No More Spin, No More Slack

In spite of the unsavory rumors that had followed him throughout his career, the American people trusted Bill Clinton. Trusted him, twice, with the highest leadership position our country can bestow.

Now, Americans reluctantly are coming to grips with evidence that they have been betrayed. Not in some weighty matter of national security, but in a course of conduct so tawdry that parents blush to discuss it with their kids. Conduct so cheapening to the accused, and the accuser, that it will be difficult to write about it in history books, let alone in articles of impeachment.

Lawyers have begun to split hairs about whether the evidence and charges in Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s report qualify as “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the criteria for impeachment.

The hair splitters miss the point.

Clinton’s offense was a fundamental failure to respect the American people and the high office they gave him. He carried on a seedy affair with a young White House subordinate, but his disrespect for her matters less than his disrespect for all of the people he manipulated and betrayed along the way: the Secret Service, his secretary, his Cabinet, his supporters in Congress and the many Americans who admired his policies - such as his rhetorical respect for women.

Even today, Clinton’s lawyers continue to behave as though they can out-talk and outmaneuver both public opinion and Congress.

Clinton will never resign so long as he continues to believe he can spin his way out of trouble. But the disrespect is beginning to show through all of his efforts to save his skin. Hours after he wiped a tear and declared his spirit broken at a Friday prayer meeting, he laughed and joked at a White House awards ceremony like a man without a care. Been to church. Now, it’s party time again. He’s fooling himself. Certainly, he has made fools of his aides and supporters - carrying on like a self-indulgent 12-year-old who never got around to growing up, who thinks he can escape responsibility by debasing everyone and every institution in sight, until there’s so much mud everywhere that the mud on his own hands just blends right in.

This is small conduct, and that’s why it seems so incongruous alongside the Constitution’s sober talk of high crimes and misdemeanors. But Clinton leaves the country no choice. His responsibilities are too large to leave in the hands of a man who has shown such disrespect for the office and the people who gave it to him.

Congress must begin impeachment proceedings. No one knows, now, where this will lead. But it’s the only process we have to restore the dignity and respect that our nation should insist upon in its highest office.