-Caveat Lector-
December 20, 1998
NYT
IN AMERICA / By BOB HERBERT
House of Arrogance
In the end, the will of the people meant nothing.
Bob Livingston couldn't have been clearer about that.
His mind and the minds of his followers were closed. Even as the bombing
continued in Iraq and Americans from coast to coast were clamoring for an
alternative to impeachment, even as his own adulterous past was being flushed
out in the grotesque invasions of privacy that inevitably followed the
relentlessly prurient pursuit of the President, even as the country began to
contemplate the destructive effects of a lengthy and bitter Senate trial, the
Speaker-designate arrogantly and stupidly proclaimed: "Let us disregard the
outside influences."
The radicals on the Hill would hear nothing but the echoes of their own
fanaticism. Impeach! Impeach!
And that continued even after the stunning announcement yesterday morning that
Mr. Livingston would quit the House.
Dismayed by the partisan stampede, Richard Gephardt, the Democratic leader,
warned during the impeachment debate on Friday: "In your effort to uphold the
Constitution, you are trampling the Constitution."
David Bonior, the Democratic whip, said: "This is wrong. It is unfair. It is
unjust. At a time when events in the world and the challenges at home demand
that we stand united, censure is the one solution that can bring us together.
To my colleagues across the aisle, I say let go of your obsession. Listen to
the American people."
But the voices of reason would not be heard. Mr. Livingston and his right-wing
colleagues, the Tom DeLays, the Henry Hydes, the Bob Barrs, were on a mission
of destruction and would not be denied. Ordinary Americans could cry out all
they wanted. They could protest and demonstrate, send faxes and E-mails. It
didn't matter. The right was on the march and democracy was on the run.
Representative Thomas Barrett, a Democrat from Wisconsin, tried to remind his
Republican colleagues that the Constitution "does not allow you to remove a
President from office because you can't stand him." He was, of course,
ignored.
The Republicans will pay a huge price for their brazen, utterly partisan
attempt to drag a President from the White House in defiance of the will of
the people. The party's contempt for the voters was arrogantly summed up by
Alan Simpson, the former Senator from Wyoming, who said: "The attention span
of Americans is which movie is coming out next month and whether the quarterly
report on their stock will change."
If the voters are the dopes that Mr. Simpson thinks they are, then come 2000
everyone will have forgotten there was an impeachment crisis.
But Representative Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, was probably closer
to the truth when he said, "I warn my colleagues that you will reap the bitter
harvest of the unfair partisan seeds you sow today."
One of the many strange events of the past couple of weeks was the way in
which virtually all of the previously undecided Republicans, the so-called
moderates, surrendered their independence and lined up like lackeys to follow
the right wing's lead. All proclaimed loudly that they were voting on
principle, but in fact it was an exercise in mass cowardice, exemplified by
Representative John McHugh of upstate New York.
Mr. McHugh announced on Tuesday that he would vote for impeachment. But if his
decision was based on principle, he had an odd way of expressing it. The
Washington Post said Mr. McHugh appeared to have no stomach for a Senate
conviction or removal of the President from office. Of his colleagues in the
Senate, Mr. McHugh said, "I, for one, would accept, even welcome, their
mercy."
In other words, let the Senate do the heavy constitutional lifting.
Congressman McHugh may have wished out loud for mercy, but he clearly was too
frightened of the right-wingers in the House to cast a compassionate vote
himself.
The G.O.P. can no longer conceal that it is a party of extremists, of right-
wing absolutists, a party out of step with the political and cultural
orientation of most Americans.
Bob Livingston may be leaving, but his arrogant comment can still serve as his
party's slogan. "Let us disregard the outside influences."
Let us disregard the people.
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