RE: Off Topic: Three Cheers for Gigot!

["Hegge, Roy" <Roy_Hegge@adc.com>]

	>From the Wall Street Journal, 5 Feb 99...
	> Clinton Wins, If You
	> Call This Winning
	>By PAUL A. GIGOT
	>Having debased his office, squandered much of his second term and joined 
	>Andrew Johnson on history's impeachment list, Bill Clinton is about to 
	>claim exoneration. There's a lesson here.

	Clinton not only claims exoneration, he WAS exonerated. After all of this,
	Starr has been able to beat his drum, but he can't march in the parade.  

	>Instead of moping in presumed defeat, the president's impeachers ought to 
	>recognize their own achievement. They took on the world's most powerful 
	>politician, a man without remorse or scruple, amid a stock market boom and 
	>against a hostile media, and came close to removing him for breaking the 
	>law. The news isn't that they failed but that they got this far.

	It has never been proved in a court of law that the president broke the law, 
	so GIGOT is merely stating his personal opinion here.  One that is not held
	by roughly 70% of the American public.  Trying to feign victory when you are
	obvious defeated is rather unseemly in my opinion.

	>True to their natural pessimism, however, many conservatives seem ready to 
	>believe what liberals say about them: They're wacky moralists out of touch 
	>with our anything-goes, hip-hop nation. Even Bill Bennett says so, while 
	>icons of the religious right wash their hands of it all and some at the 
	>Weekly Standard need to be kept away from sharp objects.

	Wacky, yes.   Out of touch,  yes.   You will hear no arguments from me about that.

	>Cheer up, comrades, and savor the benefits of almost removing Bill:
	>
	>We've killed the independent-counsel law. I remember writing in the 1980s 
	>that liberals would repeal this unconstitutional cyborg terminator only 
	>after it was turned on them. Well, it was, and now they will! Anthony Lewis 
	>and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin suddenly sound like Antonin Scalia in their 
	>dislike for the monster they helped create. If the law isn't renewed this 
	>year, President Quayle will be grateful.

	I guess we will all be happy to see the OIC die.  Let's hope that it is never
	again resurrected.

	President Quayle ?!?!?!  What planet is guy living on anyway?

	>The feminists have impaled themselves with their Clinton defense. Who can 
	>possibly take their next moral crusade seriously? Barbara Boxer has earned 
	>cult status in the annals of political hypocrisy. Sexual harassment law 
	>won't be reformed, alas, but the public now sees these cases as the 
	>political gambits that most of them are.

	It's amazing how some people just don't get it. No one has been able to 
	label the president as a sexual harasser, and many right wingers have tried.
	Sexual harassment is and will continue to be a serious matter, but sex does
	not equate to sexual harassment.

	>The left is now long on Bill Clinton. Once their votes save him, Senate 
	>Democrats may want to hire a chaperone because the next scandal is on their 
	>credit card. They'll be the ones who kept him around to do it again. This 
	>means 21 months of nightmares and cold sweats.

	Sounds like sour grapes.   I suspect we'll see more cigars and bongos than we
	will see nightmares and cold sweats.

	>Had Mr. Clinton been removed, he would have been a martyr and Al Gore would 
	>have two years to act presidential. Now the veep must win the presidency in 
	>his own right, while carrying the heavy backpack of his boss's ethics. The 
	>polls that show him losing against some Republicans in 2000 may be an early 
	>public hint of what could become Vindication Remorse.

	We don't need martyrs, we need leaders, and that was Clinton is.  Gore, unfortunately
	is a loser and I don't think that he will survive the nominations.  Hopefully 
	the Democrats will wake up to that fact and put a new face out there in 2000.

	>From civil rights to Watergate, liberalism's trump was its moral 
	>high-mindedness. In covering for Bill Clinton, the left has shown that what 
	>it really cares about now is power. Democrats have excused campaign-finance 
	>violations because "everybody does it," perjury because "it's just about 
	>sex," and trashing an individual civil-rights plaintiff because Mr. Clinton 
	>is good on civil-rights in general. (The last was Cheryl Mills's defense). 
	>So much for moral authority.

	The truth is that the American public does not look to it's politicians for 
	moral high-mindedness. Not Orin Hatch, not Henry Hyde, not Bill Clinton, not
	any of them.  We lost that naivety long ago.  What breeds successful
	politicians is politics.  What attracts successful politicians is power. The 
	politicians just keep acting like they have the moral high ground.  That's 
	their ego at work and we forgive 'em for it.

	>Conversely, Mr. Clinton is now in policy hock to the left. To repay 
	>liberals for their scandal support, the president has given up his New 
	>Democratic reform agenda.
	>His State of the Union speech and new budget show him hedging on free 
	>trade, abandoning serious entitlement reform, handing Republicans back the 
	>tax issue and reviving the welfare state. No wonder Dick Gephardt isn't 
	>running against Al Gore; there's no room on his left to run. Republicans 
	>have a chance to reclaim the middle.

	Yes, the middle is open because most of the politicians are extremests. That's
	what is driving us crazy about Capitol Hill these days.

	>Removal or no, the rule of law was defended. Even Judiciary Democrat 
	>William Delahunt noted in December the lesson of this impeachment to future 
	>political perjurors: "Don't do it." Voters may not want Mr. Clinton 
	>removed, but the polls show impeachment has convinced the public that the 
	>House charges are true.

	This is hogwash.   The public believes that Clinton lied and misled, but
	not that he perjured or obstructed justice.  It's not the rule of law that
	was defended but a politically motivated interpretation of the law.

	>Mr. Clinton can blame this on partisanship until he dies, but impeachment 
	>will be much more than an asterisk on his legacy. Scandal is the core of 
	>his legacy. As with Richard Nixon, the Clinton words we remember will be 
	>about scandal: the definition of sex, the meaning of "alone." And because 
	>of scandal he will have achieved less than any two-term president since 
	>U.S. Grant.

	It's difficult to predict what future generations will think of today's 
	events.  My hat is off to Mr Gigot for having such amazing powers of 
	prognostication.

	***

	>The larger point is that the political interpretation of impeachment will 
	>be as important as the outcome itself. Republicans in particular can learn 
	>from their very different reactions to their election loss in 1992 and the 
	>government shutdown of 1995.
	>
	>The first they interpreted rightly as a George Bush failure that could be 
	>overcome with more principled leadership. They quickly recovered their 
	>bearings and agenda, albeit with Bill Clinton's help, and won a majority in 
	>Congress.
	>
	>Contrast that with the shutdown's aftermath, when they internalized the 
	>Clinton critique of their own "extremism" and have been wandering aimless 
	>and fearful ever since. If Republicans buy that same line about 
	>impeachment, their defeat will be self-fulfilling. Their nominee in 2000 
	>will run against Republicans in Congress and they will all go down toget  
	>her.

	If the Republicans would follow through on things that the say that they 
	stand for during campaigns, I think that they would do well.  They tend
	to stand for lower taxes, personal independence, smaller, leaner governments,
	etc.   But they seem to forget all of that once their in office and start
	providing corporate welfare programs and partisan consolidation of power.

	>The alternative is to recognize impeachment as a triumph of principle. In 
	>an age of political cynicism, Henry Hyde and House Republicans fought for 
	>the rule of law against the liberal establishment and despite a complacent 
	>public and cowering Senate. Our politics needs more such "defeats."

	Tripe.  Henry Hyde, et al, were not in this for some triumph of principle. 
	Their motives were cheap and debasing. They mouthed high words and took
	low actions.

	IMHO,

	Roy

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