The Partisans

National Review, Dec 31, 1998 by Richard Lowry

Judiciary Committee Republicans defy bipartisanship and make history.

A SMALL part of the sky over Antarctica, New York Democrat Charles Schumer explained during the House impeachment hearings, is pink. Schumer, with a gravelly Brooklyn accent and reading glasses that he occasionally peeks out over the top of, for an extra air of gravity, likes to hear himself talk. And now he was reaching for the metaphor that would explain it all, this tangle of lies and sex and the law. So, he continued, if you asked a witness, "Is the sky blue?," he might well answer no. "It seems to me if you value our system of laws," Schumer concluded, "if you are not hair- splitting, that that is not perjurious per se unless you could get inside that person's head and know that they never saw the pink square of sky."

So, after months of cynically seconding White House denials and more months of attacking Kenneth Starr, Democrats were down to their rock-bottom defense: even denying that the sky is blue would not be a lie. The House Judiciary Committee hearings, which often played to a half-empty room, like the hit of the summer held over a couple of weeks too long, were the occasion for a debate over the meaning of truth and language, a clash between a view of public life as bound by certain unspoken, common-sense normative rules, and a politics of solipsism and dizzying irrationality, too small to deserve the public's full attention.

Which will prevail, of course, won't be clear for a long time, as the four articles of impeachment passed by the committee seep into our discourse and are interpreted in the months and years ahead. But at least Republicans insisted on having the argument, which is more than could have been expected in the immediate aftermath of the elections. The White House made a show during the hearings of being non-confrontational, but the scorn it must feel for the Republicans came through in the testimony of Princeton historian Sean Wilentz, who all but called them cowards and warned that they would be hunted down by history like dogs, all in a tone he must otherwise reserve for undergraduates who can't write between the lines of their blue books.

How dare they! The hearings, as many commentators remarked, lacked sizzle, but they made up for it with a plodding dignity. Beneath the 30-foot ceilings of the hearing room, whose walls feature large oil paintings of former chairmen and the current chairman, Henry Hyde, the committee debated removing from office the most powerful politician on the planet with only the occasional disruption of the sharp crack of the chairman's gavel. It is a tribute to the majesty of American democracy that such a proceeding should be-not chaotic, not bloody-but boring.

UNADORNED DECENCY

It is also a tribute to Henry Hyde. Slow of step, in ill-fitting, off-the- rack suits and big, out-of-fashion eyeglasses, Hyde was the anchor of the proceedings, a man of unadorned decency, decorous and civil, but willing to impose discipline and answer Democratic arguments. Whenever he asked a Republican colleague to yield time for him to ask a question, it was sure to be something intelligent and pointed. "What's the significance," he asked the ancient, Yoda-like Watergate veteran and impeachment foe Father Robert Drinan, "of asking God to witness to the truth of what you're saying?" What, indeed?

One reason for the relative lack of drama was that Ivy League professors were witnesses instead of Monica, or Linda Tripp, or President Clinton. Republicans suggested the White House didn't call any "fact witnesses" because it can't dispute the fundamentals of Starr's case. In this they were right. But Democrats had a point too when they said Republicans wanted at all costs to avoid talking about sex. When the rare Republican would mention the word, it was uncomfortable, as though something had been said in poor taste at a dinner party. The lisping, fast-talking Barney Frank would be sure to prompt twitters whenever he announced that the case was fundamentally about "who touched what."

On that question and others, the White House admitted that Clinton was "misleading," "maddening," "wrong," "sinful," and, in the President's own words (spoken during his sixth public apology), "deceitful and manipulative." But he managed to be all these things-the only adjective left out is "evil"-without once telling a lie. White House special counsel Gregory Craig opened his testimony by solemnly recounting how the President urged his lawyers to forgo technicalities in his defense, only to be forced to try to explain why Clinton denied any recollection of being alone with his favorite pizza-delivery girl. The White House position is now that reasonable people might conclude that the President lied. In fact, even unreasonable people do-Barney Frank, Charles Schumer, and other Democrats among them.

Why then the White House denials? The ready explanation is that Clinton fears a perjury prosecution after he leaves office. But one of the most convincing Clinton defense panels argued that Clinton would never be prosecuted for his conduct. No, the White House stands on his denial-which means it has to continue to mislead and evade and anger Republicans-for two reasons: 1) The President's pride. If he had been willing from the beginning to admit that he's a lech, the scandal would be long behind him. But Clinton is a charming rogue who apparently has a great psychic investment in the idea that he isn't a rogue. 2) The political implications. There is a great qualitative difference between being shifty and asking God to witness your lies. The former is to be expected, the latter is a moral offense that should disqualify one from the public trust.