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Commentary

2-1

The Public’s "Watergate Lessons" vs the Clinton’s "Impeachment Lessons"

As Watergate moved into the past, and into the school backpacks of the next generation, we moved to the extended "No One Being Impeached" phase of the Nixon-Clinton impeachment tragedy. In this "No One Being Impeached" phase, what summary theory and what facts were in the minds of most people about the "Nixon Being Impeached" phase?

As an unscientific answer to this question, I would venture that during the "No One Being Impeached" phase three main historical lessons remained in most voters minds concerning the Nixon impeachment. These three lessons have been passed along to the younger voters to whom Watergate is history. "Watergate Lesson One", the simplest, is this: a President can be impeached and removed from office, or forced to resign, for serious wrongdoing. "Watergate Lesson Two", with a little more nuance, is this: Nixon’s downfall happened because he committed serious crimes and abuses of power related to his work as President. According to "Watergate Lesson Two", for a President, a serious breach of the public trust, or a serious abuse of power, can be an impeachable offense. "Watergate Lesson Three" is the refrain of the Greek Chorus: The cover up is worse than the crime. According to "Watergate Lesson Three", if Nixon hadn’t acted to cover up a dumb break-in, the American people may never have demanded his removal.

The three "Watergate Lessons", and six "Impeachment Lessons" that I think were drawn by the Clintons, are summarized on the opposite page (NOTE: THIS CHART NOT AVAILABLE IN ONLINE BOOK - HOWEVER, IT'S JUST A SUMMARY OF MATERIAL PRESENTED IN THE TEXT).

Sometime in 1998, when we moved from the "Clinton Wounded" phase to the "Clinton Being Impeached" phase, people started getting refresher courses in the Nixon impeachment. My main concern here is with the time before the "Clinton Being Impeached" phase. As you consider the three "Watergate Lessons" stated above, please ask yourself: Is this a reasonable characterization about what people thought during the 1970’s or 1980’s and up to early 1998?

One final point before we move to the question of what "Impeachment Lessons" the Clintons derived from the Nixon impeachment proceedings. I would venture to say that during the "No One Being Impeached" and "Clinton Wounded" phases, a definition of the legal grounds for impeachment based on the Watergate history would be pretty fuzzy for most people. Even among those who recalled the basic charges and therefore knew "Watergate Lesson Two", most would probably recount their knowledge as something like: "A President can be impeached for..." rather than "The grounds for impeaching a President...". Finally, and fundamentally, I think even fewer people would have stated grounds for impeachment that made any kind of distinction between "public crimes" and "private crimes" without prompting.

Now let’s consider six Nixon "Impeachment Lessons", conclusions that I think the Clintons can reasonably be supposed to have drawn from the Nixon impeachment proceedings. When we compare and contrast these "Impeachment Lessons" with the three "Watergate Lessons", and consider what we know about the Clintons' background before 1992, we will be well on our way to understanding why the Nixon-Clinton impeachment really is one continuous tragedy instead of two essentially unrelated historical events twenty five years apart.

Both President and Mrs. Clinton are exceptionally intelligent people. They were both educated as lawyers. They have both spent their entire adult lives moving in elite circles of other highly intelligent, highly educated people. I think it’s also fair to stipulate that, as with many if not almost all young people, the young Clintons were idealistic. Of the two, Hillary’s knowledge of impeachment was almost certainly broader and deeper than President Clinton’s, because of her work on the Judiciary Committee staff considering the Nixon impeachment. Finally, let’s assume that Hillary told Bill, in detail, all about her experiences and impressions regarding the Nixon impeachment proceedings. What can we reasonably conjecture as to the formation and content of the "Impeachment Lessons" the Clintons learned from this time?

First, it’s obvious that the experiences and impressions of the Clintons regarding impeachment are going to be far more in-depth, detailed, and technical than the "Watergate Lessons" learned by most people.

Second, the "Impeachment Lessons" learned by the Clintons during and immediately after the "Nixon Being Impeached" phase were brain-and-gut issues — they were heartfelt and emotional as well as intellectual. This was a time of bitter partisanship. As young, idealistic, highly trained lawyers, in a crowd with deep antagonisms toward Nixon to begin with, against the emotionally supercharged background of Viet Nam, the basic fact situation of the Nixon impeachment must have led Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham to view events with both outrage and righteous indignation. Simply put: the Clintons probably thought they and their crowd were "good", and Nixon and his crowd were "evil". I think this was a lasting impression, particularly for Hillary.

Now let me try to characterize what I think were six "Impeachment Lessons" the Clintons learned from the Nixon proceedings. These "lessons" regard perceptions of both how legal and political processes should work, and how these processes really do work.

"Impeachment Lesson One" is this: Serious abuses of Presidential Power are impeachable when they violate a public trust, or represent injuries done to the society itself. This pertains to Articles I and II in the Nixon impeachment proceedings. The ideas of a violation of a public trust, and an injury done to the society itself are directly from Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist No. 65. [4] "Impeachment Lesson One" is essentially a restatement and expansion of "Watergate Lesson Two", but with a refinement in the grounds, these being stated with an emphasis on the "public" nature and "harm to society" of wrongdoing, rather than wrongdoing that could be characterized as "essentially private".

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