Why private life is a public concern

Rendezvous With Destiny
By Daniel Waldman

For the good of the country, Bill Clinton, LAW '73, must resign from the Office of President of the United States. I know, I know--all of the facts are not yet in, and in our country, the presumption of innocence must prevail. My declaration, however, is not based on this latest charge. Rather, it is based on the quick rush to judgment by the American people and their leaders, emphatically against Clinton in this latest scandal. Polls showing that a strong majority of Americans believe in his guilt, as well as the deafening silence of members of his own party, prove that this presidency is beyond resuscitation.

By hanging on for as long as he possibly can, Clinton only compounds his personal disgrace and further damages American interests at home and abroad. It is not a "vast right-wing conspiracy," as Hillary Clinton, LAW '73, put it, but his own actions, recent and past, that have completely destroyed his ability to govern. Having become the butt of late-night television jokes, and an object of disgrace amongst members of his own party, Clinton now needs to resign, and thus end the tenure of the most morally bankrupt man to ever hold the office of President of the United States.

Media pundits have chided us about unfairly "rushing to judgment," but this is not what has occurred. Clinton's presidency and moral authority have not collapsed in one week; rather, this week's revelations have simply confirmed suspicions built up over the past six years as a result of the scandals and dishonesty in Clinton's public and private life.

During this time, a pattern of lying, half-truths, obstruction of justice, and abuses of power has clearly emerged. Even in the most minor cases, starting with "I didn't inhale," Clinton has been unable to tell the truth. And contrary to the admonitions we received six years ago from those who said private character wouldn't affect his performance in office, these revelations have extended well past the personal realm.

In Travelgate, the Clintons, in an obvious act of political patronage, raided the White House Travel Office, smearing its employees with charges of financial mismanagement and embezzlement. The employees were removed and indicted by the Justice Department, and the Clintons quickly installed their Arkansas cronies. At trial, though, all of these former employees were exonerated, and every charge was proven to have been a complete fabrication. Unfortunately, this came too late, as their careers had been ruined and they had run up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.

The final report by Congressional investigators found that White House staffers had launched a "colossal damage-control effort" to cover up the Clintons' roles following the dismissals. The report went on to cite extensive abuse of the FBI and IRS in this incident, and concluded that Clinton had overstepped the bounds of the presidency.

Then, nearly 1,000 top-secret FBI files on American citizens turned up in the White House under the care of Craig Livingstone, an ex-bar bouncer. Surprisingly, every single one of these files was on a prominent Republican. Clinton dismissed the incident as a "bureaucratic snafu," saying that the White House had been operating from an outdated Secret Service list. The Secret Service released a statement that this was "flatly untrue" and that no such database existed.

Then there's Whitewater, where Clinton friend Vernon Jordan (who is also making a similar appearance in the Lewinsky affair) helped arrange employment for Clinton friend Webster Hubbel, who was at that time under indictment and headed for jail. Coincidentally, Hubbel is the one witness who prosecutors believe could unravel the entire Whitewater affair. The incident is now under investigation, since the hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees which Hubbel received on his way to jail seem suspiciously like hush money. And who could forget about those key Whitewater documents, missing for years, which suddenly turned up in a top desk drawer in the White House residence?

In addition, of course, there is Donorgate, with the now-infamous tape of an Indonesian gardner with more than 400,000 dollars in hand telling Clinton that "James Riady sent me," proving a clear violation and subversion of U.S. campaign finance laws. And I haven't even mentioned the selling of the Lincoln Bedroom, or the selling of American foreign policy on East Timor.

Regardless of how this latest scandal ends, Bill Clinton's legacy will be this: he has lowered the expectations that the American people have for their leaders. No longer do Americans judge the actions of their leaders by whether they are right or wrong, but only by whether or not they are legal. Bill Clinton no longer has the moral authority to lead the world's only remaining superpower. It is time for him to bring to an end one of the most disgraceful periods in the history of the American Presidency. He must resign--now.

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