I Blame the Sellout Senators

There are many to blame for the spectacle I witnessed tonight.

I watched the Dan Rather interview with former President Bill Clinton on 60 minutes. It was excruciating. Please tell me that we're not going to have to watch him lie his way through history revision after revision on national television for a year as he promotes his book.

Could Dan have been any more deferential? And could Clinton have been any more smug?

The problem here is clear. After disgracing his office and the country, we left him standing to declare victory. And rub it in our faces.

There's an old saying: If you shoot at the king, don't miss. Normally that saying is about the fearful retribution that comes to the shooters. In this case the retribution comes in the form of a million dollar victory dance book tour. Take that, Republicans.

And now we have the spectacle of Bill Clinton saying on national TV in a softball interview with Rather that he views the Impeachment as a badge of honor because it was illegitimate and he beat it.

I place blame in a lot of places.

First and foremost, of course, is the President himself. As he said in his interview, "I never thought of resigning". Anybody with any decency would have thought about it. Anybody else would have realized that you don't have an inherent right to the office of the President of the United States and that if you betray the public trust in that office you should step aside. But no. Not this guy. He felt entitled to the office. And his staff defended everything he did. None of them resigned either even as he forced them out on camera to defend the indefensible.

I blame Ken Starr. Contrary to Clinton's allegations, Starr was not a religious zealot bent on bringing down a president. Starr was in fact, way too nice. Playing by the rules to an extreme that in fact let the President off the hook. Starr didn't even commit to doing this as his full time job, but kept defending other clients in court.

Of course I blame all elected Democrats. It didn't matter what he did they weren't going to let him go down in flames. As long as he was defending the 3 core principles of the Democratic party (Abortion on demand, high taxes, loathing of the military) they would stuff principles to keep him in play. Need evidence? How about this: not one Democrat in the House or the Senate went to the evidence room during the Impeachment proceedings to view the boxes of evidence that Ken Starr or Impeachment Special Counsel David Shippers had collected and laid out for them. Not one. In spite of the oath they swore to do justice, looking at the actual evidence was beyond them. Did they know he was guilty? Of course they did. I refer you back to the "censure resolution" they proposed instead of impeachment. You can't read that document and conclude that Clinto was innocent. But the Demcrats tried to survive by spooning out the pap that his offenses "didn't rise to the level of an imeachable offense". Nonsense.

And most of all, I blame the Senate Republicans. They too refused to go look at the evidence. They made it clear that there was no way to get 67 votes for conviction on impeachment and they were covering their backsides. As David Shippers elegantly makes the case in his book, they sold out their fellow Republican House managers and tanked the trial. How disgusting was it when Arlen Specter voted "not proved" when push came to shove. I hold special contempt for him and the Senate Republicans who knew better and still voted no.

Only the House Republicans, and the 13 House Managers in particular lead by Henry Hyde, did their duty. Hats off to them.

And please spare me the Clinton victory tour.