...
...Reporters normally have the run of the Capitol, but not today...
...I mean, they can’t have it both ways...
...You know, they can’t have it both ways...
...Life goes on...
...How long into the evening will today’s session last...
...You’ll be glad they’re here...
...Czwartacki is very good at his job and answers the questions crisply, but there’s another bit of information he wants to make sure the hacks take on board...
...They came to closure on the following items of their agenda for the future,” he says...
...Senatorial affection is expressed vigorously but chastely...
...There’s the Joe Lieberman Elbow Squeeze, by which Senator A shakes Senator B’s hand and then, with his free hand, reaches around to knead B’s funny bone in an extra show of delight...
...When he coughs, which he does often, it’s a full five seconds before his shirt front stops shaking...
...What’s in the bag...
...He’s wearing a suit two sizes too small and a telltale ear piece: a plain-clothes cop...
...They say they’re making a compelling case...
...That was last week, when the Senate held a brief session presided over by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, after which the senators huddled behind closed doors to settle the most contentious issue of their deliberations so far—whether or not to call live witnesses to the well of the Senate and subject them to the laser-like application of senatorial intelligence and curiosity...
...I mean, come on...
...Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...One of the gallery assistants stops him...
...Out of nowhere, a clump of senators advances toward the camera...
...First, preserving Social Security...
...The collegiality is holding up, to judge by the conduct on the Senate floor, here in the few minutes before Rehnquist appears and the trial begins...
...There’s never a gas mask around when you need it...
...Bryant served in the Judge Advocate General Corps and taught at . . . Rep...
...Maureen was indeed correct: They’re white guys...
...Seldom if ever do their jobs demand sustained concentration on a single subject...
...In the hallway outside the chamber, a camera is set up, surrounded by reporters—a big, fat, sopping opportunity for each of them to get on national television...
...But, as we say in Washington these days, this is not about sex...
...It’s ironic,” Harkin tells a print reporter as he moves toward the camera...
...Security is tighter than any of us has ever seen it...
...The vote, needless to say, was unanimous...
...But up here in the press seats, one’s mind starts to wander and individual senators claim one’s attention...
...As a captain in the army, Rep...
...This is what the pollsters keep saying...
...The floor is a swarm, an orgy, of collegiality...
...They decided to decide later...
...John McCain, for example, is a fine man and a great hero, but his posture, as he slumps in his chair, is terrible...
...So there, American people...
Vol. 4 • January 1999 • No. 18
