Censure Is The Decent Thing To Do
No one forced Bill Clinton to choose the path that led to his impeachment by the House of Representatives. He chose to be a manipulator - of his power, of the truth, of the law and of women.
None of the daily manipulations of public opinion that continue to issue from the White House can erase the notoriety that history will attach to Clinton’s name. Opinion polls may rise, and they might even fall. But as only the second president in our history to be impeached, Clinton’s penalty is severe.
It is a penalty he brought upon himself. Many of our presidents served in toxic political environments. Many attracted fierce criticism. But only a few provoked Congress to activate the impeachment mechanism.
Now, attention focuses on whether the Senate should proceed with a trial and throw Clinton out of office.
As this sad undertaking begins, it is time to consider a question larger than Clinton’s fate. It is time to consider what the battle will do to our country, and what it will say to history about our values.
It is time to rise above the manipulation, the partisanship, the sexual McCarthyism, the taking of revenge.
If we are as devoted to the rule of law as Clinton’s foes say he should have been, the Senate’s decision must be based on the charges actually leveled against him by the House. It would be wrong to treat this as a contest between Democrats and Republicans, or to treat Clinton as a whipping boy for the moral decay of our culture.
If the Senate’s decision focuses as it should, the question is whether a twice-elected president should be thrown out of office, for the first time in our history, because … he covered up an affair.
Was this wrong? Yes. Even many Democrats, including Clinton friends such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, have denounced the president’s conduct as immoral, reprehensible and a betrayal of his duty to lead.
But grounds for removal? When the voters who elected Clinton knew of his sexual weaknesses? When some of Clinton’s judges in the House and Senate also have fallen short of the ideal?
No. It is the opinion of The Spokesman-Review editorial board that ouster would be excessive.
Clinton’s foes posture as the guardians of decency.
If anything good is to come of this, let it be a move toward real decency, which involves more than lip-smacking zeal about the other guy’s sexual sins. Let us define decency upward, not downward.
Decency, of the kind that has made this a great nation, includes fairness, mercy, grace, forgiveness, humility and a proportionality in the doing of justice.
Clinton has done wrong. He has suffered one of our history’s sharpest rebukes. The Senate ought to resolve the crisis with a bipartisan censure. And all of us need to find the decency to let this go, and get on with the business of building a better future.