This was George Orwell’s definition of a hypocrite: “He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.”
Speaking of hypocrites, let’s turn back the clock. A mere 21 years ago, on virtually this same date, the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach President Clinton for lying in legal proceedings about sex. What’s predictably fascinating is that the Republican panel members of 1998 sound like the Democrats of 2019, and the Democratic panelists of 1998 sound like the Republicans of 2019.
As I listened last night to the debate over whether to impeach Donald Trump, I heard echoes of the debate that I wrote about in ’98 when I was a newspaper political reporter. But just to ensure that my aging memory is intact – and that, indeed, the two parties have totally swapped arguments – I’ve unearthed and read the ’98 House Judiciary transcripts.
Here are some excerpts. Be prepared to squirm.
Jerry Nadler, the panel’s top Democrat: “The effect of impeachment is to overturn the popular will of the voters as expressed in a national election. We must not overturn an election… We have no right to overturn the considered judgment of the American people. There are clearly some members of the Republican majority who have never accepted the results of the 1992 or 1996 elections.”
Democrat Barney Frank, addressing the Republicans: “Impeachment is not simply a way of expressing your wish that (Clinton) hadn’t won…to undo two democratic elections and throw an elected official out of office.”
Democrat Robert Wexler: “Wake up, America. They (Republicans) are about to impeach our president. They are about to reverse two national elections. They are about to discard your votes.”
That argument was wrong then, just as it’s wrong now. Nadler, in his current role as Judiciary chairman, correctly says that an impeachment does not overturn an election; rather, it holds a president accountable for dire misdeeds post-election. Today’s Nadler is basically refuting yesteryear’s Nadler.
Nadler again, in 1998: “We must not (impeach) without an overwhelming consensus of the American people and of their representatives in Congress. There must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or an impeachment substantially supported by one of our major political parties and largely opposed by the other. Such an impeachment would lack legitimacy.”
Today’s Nadler is helping to shepherd a party-line narrowly-voted impeachment, while defending its legitimacy.
Democrat John Conyers: “This (impeachment) does, sometimes to some people, begin to take on the appearance of a coup.”
The ’98 House Republicans thought that charge was demagogic and ridiculous. (And they were right.) The ’19 House Republicans, scrambling to defend Trump, yell “coup” all the time. (And they are wrong.)
Speaking of the ’98 Republicans, it’s amazing how earnest they were about defending truth, morality, and the rule of law. Let’s pluck the lowest-hanging fruit, and you know who that is.
Republican Lindsey Graham, during House committee debate: “Let it be said that any president who cheats our institutions shall be impeached.” One month later: “You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic…Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”
Republican Henry Hyde, Judiciary committee chairman: “Kissing or touching of breasts or genitalia of another person would be covered by the definition of sexual relations…This vote says something about us. It answers the question, just who are we? And what do we stand for? Is the president one of us or is he a sovereign?”
Hyde was actually well-versed on the issue of kissing and touching. He’d recently admitted – after being outed in the press – that he had conducted a five-year affair with a married beauty stylist. Hyde was married as well, with three children.
Republican Bill McCollum: “What we’re dealing with here today is far from simply a matter about the president possibly touching certain parts of (Monica Lewinsky). What we’re dealing with today is the fact that the President of the United States engaged in a scheme, an elaborate scheme, to lie and to get other people to lie and to hide evidence and get other people to hide evidence…His conduct constitutes a great insult to our constitutional system.”
Republican Tom DeLay, a House leader: Impeachment “is about honor and decency and integrity and truth, everything we honor in this country.”
Republican Robert Inglis: “Are we a nation based on truth, or a nation based on moral relativism? Does the truth matter or is everything relative? Is there any truth, or is my truth different from your truth? I hope that America will always be a place of commitment to essential truths.”
Republican Steve Chabot: “He (Clinton) has disgraced the sacred office of the president. Impeachment is the only remedy that addresses this president’s illegal and unethical acts.”
But the party that impeached a president in 1998 for lying, immorality, and indecency is totally fine, in 2019, with a president who has told nearly 14,000 lies; who signed a hush-money check to a porn star with whom he sinfully canoodled; who calls critics “human scum” and suggests that whistle-blowers should be shot as spies; who illegally withheld congressionally-approved military aid to an ally for the purpose of gaining dirt against a domestic opponent and floating fake conspiracy theories that would absolve Russia of blame for its ’16 election invasion; and so much more. And Steve Chabot, who lamented how Clinton “disgraced the sacred office,” is still a member of the Judiciary Committee – where he defends Trump and declares that the Democrats “have taken a blowtorch to the rule of law.”
Hypocrisy is such a turnoff; no wonder so many Americans tune it out. You start to wonder if there’s any hope…but wait!
Here’s Republican Bill Jenkins, a ’98 Judiciary Committee member, speaking to us from the tumultuous past: “Although our system is fragile, it has survived impeachment. It has survived two world wars and numerous other conflicts, the Great Depression and a very bitter Civil War. If there is a vote to impeach, it will not be the end of our Republic.”
Hey. Good to know.