Bill Clinton should have resigned

Bill Clinton should have resigned

It was the first big government shutdown.  House Speaker Newt Gingrich, freshly empowered by the Republican House victory in the “Revolution of ‘94” with their “Contract with America,” led a confrontation with the Democratic President, Bill Clinton.  The first shutdown was over Medicare premium increases (Gingrich wanted the increases, Clinton did not) and lasted for five days.  It ended with a temporary resolution, but within the month the government shut down again.  

The second shutdown lasted twenty-one days.   The issue now was a balanced budget agreement, but public perception was altered when the Speaker complained about an apparent snub on Air Force One from the President.   The public began to see the shutdown as a personal temper tantrum by Gingrich against Clinton, rather than about principle.  

It was during these shutdowns, that Bill Clinton began an affair with a twenty-one year old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.  As many of the White House staff were laid off by the shutdown, unpaid interns were used to run errands, including getting food.  It was during one of these “pizza runs” that Clinton began their affair, which ultimately included nine sexual encounters.  Clinton and Lewinsky never had intercourse, but had oral sex during these trysts in the Oval Office.  

Both Bill and Hillary Clinton were under investigation by a Special Prosecutor, Ken Starr, originally for illegal land deals in Arkansas when Bill Clinton was Governor, called the Whitewater Investigation.  The investigation expanded into the series of sexual relationships Bill Clinton had during that time, with potential charges of sexual imposition and even rape.  The Starr investigation found out about the Lewinsky affair in early 1998, and Clinton answered questions about it before a Grand Jury (via closed circuit TV.)

In his testimony, Clinton denied having “sexual relations” with Lewinsky.  He later tried to parse the difference, stating that oral sex wasn’t intercourse, and therefore not sex.  He also claimed that sex required action by both participants, and that since he had “received” oral sex, he wasn’t “participating.”  These arguments led to a reasonable conclusion that the President had perjured himself in his testimony to the Grand Jury.

As a high school government teacher at the time, my curriculum changed from political science to sex education.  The United States, and most certainly the sixteen, seventeen and eighteen year olds; were engrossed (and grossed out) with the definition of sex, what one could do with cigars in sex, and Clinton’s famous line; “…it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’, is,” describing whether he “is having an affair,” or “was having an affair.” 

The President of the United States, then fifty years old, had an affair with a twenty-one year old intern, and did it in the Oval Office.  He then lied about it to a Federal Grand Jury.

The Republicans in the House of Representatives determined that Clinton’s actions met their definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors;” the phrase describing grounds for impeachment in the Constitution.  After a series of leadership resignations, including Gingrich (affair with secretary) and his apparent successor as Speaker, Bob Livingston (four affairs;) the Republicans finally settling on Dennis Hastert as their leader (who eventually served time in prison for molesting high school wrestlers when he was the coach)  and voted on impeachment.

The President was impeached by the House in a close to party-line vote, and a trial was held in the Senate.  There were eleven counts divided into two Articles against Clinton, including perjury, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice.  The Senate is required to reach a two-thirds majority to convict (and remove) the President, but in the final vote, neither Article gained a simple majority vote (45-55 on the first, and 50-50 on the second) and Clinton remained in office.

There have been three Presidents in American history who have faced removal from office.  The first, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee (1865-1869) was Lincoln’s Vice President, who became President after the assassination. Johnson was chosen Vice President as a “Union candidate” to balance Lincoln’s “Republicanism,” and when he became President he faced a hostile Republican Congress.  Their political fights over the shape of the post-Civil War nation, led the Congress to exercise the impeachment clause for the first time.  

The Johnson impeachment was purely political, and Johnson remained in office by just one vote (Senator Edmund Ross of Kansas.)  

The second President to face impeachment was Richard Nixon.  After two years of denying criminal involvement in the Watergate break-in, the release of the White House tapes clearly showed that Nixon was involved from the very beginning in covering up the crime.  Republicans in the Congress went to Nixon and told him he was going to be removed, and Nixon chose to resign rather than face the humiliation of impeachment.

Which brings us back to Clinton.  He disgraced himself by having an affair with a twenty-one year old, in the Oval Office of the White House.  He then perjured himself to a Federal Grand Jury.  With the standards of today’s #METOO era, his behavior is completely unacceptable.  Even in the 1990’s, his actions evoked cries for his resignation.  Instead, in what became a partisan vote, Republicans tried to remove him.

This leaves us with the legacy of impeachment as a political action, one used for partisan rather than Constitutional reasons.  When questions arise about the actions and behaviors of President Trump, his allies claim that it is a “partisan witch hunt,” along the lines of the Clinton impeachment.  

What if Bill Clinton, rather than “toughing” it out, had resigned.  Even Democrats acknowledged (at the time) that Clinton had disgraced himself in the Presidency, and while the economy was good, Clinton was hamstrung in other actions by the crisis.

If Clinton had resigned, Al Gore would have become President of the United States.  Gore would not have had to carry the burden of the Clinton legacy in the 2000 election, and would undoubtedly been elected to office on his own (he won the popular vote as it was.)  The “alternative history” that would have created, likely no war in Iraq, early intervention in environmental issues, and a different handling of 9-11; is interesting to contemplate.

But what would be more impactful in today’s crisis, is that impeachment would not be seen as a wholly political/partisan move.  Because Clinton set the example of “toughing out” an impeachment, even though his actions were disgraceful and illegal, he established the path for Trump to do the same. Clinton should have followed the example of Nixon rather than Andrew Johnson, and because he didn’t, Trump will try to follow Clinton, forcing the nation through an even more excruciating period.  

So whether Trump is impeached, or the final decision is turned over to the people in the election of 2020, it is the actions of Bill Clinton that is determining our course today. By “saving” his Presidency, he has left us with his legacy – a disgraced Presidency, then and now.