Impeachment

When the textbooks of tomorrow are written, the part about Bill Clinton will almost certainly open with that phrase. His legacy will revolve around the tawdry affair with a young White House intern that led him to become only the second president ever tried for impeachable offenses.But what has been the impact of the Clinton scandal on the rest of us? Have the workings of government been affected? What about the press? The law? The American workplace?As events that became a part of our national consciousness start to recede into memory, members of The Sun's Washington bureau take a look at what's left behind and what has changed, now that the impeachment trial is over.

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Albert R. Wynn, a moderate Democrat from Prince George's County who survived a strong challenge from a liberal primary opponent in the fall, is co-sponsoring a measure to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. Wynn became the third co-sponsor of the resolution introduced last month by Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat who is running for president on an antiwar platform. In his proposed articles of impeachment, Kucinich says Cheney intentionally manipulated intelligence to deceive Congress and the American people about suspected weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and a relationship between al-Qaida and the government of Saddam Hussein.

"The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton," by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. Regnery.275 pages. $24.95.If it hadn't been for R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., there would be no Paula Jones, no "distinguishing characteristics," no impending sexual misconduct case featuring the presidential anatomy as a possible surprise witness.Tyrrell is founder and editor of the American Spectator, a peculiar little magazine that - since 1993, anyway - has been obsessed with the foibles, real and imagined, of the man in the Oval Office.

WASHINGTON -- With the House vote on the impeachment of President Clinton set for tomorrow, the course he has chosen of continued denial of legal guilt means that if he is to escape, it will be only because enough moderate Republicans want to save the country from the ordeal of an impeachment trial.Some House Republicans had said that they might be persuaded to settle for censuring the president, if he would finally admit to having committed perjury by lying under oath. But Mr. Clinton's assertion in Jerusalem that "I could not admit to doing something that I am quite sure I did not do" is seen by them as a mere continuation of the same legal hair-splitting that so maddens them.

WASHINGTON -- Somebody put out an all-points-bulletin for Newt Gingrich, the missing House speaker and one-time noisiest symbol of his party's anti-Clinton vitriol.When last seen, Mr. Gingrich was posing for farewell photos for a long queue of Capitol fans. Then he vanished into Georgia. He's invisible and shyly silent, uncharacteristic traits.Mr. Gingrich's AWOL during the Republicans' headlong stampede toward an impeachment vote, a vacuum as bizarre as John Elway forgetting to show up for a Super Bowl.

IN 1868, President Andrew Johnson was impeached in one of the most outrageous legislative acts in history. Johnson was a grossly unpopular president: a Southern politician who succeeded an assassinated president after the Civil War. Johnson protected his native South from harsh retribution by the so-called Radical Republicans and was widely reviled by the public as pro-Southern. Radical Republicans called for his removal and used his unpopularity to distract the House from its constitutional obligations.

WASHINGTON -- The operative question now is how far the Republicans are prepared to carry the investigation of President Clinton without achieving at least a semblance of bipartisanship.Simple arithmetic tells us that the president cannot be impeached on Republican votes alone. There are 55 Republicans in the Senate, and 67 votes would be required to remove the president from office after an impeachment trial there.But, arithmetic aside, it would be politically foolhardy for the Republicans to press a case that would be seen by the electorate as a totally partisan exercise.

"An Affair of State: The Investigation, Impeachment and Trial of President Clinton," by Richard A. Posner. Harvard University Press. 276 pages. $24.95.There is, alas, no such thing as instant hindsight. Despite our best efforts to accelerate the reflective process, the writing of history -- even the roughest drafts of it -- still takes time.So I was alarmed to discover that "An Affair of State" -- a book that promises sober analysis of the legal, moral, social, cultural and political implications of the impeachment -- was completed only four days after the trial of the president ended in the Senate.

WASHINGTON -- When Queen Caroline, consort of King George IV, was accused of adultery, one of her critics made a sardonic salute to some of her defenders: "God save the queen, and may all your wives be like her." A similar toast to Democrats opposed even to a Senate trial for President Clinton: And may all your presidents be like him.Partisan debate about the propriety of a Senate trial proceeds amid bipartisan consensus that there must never be another such president. His fate largely rests with people Democrats praise for their tepid partisanship, people known as "moderate Republicans" and known for inconsistency.

FOR ALL of their creepy allure, the most revealing thing about the Linda Tripp-Monica Lewinsky tapes was how few ripples they produced when they finally surfaced last week. Even more than the transcripts released earlier this fall, the tapes seemed like artifacts from an ancient culture. It was like listening to voices from beyond the grave.If this month's election left any doubt, the collective shrug that greeted the tapes' release showed how emphatically Americans have closed the book on this scandal.