Salon Newsreal | A plague on all their houses

A L S O+T O D A Y

Life of the party?
By Joshua Micah Marshall
With Livingston gone, Tom DeLay runs the party
(12/19/98)
Clinton tries to carry on...and on
By Harry Jaffe
(12/19/98)
The war at home?
By Jeff Stein
There's not much the U.S. can do to prevent an Iraqi terror attack, besides watch and listen
(12/18/98)
Going through the motions
By Harry Jaffe
Patrick Kennedy and Bob Barr's offstage sparring was the only surprise of Friday's impeachment debate
(12/17/98)
The Impeachment War: What on earth is going on?
Experts, pundits and kibitzers weigh in on Washington's weirdest week
(12/17/98)
Home for Ramadan?
By Jeff Stein
Don't hold your breath: Clinton's air war isn't likely to knock out Saddam Hussein
(12/17/98)
And now, back to impeachment
By Bruce Shapiro
Republican skeptic Christopher Shays tries to explain why fence-sitting Republicans suddenly rushed to oppose the president
(12/18/98)
House of adulterers
By David Weir
Unless the GOP is able to convince voters the impeachment proceedings are based on more than disapproval of his private sexual affairs, revelations like Bob Livingston's will continue.
(12/18/98)
Rep. Bob Livingston's remarks
The text of the statement Thursday by the incoming speaker of the House
(12/18/98)

T A B L E+T A L K
Do you agree or disagree with President Clinton's decision to bomb Iraq? Join the debate in Table Talk's International Issues area

___________________
Make up your own mind about the GOP at BarnesandNoble.com
___________________

R E C E N T L Y
The few, the proud, the relieved
By Jeff Stein
President Clinton risked a revolt within the military if he pulled back from the brink with Iraq once again
(12/17/98)
Baghdad bombing: The right move, the wrong time
By Lori Leibovich
A foreign policy expert says Clinton should have struck Baghdad sooner -- and argues that U.S. sanctions should be lifted
(12/17/98)
Reaping the whirlwind
By Joshua Micah Marshall
Clinton's move against Iraq raises the stakes for both parties in the impeachment debate
(12/17/98)
The whole world is watching -- again
By Todd Gitlin
Left-wing literati turn out to block impeachment
(12/16/98)
Peace, the movie
By Daryl Lindsey
Clinton's three-day visit to the Middle East was full of symbols and photo ops, but precious little in the way of content
(12/16/98)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Browse the
Newsreal Archives
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

