I Opposed Bill Clinton's Impeachment and I Don't Regret It [View all]

[DonViejo]

By Jonathan Chait
@jonathanchait

November 17, 2017
9:39 am

As liberal America has been engaged in a long-overdue outpouring of recrimination and rethinking about the impunity enjoyed by powerful men who sexually harass their subordinates, Bill Clinton’s misdeeds have naturally returned to the fore. “At the time I, like most Americans, was glad to see Clinton prevail and regarded the whole sordid matter as primarily the fault of congressional Republicans’ excessive scandal-mongering,” confesses Matthew Yglesias. “I think we got it wrong.” Asa Hutchinson, a Republican former member of the House and a fervent proponent of impeachment, appears in the New York Times to take a victory lap. “Some of the same people who dismissed the women who came forward” then, “it seems like they’re evaluating these issues differently now than they did during that time.”

It is definitely true that Democrats underplayed the extent of Clinton’s crimes, especially ignoring Juanita Broaddrick’s credible accusation of rape and the disturbingly coercive overtones of his encounter with Paula Jones. But the Clinton scandal was not about Broaddrick or Jones, nor even about the propriety of his affair with an intern. It was about the propriety of impeaching the president for concealing an affair. The events of the last two decades have not made that case look any better.

While a handful of high-profile and unconvincing contemporaneous defenses of Clinton’s behavior have received some retrospective attention, it’s an enormous mistake to conclude that Democrats on the whole were defending the president’s behavior. On the contrary, they condemned it forcefully and repeatedly. “As deeply disappointed as I am with the process, it pales in comparison to the disappointment I feel toward this president,” Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle said during the impeachment debate. “Maybe it is because I had such high expectations. Maybe it is because he holds so many dreams and aspirations that I hold about our country. Maybe it is because he is my friend. I have never been, nor ever expect to be, so bitterly disappointed again.” It is difficult to find an example of Democratic rhetoric that did not express this theme.

The Democrats’ position at the time was that Congress should pass a resolution formally censuring Clinton — a rare, historic expression of condemnation. The Republican position maintained that such an act was unconstitutional. (“Censure violates the rules of the House. It’s unconstitutional. It’s a terrible precedent,” insisted Majority Whip Tom DeLay.) Democrats focused their dismay on the Republican refusal to allow such a vote. “In this debate, we are being denied a vote as an alternative to impeachment for censure and condemnation of our president for the wrongful acts that we believe have been performed,” complained House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt.

If the two parties agreed that Clinton’s behavior with Monica Lewinsky was very, very bad, what was the dispute about, anyway? It centered on the legal process. Special Counsel Kenneth Starr was appointed in 1994 to investigate Whitewater, a land deal that predated the Clinton presidency. Having failed to produce any evidence of criminality, Starr expanded his investigation and set a trap in which he could ask Clinton under oath if he had conducted an extramarital affair. When Clinton denied it, as adulterers tend to do, Starr nailed him for perjury.

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