Wednesday, December 19, 2007

 

This Day in the History of Presidential Impeachments

On this day in 1998, President Clinton was impeached on two counts, Articles 1 and 3, for perjury and obstruction of justice, respectively. The 42nd chief executive became the second in history to be ordered to stand trial in the Senate, where, like Andrew Johnson before him, he was acquitted, even though, like Johnson, the evidence of his guilt was overwhelming, but the magnitude of his wrongdoing, under the totality of the circumstances, was less that Earth-shaking. I was angry at the Republicans for not coming up with more but proceeding, poorly, on what little they had. Of course, had Clinton been any sort of respectable man, he would have resigned after his lie about not having sex with the intern was revealed. As always, it wasn't the fellatio itself but the attempted cover up which should have showed him the door, but then, of course, had Clinton done the right thing, Al Gore would have won in 2000.

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The impeachment was completely ridiculous. I was disappointed that Clinton lied under oath, and thought it was a scumbag thing to do, but in the ultimate scheme of things, it wasn't exactly all that big a deal. Am I the only one who longs for the days that the biggest problem facing this country was our president getting blown by an intern? I wanted Clinton out of office back then, not because he cheated on his wife (we have a long history of President's getting side action) but because he lied under oath. Someone who was an attorney should have known better.

What I don't get is how the same people who thought Clinton should have done the honorable thing and resigned wouldn't ask (or even demand) that this president do the same thing in the face of lying about Weapons of Mass Destruction, the outing of Valerie Plame or other scandals like destroying tapes of torture or abu ghraib?

I think that we, as a people, deserve and ought to demand better leadership.
 
Good thoughts but the President didn't lie about WMD, Richard Armitage 'outed' deskbound Valerie Plame, the people responsible for the Abu Graib tempest in a teapot have been punished and there appears no wrong in destroying tapes, with notice to Congress, to protect the CIA interviewers. Even the Romans only were called on to fall on their swords for their OWN actions. Thanks for the walk down Democrat talking points lane.
 
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