THE CLINTON KULTURKAMPF
KRAUTHAMMER, CHARLES
THE CLINTON KULTURKAMPF CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER REPUBLICANS STARTED the impeachment process thinking they were trying a reasonably straightforward case of perjury and obstruction of justice. They got...
...House Republicans proceeded to play the part perfectly, first, by releasing the president's grand jury testimony and, then, by defeating Democratic procedural proposals...
...The most reviled man in America is Kenneth Starr, followed closely by the House managers...
...They are wrong...
...They will also have found a champion: Hillary...
...They allowed the issue to shift from perjury to partisanship...
...Clintonites in search of a legacy and liberals in search of ideological victory have found common cause...
...But the damage was done...
...They made about as many tactical errors as Saddam did in the run-up to the Gulf War, and they have been similarly rewarded...
...Bill's political career is over...
...Both were entirely unnecessary...
...culture wars endure...
...an inquisition of vengeful prurience and moralism...
...The trial is over, but the war continues...
...They started a Kulturkampf...
...Charles Krauthammer is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Sex and lies pale in comparison with treason and murder...
...Last August, Clinton had none but the most rabid, Carvilled partisans in his camp...
...And according to every poll, the losing side, by a lopsided majority...
...It lacked, of course, the grandeur of the Hiss case or the raw gravity of the O.J...
...But like the Hiss and O.J...
...In the ultimate irony, she will become the carrier of the Clintonite torch, the rallying point both for those who want to vindicate Clinton's legacy and those who want to continue to marginalize conservatives as enemies of tolerance...
...She will undoubtedly achieve elective office, probably in the Senate...
...The trial of President Clinton turned into a major political-cultural event...
...This one, in particular, will be kept alive by the liberal elite because it so conveniently casts all of liberalism's disparate enemies into the same tainted camp: Christian Coalition, witch-hunting moralists, partisan Congress, anti-sexual-liberationists—why, the whole vast right-wing conspiracy is lined up on one side...
...He has never had much personal credibility...
...Enter Hillary...
...In the ultimate irony, Hillary will become the carrier of the Clintonite torch...
...His last line of defense was to change the subject to alleged Republican unfairness and partisanship...
...Wed politically to Bill forever, she will become the chief spokesman of what might be called the moral majority of the left, even as she tries to cast her husband's impeachment as the desperate act of those who could not get her husband otherwise...
...Some Republicans are consoling themselves with the thought that this will quickly pass...
...Clinton's acquittal will be made to stand for the triumph of the forces of, if not light, then reason...
...trials, it will have the effect of dividing the country ideologically...
...Much more...
...For part of this, Republicans have only their own ham-handedness to blame...
...Winning that fight is not just vindication for Clinton...
...Political fights pass...
...Today no one believes a word he says...
...trial...
...The Clinton trial is entering cultural mythology as the modern equivalent of the Scopes trial: the forces of tolerance, worldly wisdom, and modernity vs...
...The president, on the other hand, is viewed with ambivalence by an electorate that by now sees him, mirabile dictu, as a victim...
...They got more than they bargained for...
...So have the elite media portrayed the trial—six months, mind you, after 150 newspapers called for the scoundrel's resignation for lying to and mocking the country for seven months—and it seems to have stuck...
...And the other side will now have a more ideologically committed, more disciplined, and, in the eyes of the public, more sympathetic champion than Bill Clinton ever was...
...The culture war will be kept alive, too, by the Clintonites seeking to remove the stain of impeachment from the Clinton presidency by casting it as the illegitimate act of a vengeful House...
...He will officially retire in 2001, but he is already history...
...It has become the heart of Clinton's search for a "legacy," an enterprise whose goal is now framed negatively: not to be remembered as the second president ever impeached...
...His job approval is high but respect for him is nonexistent...
...In the end, of course, House Republicans adhered to the very Democratic parameters they had overridden—finishing impeachment hearings by Christmas and not expanding their inquiry beyond Lewinsky...
Vol. 4 • February 1999 • No. 22
