On a typical night, Jay Leno will offer a dozen Clinton-the-buffoon jokes. All gone.Ĭheck out the country's leading political indicator. How? By emptying the stage of distractions, foils and fall guys.
The Broaddrick charge, the Lewinsky tell-all, and the Stephanopoulos confession have reset the course of the Clinton presidency after its gravity- and logic-defying impeachment bubble. When his closest aides feel a mixture of embarrassment and guilt at having helped this man ascend to power, how can the rest of the country salute him? Even old friend Robert Reich has said, "Mr. Mike McCurry, asked by the BBC about Clinton's fitness to be president, said, "I have enormous doubts." His former press secretary (Dee Dee Myers), his former chief of staff (Leon Panetta), his former senior guru (David Gergen) all agonize publicly over the same question. Stephanopoulos says he would not have helped elect Clinton had he known then what he knows now. They now suggest that he is unfit to be president. Here is Clinton undone not just by his accusers and paramours but by his closest aides. The other event was George Stephanopoulos' book. Monica's reappearance pushed the theatrical legalisms of congressional proceedings into distant history, and let the scandal resume its natural _ downward _ trajectory.
Impeachment was a five-month interlude consisting of Republicans and the law intruding themselves into what the country has insisted all along is nothing but a sex scandal. Her Barbara-fest marked the closing parenthesis to what, in retrospect, was a mere detour in the life of this scandal: the impeachment process. She told her story, her whole story, nothing but Monica's story with lip-smacking relish to a Super Bowl-size audience. They had all the subtlety of the snap of a thong. Two other events have served to reverse the post-impeachment mood. The erosion is not just due to the Broaddrick story, whose effects are lingering, subterranean. On matters presidential, it is difficult to take him seriously. Yes, Clinton is the champion of standardized design for child safety seats, the kind of thing an assistant undersecretary of transportation might make a major address about. The Clinton presidency is not under a shadow. The lone exception was the president's lawyer, who is paid to issue such denials. What was most astonishing about the Broaddrick episode was what did not happen: Not a single person in the White House or Congress or the Democratic leadership stood up to say that this charge is a calumny and a fabrication. It was the shame visited upon Democratic leaders who were required, by party loyalty and by the stock they had already invested in Bill Clinton's innocence, to dismiss her charge with "it's just a he-said, she-said" rape story, so "let's move on." One can only imagine the embarrassment, the self-loathing, of those who for years decried the marginalization and victimization of women with stories exactly like Juanita Broaddrick's, now publicly dismissing her with a shrug and a lame plea of agnosticism.Īgnosticism, mind you. There is nothing like a credible rape charge to take the bloom off an impeachment victory.īut it was more than just the power of Juanita Broaddrick's charges, or even her son's affecting retelling of the story on national TV, that altered the post-impeachment mood.
The White House and the Democratic Congressional Caucus are today gloat-free zones, and not out of admirable self-restraint. It has been just a month since the great Republican impeachment debacle _ remember the headlines: Clinton Acquitted Decisively: No Majority For Either Charge _ and, oh, how the climate has changed.