BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS
The U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach President
William Clinton December 19.
Congress approved two of the four articles of impeachment proposed by the House judiciary committee. The first, accusing Clinton of perjury for allegedly making false statements to a federal grand jury about his sexual encounters with former White House employee Monica Lewinsky, was approved by a vote of 229-205. All but five of the majority were Republicans. The second article, accusing Clinton of obstruction of justice, passed by a 221 to 212 majority. The vote took place while the Clinton administration was carrying out the bombing of Iraq.
The White House decision to launch the bombing the day before the impeachment vote was to take place led many bourgeois politicians to argue Clinton was simply trying to put off the vote. Republicans initially postponed the debate by 24 hours, but then placed the matter before the House a day later.
During the debate on impeachment, Rep. Robert Livingston announced he was resigning from his post and from Congress. The Republican caucus had nominated him to be the next Speaker of the House after Newton Gingrich announced his resignation from that post following the November 3 elections. The Republican politician from Louisiana made his decision after word leaked in the media that Hustler, a pornographic magazine, was about to publish information about Livingston's several "extramarital affairs." Livingston stated he was resigning "to set an example" and called on Clinton to follow suit.
To no avail. The Democratic party leadership held a press conference on the lawn of the White House after the impeachment vote where the president and his backers announced he will not resign.
The U.S. Senate is now supposed to conduct a trial to determine whether Clinton is guilty or not of the accusations approved by the House. A two-thirds majority is needed to remove the president from office. The big-business media is predicting Republicans will not be able to muster that kind of a vote to oust Clinton and that a compromise may be worked out between the two parties to censure the president and avoid the Senate trial.
The process has heightened political instability and has weakened the U.S. presidency, no matter what the outcome. "A president impeached and a Congress torn -the show must go on," was the headline of a front-page article in the December 21 Wall Street Journal. "While Mr. Clinton digs in against resigning," the article read, "Republicans are staggered that another of their House speakers has fallen victim to Mr. Clinton's crisis, and there is no sign of any major healing figure on the horizon.... Many close observers of Washington think Mr. Clinton will survive. Yet the collision of events has left the capital emotionally drained, even frightened by its own instability."
The reason that political figures seem more vulnerable to scandals today is not that such conduct is something new in ruling-class circles in the history of capitalism or class society. The greater vulnerability to scandals now is a reflection of the instability of the world imperialist order and the growing lack of confidence in this system and its leading personnel both by those who profit from it and by millions of working people and others.
The scandalmongering that has engulfed Washington has been pushed largely by ultrarightists in what is an effort to advance the "culture war" that has been the stock-in-trade of politicians like Patrick Buchanan who attempt to build an incipient fascist cadre. It can best be described as the pornographication of politics.
It is a positive development for the working class that a majority among those who toil for a living seem to have steered clear of the trap of simply "exposing" the corruption of bourgeois politicians pushed by the right wing. This kind of politics of resentment was also the stock-in-trade of the Nazis in the 1920s and early 1930s, as they decried the "degeneracy" of the Weimar Republic.
This is not unrelated to the high percentages in bourgeois opinion polls of those who oppose impeachment of Clinton. Millions - including Blacks and women - sense that a victory for those driving to oust Clinton from office, the president's offensive behavior notwithstanding, would register an advance for the "cultural war" of the rightists and a setback for working people.
Many workers sense that when the Buchanan types target Hillary Clinton, the president's wife who has vigorously campaigned in his defense, for example, it is not because she is a well-off lawyer and bureaucrat for the employing class who often exudes the "social engineering" mentality workers hate. When Buchanan, or right-wing shock jocks, utter the name "Hillary," millions know the target is every woman who begins acting like a political person.
The Militant will carry more extensive coverage of this major development in bourgeois politics in the United States in an upcoming issue.