Convict!

By Alex Demille

For only the second time in history, the President of the United States has been impeached. The Senate solemnly contemplates. The press scram-bles to cover a momentous historical event. The public yawns.

The arguments are old by now. To the Republicans, the word of the day is "perjury": President Bill Clinton, LAW '73, broke the law, and it is our constitutional responsibility to try him for his offenses. The Democrats, standing by their political ally in the White House, rail against the Republicans, citing political revenge as the GOP's motivation for impeachment. They paint Starr as a sex-obsessed crusader who spent millions of public dollars on a pornographic report. Should the president be removed from office on account of a human frailty? At the helm of the Democrat's battleship is the 70 percent approval rating of the American people, that golden statistic. Everyone loves him.

But why do they love him? First, an underdog is easy to root for. Through his own lies—and the rather short memory span of the public—the president has morphed from villain to victim. The public, it seems, has forgotten that he and no other caused this whole mess. It was the president who fooled around in the Oval Office with a woman not much older than his daughter. While that by itself made him a disgusting pig, it wasn't a punishable offense; not until the president stood before a grand jury (on trial for sexually harassing one of many women on a laundry list of lewdness) and lied outright did the issue become a much larger one.

Americans also approve of their president because he's easy to swallow. He smiles a lot and makes vapid speeches about bridges to the next millennium. He grins while the Dow Jones soars and unemployment plummets, and every once in a while, wearing a practiced look of stone-faced determination, he launches rockets at Third World countries to make sure everyone knows he is a man of action.

Bill Clinton knows how to lie. Whether it's about pot smoking or draft dodging, his manipulative nature is astounding. Who could forget the man who questioned the meaning of the word "is" to worm his way around the truth?

The amount of lying Clinton does is inversely proportional to the tightness of the noose around his political neck. When his enemies are at bay, as in the period after Starr handed over his report to the Judiciary Committee, Clinton lets down his guard. He turns arrogant and defiant, refusing to concede the truth or any shred of remorse. Yet when cornered by the truth, he makes empty apologies to a public eager to forgive him. But his lying soul forbids him to tell all. He will not admit perjury, even though many moderate House Republicans saw such a confession as a way of avoiding impeachment. But Clinton disappointed everyone and told a cowardly half-truth, opting for deceit over honesty. He wouldn't have it any other way.

Now, through no fault but his own, the president stands trial in the Senate. It is time to show the world that America is better than this. "Truth" and "Justice" are not just catch phrases; they are words we live by. Tolerance for the president's lies and arrogance must have a limit—his plastic charm will only get him so far. Clinton might have the approval ratings, but the scales of justice go by a standard that has nothing to do with the economy or charisma.

George Washington, the first and arguably finest president, could not tell a lie. William Jefferson Clinton seems incapable of telling the truth.

Convict.

Alex DeMille is a freshman in Timothy Dwight.

Back to Opinion...