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Published on 02/01/1999 All articles from this issue

The impeachment caper and the little blue dress

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By Mort MacLeod

Other Voices

The ludicrous theater being played out in the Senate is a farce of scandalous and dangerous proportions to our Constitution. To regard it as a bipartisan impeachment trial in search of truth is to believe that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs took on the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl.

What motivates these empty vessels in the Senate can only be described as the self-serving manta that somehow is supposed to shield them from the wrath of history and the ire of the voters. The paralysis which has frozen the intellect, wisdom, and courage the senators seek to portray is so complete, I don't think even the Wizard of Oz could help them.

This trial is not about the glorious image of the Senate and its precious will. It is not about the nation's business, past elections, closure, the polls, the cost or the time. The case is about the Senators' constitutional duty to find the truth. If the Senate can't muster the courage and discipline to fully and carefully carry out its sworn duty, the country is in deep trouble. I am sick of hearing that the Senate should follow the mandate of the polls and that they need a quick closure and a bipartisan exit strategy. If our founders believed that this nation would become a nation of leaders more akin to the timid butterflies, they would have given up writing the Constitution in the first place.

It's time the senators did their duty- relying on the baseless wish of a bipartisan exit strategy to cover up the true facts is not going to happen.

Ask yourself this question - why are the president and the Democratic Party so deathly afraid of the facts and the truth? That's easy - keep the true facts out of the impeachment record. After all, the president has never felt any duty to tell the truth. He has been lying from the beginning to the end. He has used his office to conceal the facts, obstruct justice and intimidate witnesses. Of course the White House and the Democrats do not want to let the public in on the truth. Find any and all means to end the trial sooner rather than later. Democrats are going to vote as a block against impeachment regardless of the truth of the facts and their sworn duty.

To avoid the record, our artful senators have conspired to carry out a "bipartisan sham trial." The issue of whether the offenses rise to the level of impeachment is only relevant after the trial. Then they vote their conscience and/or partisanship but not before.

This senatorial "DNA" stain could be considerably more destructive of the Constitution than the DNA on Monica's little blue dress. The truth will ultimately come out. How will the nation feel about a president and the senators who betrayed their oath of office and the Constitution?

MacLeod is a Los Altos attorney.