spacer

A PLAGUE ON ALL THEIR HOUSES | PAGE 1, 2
- - - - - - - - - -
Next, we consider Rep. Henry Hyde, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who has spearheaded the effort to impeach the president. In explaining his vote in favor of impeachment, Hyde solemnly stated: "We are fighting for the rule of law. I think it is our constitutional duty under the law to pursue impeachment. I'm frightened for the rule of law."
Apparently, however, Hyde came to his appreciation for the law late in life. Almost a decade ago, as a member of the special Iran-contra congressional investigating committee, Hyde was an outspoken and craven apologist for the Reagan administration's often illegal and extraconstitutional foreign policy toward Iran and Nicaragua.
Hyde did not lie awake late at night fearing for the fate of the rule of law then. Unlike Whitewater and the Monica Lewinsky affair, Iran-contra involved lawbreaking and abuses of power by the president and his most senior national security advisers that were central to the governance of the nation. They included illegal arms sales by the Reagan administration to Iran, a terrorist state, as well as the covert funding of the contras, despite the fact that such assistance was also illegal.
An investigation by Iran-contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh led to convictions or guilty pleas by nine people. Criminal charges were brought against senior officials of the National Security Council, the State Department, the Defense Department and the CIA.
As a ranking Republican on the Iran-contra committee in 1987, Hyde had this to say at the time about the massive lawbreaking within the Reagan White House: "All of us, at some time, confront conflicts between rights and duties, between choices that are evil and less evil, and one hardly exhausts moral indignation by labeling every untruth and every deception an outrage."
Hyde also excused the conduct of National Security Council aide Oliver North by asserting that during previous presidencies, the White House had long been "a palace of pragmatism where dishonesty flourished."
Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., has also been one of the Judiciary Committee's most outspoken members in support of Clinton's impeachment. Even after the bombing of Iraq began, McCollum pushed to continue with the impeachment vote. "I think it is irrelevant if there's bombing going on. We can still do the impeachment," McCollum said.
Like Hyde, during the Iran-contra scandal, McCollum was one of the House's most virulent defenders of the lawlessness of the Reagan administration's conduct of foreign policy. Then also a member of the House Judiciary Committee, McCollum led an effort to derail a subcommittee probe of the role of then-Attorney General Edwin Meese and White House officials in obstructing criminal investigations of North and his contra resupply network, according to a former member of the Judiciary Committee and two former staffers.
"McCollum was in constant contact with the Justice Department and White House in an effort to thwart what we were doing," a former Judiciary subcommittee staff member told me earlier this week. "In my mind, he wasn't assisting the White House's coverup. He was part of it."
Next we should consider the role of Starr, a man who finds so much fault with others, but will only acknowledge one fault of his own: loving the law too much.
"My experience is in the law and in the courts," Starr intoned before the House Judiciary Committee. "I am not a man of politics, of public relations, or of polls ... Rather, as a product of the law and of the courts, I have come to an unyielding faith in our court system ... the sanctity of the judicial process."
But Starr's lasting legacy to this peculiar time will most likely be the enduring harm he has done to the rule of law he says he so loves. Because of Starr's prosecutorial missteps, it is unlikely that Congress will reauthorize the independent counsel statute. Because of his prosecutorial zeal, a vast segment of the American public has lost its faith in federal prosecutors to enforce the laws of the land.
Starr was certainly right in telling the House Judiciary Committee that no president should be above the law. And he was also right to say that the president should be awarded no greater rights than the average citizen.
But by the same token, we do not want a system of government where anyone, including the president of the United States, should have lesser rights than an ordinary citizen. We do not want our public officials to be below the law any more than we would allow them to be above it.
For most of the rest of us, it would be unthinkable for a wealthy philanthropist, such as Richard Mellon Scaife, to spend millions of dollars on private investigations of our personal lives. Nor is it conceivable that any public prosecutor would ever spend $40 million to investigate the 20-year-old business dealings and personal conduct of any ordinary citizen. And none of us would have been compelled to testify against our best interests to a federal grand jury, as the president was.
As former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman of Brooklyn, an author of the original independent counsel statute, persuasively argued in the New York Times last August when Starr demanded Clinton's testimony before his federal grand jury:
"Unlike most witnesses, [Clinton] cannot invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to testify on the ground that he might incriminate himself -- even though he is fully entitled to do so. If he were to invoke the Fifth, it could easily, if unfairly, be portrayed as an admission of guilt and could permanently taint his presidency ...
"Plainly, Mr. Starr is maneuvering to take advantage of Mr. Clinton's inability to claim the Fifth and coercing him into becoming a witness against himself. But Mr. Starr should understand the constraints on the president require restraint in the use of the prosecutor's power."
During the course of his four-year investigation, however, Starr has displayed as little restraint in exercising his prosecutorial discretion as the president had in his sexual indiscretion.
Finally, we should also consider the role of the media in all of this. After all of its hyperventilating on the soap-opera aspects of this story over the course of the last year, one would think the press would now attempt to lead a thoughtful and national discussion as to what does and does not rise to the level of offense that should lead to the impeachment of the president.
But today, there are no Edward R. Murrows or Walter Cronkites to provide us with the proper perspective. Instead, we are left with the likes of Geraldo Rivera. In all fairness, however, who can claim that Geraldo is not the best qualified journalist to cover the Clinton crisis? After all, understanding complicated DNA evidence has proven to be as crucial to the impeachment of the president as it was to Geraldo's other recent big story, the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
Clinton's harshest critics may be right in asserting that one of his most enduring legacies will be his undermining of the rule of the law. But when historians consider this peculiar time, they are likely to conclude that Henry Hyde, Kenneth Starr and numerous others in Congress and the press have been Clinton's unindicted co-conspirators in the damage they have done to the Constitution.
SALON | Dec. 18, 1998

Murray Waas has covered the Clinton crisis for Salon.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Become a Salon member. Click here.

