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Jewish World Review Dec. 16, 1998 /27 Kislev, 5759
Thomas Sowell
Polls and partisanship
AMONG THE MANY ridiculous arguments being made in desperation by the
defenders of Bill Clinton are that polls shows that "the American people
don't want him impeached" and that only "partisanship" can explain why the
Republicans are voting for impeachment anyway. Some even call it a "coup
d'etat" when an elected president is removed from office.
Let's go back to Civics 1. We have a representative form of government for
a reason: The people themselves cannot govern. Many of the very liberals who
act as if polls should dictate what Congress does have been complaining for
years about ballot initiatives in places like California, where the voters
can legislate directly.
Many of the things that Californians vote on are things for which you would
need expertise to have any realistic understanding of what should be done.
About 40 percent of the American public doesn't even know what impeachment
is. They think it is removal from office, when in fact it is nothing more
than sending the case to the Senate for a trial.
When much of the public does not understand something as basic as this,
does anyone seriously believe that the people being polled have read all the
boxes of evidence that the House Judiciary Committee has? Most people have
probably not even read the special prosecutor's report.
We elect members of Congress to represent us, not messengers to carry out
orders or statisticians to add up poll numbers. If the public is bored with
the Clinton scandals, then the public can tune out. But Congress cannot
shrug off its duty, even if the people in Congress are just as bored and
disgusted as the public.
That is another reason for representative government. Otherwise, we are
going to have government by polls -- which means government by sound bite,
emotional outburst and snap judgment. No society can survive if its
government is just the Oprah Winfrey show writ large.
We don't do our own dentistry or surgery, and most of us don't even fix our
own automobile engines. Why in the world would anyone want us to act as if
we could carry out the complex duties of Congress? We have a right to choose
who goes to Congress, but micro-managing them after they get there makes no
sense.
Most of what is being said by the White House and its allies in politics
and in the media is a deliberate attempt to take advantage of the public's
ignorance. A typical example is the claim that impeaching the president is
an attempt by the Republicans to "overturn the results of the election" that
put Bill Clinton in the White House.
Whether impeachment succeeds or fails, the Democrats will control the White
House until January 2001. The 1996 election will not be reversed. Bob Dole
will not be put in the White House.
Removing a given president is of course still a serious matter. But the
Constitution authorizes impeachment because no election can make anyone
immune to the law.
The word that gets repeated like a mantra by Clinton's defenders is that
"partisanship" explains the move to impeach the president. This too is an
argument designed to impress ignorant or unthinking people.
From a purely partisan perspective, the best thing the Republicans could do
would be to leave Clinton alone. What benefits would the Republicans gain by
allowing Vice President Al Gore to succeed Bill Clinton and be a sitting
president himself when the elections are held in the year 2000?
Gore would be in a much stronger position to defeat any Republican
presidential candidate then. Moreover, since Gore would just be filling out
Clinton's term until then, he would be eligible to run twice on his own and
remain president for a whole decade, despite Constitutional limits on how
often a president can run.
What partisan advantage does that give the Republicans? Ironically, some of
the very same people who have been accusing the Republicans of partisanship
are now warning the Republicans that impeaching this popular president would
hurt them politically. You can't have it both ways.
It takes two to be bipartisan, but the Democrats are trying to make the
Republicans look partisan by blindly sticking to Clinton, thereby making
every vote a party-line vote. The big question now is how many Republicans
in Congress will stick to their duty in spite of this and how many will wimp
out under
12/14/98: The "non-profit" halo
12/11/98: Corruption and confusion
12/03/98: The health care "crisis"
11/30/98: Knowing what you are talking about
11/23/98: The impeachment legacy
11/23/98: Random thoughts
11/19/98: Tales out of bureaucracies
11/16/98: Scholarships based on scholarship
11/12/98: Forward march
11/09/98: Moral outrage
11/05/98: Will the Republicans ever learn?
11/02/98: A voter's duty
10/30/98: The poverty pimp's poem
10/29/98: Random thoughts on the election
10/27/98: "Partisan" and "unfair"
10/23/98: Ed-u-kai-tchun
10/21/98: McGwire, Maris and the Babe
10/20/98: MURDER IS MURDER!
10/16/98: Lightweight Boxer
10/14/98: A strange word
10/09/98: Impeachment standards
10/08/98: Alternatives to seriousness
10/07/98: Heredity, environment and talk
10/02/98: A much-needed guide
10/01/98: Starr's real crime
9/24/98: Costs and power
9/18/98: Are we sheep?
9/16/98: Judicial review
9/15/98: Hillary Rodham Crook?
9/14/98: Taking stock
9/11/98: Moment of truth
9/04/98: Random thoughts
8/31/98: The twilight of special prosecutors?
8/26/98: "Doing a good job"
8/24/98: America on trial?
8/19/98: Played for fools
8/17/98: A childish letter
8/11/98: Hiding behind a woman
8/07/98: A flying walrus in Washington?
8/03/98: "Affordability" strikes again
7/31/98: Random thoughts
7/27/98: Faith and mountains
7/24/98: Clinton in Wonderland
7/20/98: Where is black 'leadership' leading?
7/16/98: Do 'minorities' really have it that bad?
7/14/98: Race dialogue: same old stuff
7/10/98: Honest history
7/09/98: Dumb is dangerous
7/02/98: Gun-safety starts with
parental responsibility
6/30/98: When more is less
6/29/98: Are educators above the law?
6/26/98: Random Thoughts
6/24/98: An angry letter
6/22/98: Sixties sentimentalism
6/19/98:Dumbing down anti-trust
6/15/98: A changing of the guard?
6/11/98: Presidential privileges
6/8/98: Fast computers and slow antitrust
6/3/98: Can stalling backfire?
5/29/98: The insulation of the Left
5/25/98: Missing the point in the media
5/22/98: The lessons of Indonesia
5/20/98: Smart but silent
5/18/98: Israel, Clinton and character
5/14/98: Monica Lewinsky's choices
5/11/98: Random thoughts
5/7/98: Media obstruction of justice
5/4/98: Dangerous "safety"
5/1/98:
Abolish Adolescence!
4/30/98: The naked truth
4/22/98: Playing fair and square
4/19/98: Bad teachers"
4/15/98: "Clinton in Africa
"
4/13/98: "Bundling and unbundling
"
4/9/98: "Rising or falling Starr
"
4/6/98: "Was Clinton ‘vindicated'?
"
3/26/98: "Diasters -- natural and political"
3/24/98: "A pattern of behavior"
3/22/98: Innocent explanations
3/19/98: Kathleen Willey and Anita Hill
3/17/98: Search and destroy
3/12/98: Media Circus versus Justice
3/6/98: Vindication
3/3/98: Cheap Shot Time
2/26/98: The Wrong Filter
2/24/98: Trial by Media
2/20/98: Dancing Around the Realities
2/19/98: A "Do Something" War?
2/12/98: Julian Simon, combatant in a 200-year war
2/6/98: A rush to rhetoric