Public Lies, Private Lives

In a television talk show appearance on Sunday, Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) stated that he had not made up his mind about whether he was going to vote to impeach President Clinton because of his conduct in the Lewinsky matter.

Barr, one of the President's most rabid critics, has been calling for Bill Clinton's impeachment or resignation practically since he stepped into office. Are we now to believe that he has suddenly become a judicious and wise representative who is actually going to consider all of the facts and vote with an open mind? Or did Bob Barr lie to us when he said that he hasn't made up his mind?

The reason I ask this question is because it is time we took a deep breath and thought hard about what the Lewinsky scandal is all about. We need to pause between the expressions of outrage and disgust, take a step back and a healthy dose of historical perspective. We also need to think about the lies politicians tell us every day, and why it is that only the ones about sex seem to be grounds for removal from office these days.

Most Republicans are correct when they say that Ken Starr's investigation is not about sex. But they are wrong when they try to assert that it is about perjury, subornation of perjury and obstruction of justice. Since day one, the investigation has been about politics. When boiled down to its essence, it's about a group of individuals who think Bill Clinton should have never come to power.

Do I believe this excuses the President's conduct? Of course not. Having spent this past year as an intern and then as a regular employee on Hillary Clinton's staff, I'm probably more disappointed and disgusted than most. I've defended the President to my friends, to my family and to people I didn't even know. I truly believed the President when he looked us in the eye and said he was not having an improper relationship with 'Ms. Lewinsky.'

But Bill Clinton is not guilty of anything remotely like "high crimes and misdemeanors." And the only treason he is guilty of concerns his wife and daughter, not the national interest. What he is guilty of is having had an illicit affair with a woman half his age and then trying to cover it up by misleading us all and letting his friends and allies go to bat for him. All of these actions are truly reprehensible. But they are surely no justifiable cause for the removal of a sitting President.

Since the Constitution came into effect, nine Presidents have left office before their term expired, eight because of death, four of those because of an assasin's bullet. Only Nixon left office of his own free will (albeit while faced with the probability of removal from office). And there have been only two occasions where the United States seriously contemplated the removal of a President through the process of impeachment.

The first happened in 1868 during the tenure of Andrew Johnson. A highly partisan, Republican dominated Congress (sound familiar?) sought to remove Johnson from office because of the non-Radical approach he was taking toward Reconstruction. The alleged grounds for impeachment constituted violation of a law of questionable constitutionality. Fortunately, Johnson survived by one vote.

The second instance, with which we are all more familiar, concerned President Nixon. During the course of the Watergate investigation, it became clear that Nixon had been using one government agency to obstruct the investigations of another, and that his subordinates, with his tacit approval, had committed a remarkable litany of felonies.

Neither of these two cases is directly comparable to the Clinton situation and only the first has even a remote correlation. Having an affair, and then lying about it during a deposition taken in the course of a politically motivated lawsuit, are not grounds for impeachment, much less a $40 million investigation gone awry. The President made a mistake, he suffered a "critical lapse in judgement." But the tawdry details aside, he did not commit an impeachable offense. And he should certainly not be only the second President to resign from office simply because he succumbed to the temptations of the flesh.

We also need to think about why we are so outraged when President Clinton lies about sex, and simply accept it when other politicians look us in the eye and lie to us about substantially much more important matters. Are we to believe it when Republican members of Congress tell us that they don't want statistical sampling included in the 2000 Census because they are concerned with the exact phraseology in the Constitution? Or are they really concerned that accurately counting millions of minorities left out last time around would hurt their chances on election day?

Are we really to believe it when others in the same party block tobacco legislation because they feel it would create a black market in cigarettes? Or are they really concerned about a big source of campaign funds suddenly drying up? What about the lies that are told when a vote on campaign finance legislation comes around? Are they really concerned about the First Amendment, or are they concerned about losing their comparative advantage over the Democrats in fundraising?

Let's not kid ourselves. Politicians lie to us all the time. We don't have to be happy about it, but let's not condemn Bill Clinton for trying to cover up what was admittedly an improper relationship. It's time to take a step back and think about what this all really means from a historical perspective.

Let's move on with the country's business, and stop sticking our nose into the First Family's. There are too many other, more important things to worry about than whether the President of the United States touched someone's breasts. Michael O'Mary '99-'00 is a government concentrator in Quincy House.