A L S O+T O D A Y Life of the party? By Joshua Micah Marshall With Livingston gone, Tom DeLay runs the party (12/19/98) Clinton tries to carry on...and on By Harry Jaffe (12/19/98) The war at home? By Jeff Stein There's not much the U.S. can do to prevent an Iraqi terror attack, besides watch and listen (12/18/98) Going through the motions By Harry Jaffe Patrick Kennedy and Bob Barr's offstage sparring was the only surprise of Friday's impeachment debate (12/17/98) The Impeachment War: What on earth is going on? Experts, pundits and kibitzers weigh in on Washington's weirdest week (12/17/98) Home for Ramadan? By Jeff Stein Don't hold your breath: Clinton's air war isn't likely to knock out Saddam Hussein (12/17/98) And now, back to impeachment By Bruce Shapiro Republican skeptic Christopher Shays tries to explain why fence-sitting Republicans suddenly rushed to oppose the president (12/18/98) House of adulterers By David Weir Unless the GOP is able to convince voters the impeachment proceedings are based on more than disapproval of his private sexual affairs, revelations like Bob Livingston's will continue. (12/18/98) Rep. Bob Livingston's remarks The text of the statement Thursday by the incoming speaker of the House (12/18/98) T A B L E+T A L K Do you agree or disagree with President Clinton's decision to bomb Iraq? Join the debate in Table Talk's International Issues area ___________________ Make up your own mind about the GOP at BarnesandNoble.com ___________________ R E C E N T L Y The few, the proud, the relieved By Jeff Stein President Clinton risked a revolt within the military if he pulled back from the brink with Iraq once again (12/17/98) Baghdad bombing: The right move, the wrong time By Lori Leibovich A foreign policy expert says Clinton should have struck Baghdad sooner -- and argues that U.S. sanctions should be lifted (12/17/98) Reaping the whirlwind By Joshua Micah Marshall Clinton's move against Iraq raises the stakes for both parties in the impeachment debate (12/17/98) The whole world is watching -- again By Todd Gitlin Left-wing literati turn out to block impeachment (12/16/98) Peace, the movie By Daryl Lindsey Clinton's three-day visit to the Middle East was full of symbols and photo ops, but precious little in the way of content (12/16/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		A PLAGUE ON ALL THEIR HOUSES \| PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - Next, we consider Rep. Henry Hyde, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who has spearheaded the effort to impeach the president. In explaining his vote in favor of impeachment, Hyde solemnly stated: "We are fighting for the rule of law. I think it is our constitutional duty under the law to pursue impeachment. I'm frightened for the rule of law." Apparently, however, Hyde came to his appreciation for the law late in life. Almost a decade ago, as a member of the special Iran-contra congressional investigating committee, Hyde was an outspoken and craven apologist for the Reagan administration's often illegal and extraconstitutional foreign policy toward Iran and Nicaragua. Hyde did not lie awake late at night fearing for the fate of the rule of law then. Unlike Whitewater and the Monica Lewinsky affair, Iran-contra involved lawbreaking and abuses of power by the president and his most senior national security advisers that were central to the governance of the nation. They included illegal arms sales by the Reagan administration to Iran, a terrorist state, as well as the covert funding of the contras, despite the fact that such assistance was also illegal. An investigation by Iran-contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh led to convictions or guilty pleas by nine people. Criminal charges were brought against senior officials of the National Security Council, the State Department, the Defense Department and the CIA. As a ranking Republican on the Iran-contra committee in 1987, Hyde had this to say at the time about the massive lawbreaking within the Reagan White House: "All of us, at some time, confront conflicts between rights and duties, between choices that are evil and less evil, and one hardly exhausts moral indignation by labeling every untruth and every deception an outrage." Hyde also excused the conduct of National Security Council aide Oliver North by asserting that during previous presidencies, the White House had long been "a palace of pragmatism where dishonesty flourished." Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., has also been one of the Judiciary Committee's most outspoken members in support of Clinton's impeachment. Even after the bombing of Iraq began, McCollum pushed to continue with the impeachment vote. "I think it is irrelevant if there's bombing going on. We can still do the impeachment," McCollum said. Like Hyde, during the Iran-contra scandal, McCollum was one of the House's most virulent defenders of the lawlessness of the Reagan administration's conduct of foreign policy. Then also a member of the House Judiciary Committee, McCollum led an effort to derail a subcommittee probe of the role of then-Attorney General Edwin Meese and White House officials in obstructing criminal investigations of North and his contra resupply network, according to a former member of the Judiciary Committee and two former staffers. "McCollum was in constant contact with the Justice Department and White House in an effort to thwart what we were doing," a former Judiciary subcommittee staff member told me earlier this week. "In my mind, he wasn't assisting the White House's coverup. He was part of it." Next we should consider the role of Starr, a man who finds so much fault with others, but will only acknowledge one fault of his own: loving the law too much. "My experience is in the law and in the courts," Starr intoned before the House Judiciary Committee. "I am not a man of politics, of public relations, or of polls ... Rather, as a product of the law and of the courts, I have come to an unyielding faith in our court system ... the sanctity of the judicial process." But Starr's lasting legacy to this peculiar time will most likely be the enduring harm he has done to the rule of law he says he so loves. Because of Starr's prosecutorial missteps, it is unlikely that Congress will reauthorize the independent counsel statute. Because of his prosecutorial zeal, a vast segment of the American public has lost its faith in federal prosecutors to enforce the laws of the land. Starr was certainly right in telling the House Judiciary Committee that no president should be above the law. And he was also right to say that the president should be awarded no greater rights than the average citizen. But by the same token, we do not want a system of government where anyone, including the president of the United States, should have lesser rights than an ordinary citizen. We do not want our public officials to be below the law any more than we would allow them to be above it. For most of the rest of us, it would be unthinkable for a wealthy philanthropist, such as Richard Mellon Scaife, to spend millions of dollars on private investigations of our personal lives. Nor is it conceivable that any public prosecutor would ever spend $40 million to investigate the 20-year-old business dealings and personal conduct of any ordinary citizen. And none of us would have been compelled to testify against our best interests to a federal grand jury, as the president was. As former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman of Brooklyn, an author of the original independent counsel statute, persuasively argued in the New York Times last August when Starr demanded Clinton's testimony before his federal grand jury: "Unlike most witnesses, [Clinton] cannot invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to testify on the ground that he might incriminate himself -- even though he is fully entitled to do so. If he were to invoke the Fifth, it could easily, if unfairly, be portrayed as an admission of guilt and could permanently taint his presidency ... "Plainly, Mr. Starr is maneuvering to take advantage of Mr. Clinton's inability to claim the Fifth and coercing him into becoming a witness against himself. But Mr. Starr should understand the constraints on the president require restraint in the use of the prosecutor's power." During the course of his four-year investigation, however, Starr has displayed as little restraint in exercising his prosecutorial discretion as the president had in his sexual indiscretion. Finally, we should also consider the role of the media in all of this. After all of its hyperventilating on the soap-opera aspects of this story over the course of the last year, one would think the press would now attempt to lead a thoughtful and national discussion as to what does and does not rise to the level of offense that should lead to the impeachment of the president. But today, there are no Edward R. Murrows or Walter Cronkites to provide us with the proper perspective. Instead, we are left with the likes of Geraldo Rivera. In all fairness, however, who can claim that Geraldo is not the best qualified journalist to cover the Clinton crisis? After all, understanding complicated DNA evidence has proven to be as crucial to the impeachment of the president as it was to Geraldo's other recent big story, the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Clinton's harshest critics may be right in asserting that one of his most enduring legacies will be his undermining of the rule of the law. But when historians consider this peculiar time, they are likely to conclude that Henry Hyde, Kenneth Starr and numerous others in Congress and the press have been Clinton's unindicted co-conspirators in the damage they have done to the Constitution. SALON \| Dec. 18, 1998 Murray Waas has covered the Clinton crisis for Salon. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.