Justice Takes A Stand

Before the opening statements got under way in the impeachment trial of President Clinton on Thursday, Chief Justice William Rehnquist delivered an important message to the Senate chamber. It had nothing to do with the Constitution, or the impeachment of Andrew Johnson or the future of the U.S. presidency. No, it was about something else:

His bad back.

“I would like to inform members of the Senate and the parties in this case of my need to stand on occasion to stretch my back,” he said with the solemnity of a judge quoting the law. “I have no intention that the proceedings should be any way interrupted when I do so.”

The chief justice has been plagued by back problems for more than two decades, and he tries not to sit for long periods. Thursday, he stood up and stretched repeatedly.

Access pins dusted off from Nixon era

The circular lapel pins worn by House impeachment managers, White House lawyers and congressional staffers Thursday were manufactured a quarter-century ago for Richard Nixon’s impeachment trial that never happened.

The 250 white-and-gold pins had been gathering dust on a Senate shelf since 1974. Their origin was cleared up this week.

As the Watergate scandal moved toward impeachment, Senate leaders quietly decided to prepare for a trial. The pins would be worn for access to the Senate floor during the trial.

The individually numbered pins arrived in the Senate on Aug. 14, 1974 - five days after Nixon resigned to avoid being impeached by the House.

Document casts a bad spell…

The White House has assembled a crack team of litigators and constitutional experts to plead its case that Clinton’s behavior doesn’t merit impeachment. But perhaps the president’s defenders should hire a proofreader. The cover page of their voluminous written brief filed Wednesday identifies the document as “In re Impeachment of William Jefferson Cinton President of the United States.”

Asked how such an embarrassing typographical error could have occurred, deputy White House press secretary Amy Weiss couldn’t resist noting: “Beats the ell out of me.”

… but Hyde a careful editor

In his lead-off remarks, Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., respected even by his adversaries as a thoughtful and scholarly gentleman, sprinkled his oration with literary references. Among them were William Shakespeare’s words from “Macbeth.” Hyde said a violated oath was “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” But he left out the preceding line that life “is a tale told by an idiot.”

Doing the spectator shuffle

There’s an early verdict in the impeachment trial, although not on President Clinton’s guilt or innocence: Some members of the public say they’re being shooed out of the visitors’ gallery too quickly.

“Just when he’s getting interesting, we had to leave,” Isabel Najera complained Thursday. The Washington retiree said she was allowed to sit in the Senate’s public galleries for about half an hour but had to hand over her seat just as Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., laid out the case for Clinton’s removal from office.

“We would like more time,” said Najera’s companion, Helen Cooney, an Agriculture Department employee from suburban Virginia. “It was interesting hearing this firsthand. We’re going to try to do it again.”

Boris Palchik, a civil engineering student at the University of Texas at Austin, said he was awed by the opportunity to witness the government in action.

For some, a crowning achievement

Seeming almost out of place, several dozen tiara-clad Mardi Gras queens and princesses roamed the Capitol’s corridors Thursday, hours before the proceedings began in the nation’s only impeachment trial for an elected president.

Here to attend the 1999 Washington Mardi Gras Ball on Saturday, the young women were aware of the history unfolding just down the hall in the Senate.

“I’m excited about being here,” said Nicole Denning, 20, of Morgan City, La., waiting with her group in the Capitol Rotunda near the chamber where the trial was resuming. “I can say I was in Washington when Bill Clinton was being impeached.”

International stage shrinks

Congress put President Clinton on trial before the eyes of the world Thursday, but much of the international audience was looking the other way - at its own problems.

Turmoil in financial markets following Brazil’s dramatic currency devaluation grabbed headlines and overshadowed the opening of Clinton’s impeachment trial.

Mexican news media, occupied with economic woes, paid little attention to the president’s. The daily newspaper Excelsior published Clinton’s trial memorandum on its front page, but with little comment.

Austrian radio ignored the Washington spectacle to focus on the big European Union story - a vote of confidence over allegations of fraud and nepotism within the Executive Commission.

By Friday morning, a day after the Brazilian debacle, the impeachment trial grabbed the lead-story position in many British dailies.

The Times of London’s headline read, “Battle begins for Clinton’s survival,” while the Daily Telegraph’s story took up half of the front page.