AN AWESOME SHIPWRECK
LINDBERG, TOD
AN AWESOME SHIPWRECK TOD LINDBERG LET'S START WITH THE OBVIOUS: There may be grave political consequences for the Republican majorities that moved the impeachment process forward. And the judgment...
...It would have been another thing altogether to abandon the case, for whatever reason or pretext, given the facts about Clinton's conduct that are clear to honest Democrats and Republicans alike...
...These arrangements—known generically as the rule of law—find vindication simply in adherence to them...
...Nor (in the less likely event) should the GOP rest its electoral prospects solely on the party's adherence to conservatism...
...It's perfectly understandable that Republicans and conservatives aren't now in much of a mood to declare victory, for principle, along the lines above...
...As to where we go from here, begin with two truisms: Politics is ebb and flow...
...There's some overlap between the two groups, of course...
...If at any point short of the final vote in the senate the process had been abandoned—something that could only have happened with substantial Republican acquiescence—then the inevitable conclusion would have been drawn that such conduct as lying under oath and colluding to cover up your lies, despite a court's order to tell the truth, is not malfeasance as such, but can only be found to be so based on the context of the colluding and covering up...
...Gingrich, D'Amato, Faircloth, Livingston: all dead...
...That's an offensive notion...
...Gordon Lightfoot should write a ballad...
...But in our country, we start with the law and then we move on to the particulars, not the other way around...
...that outcome is contemplated by the two-thirds requirement for removal, according to which any one-third of the Senate, for any reason, can ensure that a president stays in office until the end of his term...
...You just tried to take down the president, and it didn't work out for you...
...But, comrades, this was worth a fight...
...And the judgment of history—which, as everyone knows, tends to favor the winners—may be that Bill Clinton did not deserve removal from office for his sins in this case...
...and conservatives need to begin anew to make the case for conservative ideas...
...But it strikes me as ill-advised for either to try to achieve an identity between the two...
...What more by way of explanation does one require...
...Well, professional Republicans need to get busy repairing the party's fortunes...
...The shipwreck is awesome...
...What to do...
...Conservative ideas shouldn't become hostage to the fortunes and political requirements of GOP partisanship...
...Tod Lindberg is editor of Policy Review and a columnist for the Washington Times...
...and in politics, you begin where you are...
...Nor, by the way, does our system ensure that the final outcome is just and right...
...That means that even though things are grim, and there's no point in wishing they weren't, they don't have to stay grim forever...
...Bill Clinton now has higher job approval ratings than Reagan or Eisenhower did at the same point in their second terms...
...Of course all cases are different...
...For those who need cheering up, let me suggest, perhaps optimistically, that at least things can't get any worse...
...What we share is an agreement—known generically as the consent of the governed—that our constitutional process and our legal process are the means by which we pursue justice...
...Anyway, wasn't there a point at which Republicans, for example Dan Quayle, were musing about how it would be better for the GOP to keep a weakened Bill Clinton in office than to face an incumbent Al Gore in 2000...
...It's one thing to note that the Senate would not remove Bill Clinton...
...Although I must say, I wrote an article in this magazine in the fall arguing that that notion was foolish, on the grounds that there was no reason to assume that Clinton, should he survive the process, would be permanently weakened...
...In fact, the sourness of the general mood isn't hard to explain at all...
...How should you feel...
...In addition, the Republican casualty list includes many of Clinton's least favorite people...
...There are philosophers and there are kings, and it's usually a mistake for one to try to be the other...
Vol. 4 • February 1999 • No. 22
