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Jewish World Review /September 11, 1998 / 20 Elul, 5758

Mona Charen

Are we in crisis?

BY THE TIME THIS COLUMN IS READ, the contents of the voluminous Starr report should be out. It is possible that the details will be so damning that all brow-mopping about the awfulness of impeachment will abruptly cease.

But if the report provides simply chapter and verse about things we already know, it is worth pausing over the often-expressed worry that impeaching a president amounts to a "constitutional crisis."

The founders provided for impeachment as part of the governing apparatus of the nation. We have used it twice before (Richard Nixon counts, even though he resigned before trial in the Senate) without suffering civil war, revolution or even the slightest disorder. In fact, most of those now sniffling that "elections should not be trifled with" were cheering lustily for President Nixon's removal. The same people who now wonder aloud whether lying is really so serious have forgotten that lying to the American people was the first article of impeachment against Richard Nixon.

Some of the commentators on television have been blathering that "of course, no one knows what 'high crimes and misdemeanors' means."

Yes, we do. The phrase has occasioned debate among scholars, but as Jason Vicente argues in a policy analysis for the Cato Institute, there is near unanimity among those who study these matters that indictable offenses are impeachable. In her book High Crimes and Misdemeanors, lawyer Ann Coulter notes that the phrase was first used in England in 1380. Since then, the words have been used exclusively in connection with impeachments.

Historically, the phrase seems to have been used most often to connote not criminal conduct but rather moral turpitude. For example, in 1666, Viscount John Mordaunt was impeached for the high crime and misdemeanor of "making uncivil advances to a woman." In 1701, Edward, earl of Oxford, was impeached for procuring an office for someone "known to be person of ill fame and reputation."

Coulter explains: "So a 'high misdemeanor' refers not ... to a criminal offense just short of a felony but to simple misbehavior ... (As James Madison put it, the impeachment power was) 'for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.'"

Yes, impeachment is an extreme remedy. It cannot be the refuge of every defeated candidate or humiliated opposition party. But as Madison so wisely envisioned, there must be some sanction readily available against public corruption. Impeachment is the solitary confinement of democratic government. Just as the threat of solitary is necessary to keep order within a prison, impeachment serves to remind the high and mighty that they are not beyond democratic control.

The words "public trust" have an antique flavor in these days of extreme cynicism. At least part of President Clinton's continuing support among the public grows out of a misplaced sense that he is no different from any other politician. In the days and weeks to come, it will be the job of members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, to comport themselves honorably -- to remind all of us and perhaps themselves that "public trust" need not be an oxymoron.

The threat that Clinton presents to the nation is not of a criminal running loose at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (though he has broken the law). The threat he represents is the loss of honor for the presidency and for the country. The "I don't care what he does so long as the economy is strong" point of view signals that Americans have abandoned the idea of America as a moral enterprise.

For nine months, Americans have been responding to the Clinton scandals by asking, "Who are we to judge?" It was a morally flaccid response, a failure of nerve and an abandonment of principle. Perhaps the president deserved the benefit of the doubt -- though his history of mendacity and his evasive, lawyerly early responses suggest otherwise. But the American people, and their leaders, seemed to seize on benefit of the doubt as an excuse to avoid their duty. That fig leaf is gone, and we will now see whether the nation and its leaders can shake off complacency and moral myopia.

Impeachment is not a crisis --- but the lack of it may well be.