A Vast Conspiracy (71 page)

On October 4, Larry Flynt, the publisher of
Hustler
magazine, had taken out a full-page advertisement in
The Washington Post
to announce that he would pay as much as $1 million to any woman who was willing to go public about her affairs with government officials. At the time, Flynt’s ersatz political protest against the pursuit of President Clinton attracted little more than amusement from official Washington. But Flynt later said that his offer drew about two thousand calls to his 800 number. Flynt hired private investigators, who narrowed the original list down to forty-eight possibilities, and then took a closer look at about a dozen. Some of these tales concerned Bob Livingston.

A Louisiana congressman from a distinguished New York family, Livingston was relatively unused to attention from the press, much less from a notorious wheelchair-bound pornographer. Gingrich had handpicked Livingston over several members of greater seniority to chair the Appropriations Committee, and he had then emerged as a compromise choice among the many factions that wanted to evict Gingrich from the speaker-ship. But as recently as a year earlier, Livingston had nearly quit the House to become a highly paid lobbyist. Short-tempered and haughty, Livingston had little experience with the public abuse that a true national public figure, like Gingrich or Clinton, absorbed on a daily basis.

A few minutes after Livingston told Rogan to hang around for the end of the meeting, he rose to speak to his Republican colleagues. “I’ve been outed by Larry Flynt,” he said. He then reached into his pocket to read a statement that he said he would be releasing immediately. “I have decided to inform my colleagues and my constituents that during my thirty-three-year marriage to my wife, Bonnie, I have on occasion strayed from my marriage.…” (Flynt later said that four women had come forward to allege affairs with Livingston.)

“I want to assure everyone that these indiscretions were not with employees on my staff,” Livingston said, “and I have never been asked to testify under oath about them.”

Among his Republican colleagues, Livingston received three standing, if ultimately misleading, ovations in the course of delivering his news.

Henry Hyde began the proceedings in the well of the House the following morning, Friday, December 18. “Mr. Speaker,” he said, “I call up a privileged resolution … and ask for its immediate consideration. The clerk will read the resolution, as follows.”

At that moment, a dark-haired man of medium height named Paul Hays walked to the podium in the middle of the floor and began reading.

“Resolved,” Hays said, “that William Jefferson Clinton is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles be exhibited to the United States Senate.…” It took him five minutes to read through all four articles, and it was, oddly, the most chilling moment of the whole proceeding, the visible manifestation of the machinery of presidential removal. Such words had not been uttered in the House of Representatives in 130 years, since the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson.

Only a handful of people in the chamber knew of a small irony in Hays’s recitation on that day. Hays, who was installed in his job by Gingrich, was the husband of Cindy Hays, the chief fund-raiser for the Paula Jones legal defense fund. In the early days of the lawsuit that led to this impeachment proceeding, Jones would stay at the home of the man reading the charges against the president.

The debate—mostly in two- or four-minute snippets from both sides—was especially bitter and angry. Members of Congress are used to fighting on the merits of issues, but they place a special value on procedural fairness. The failure of the House leadership to allow a vote on censure—to permit a “substitute,” in the congressional argot—was especially galling. The House minority always received a vote on a substitute, but DeLay had shut down this option, and had made sure the Democrats knew it. Again, no one said anything especially memorable through twelve long hours of debate on Friday, and no one expected anything more in the moments leading up to the vote on Saturday.

When Bob Livingston rose to speak on Saturday morning, he hadn’t given any sign that his words would differ much from those of any other
impeachment supporter. The floor was not even half filled. Given his stature, he was allowed more time than most of the other members, but he ambled through the early part of his remarks, which were mostly devoted to defending the decision to take the vote while American bombers were still in harm’s way.

“But to the president I would say:

“Sir, you have done great damage to this nation over this past year, and while your defenders are contending that further impeachment proceedings would only protract and exacerbate the damage to this country, I say that you have the power to terminate that damage.…”

This caused a stirring. People could tell what was coming next. On the Democratic side, John Conyers, Abbe Lowell, and Maxine Waters, who were seated together in front, snapped their heads forward.

“You, sir, may resign your post,” Livingston continued, and the reaction was swift. Waters vaulted out of her chair, pointed at Livingston, and shouted, “You resign! You resign!” Boos cascaded down from other Democrats.

Livingston raised his hand for quiet. “And I can only challenge you in such fashion if I am willing to heed my own words,” he said, and the room again fell silent.

“To my colleagues, my friends, and most especially my wife and family, I have hurt you all deeply, and I beg your forgiveness.

“I was prepared to lead our narrow majority as speaker, and I believe I had it in me to do a fine job. But I cannot do that job or be the kind of leader that I would like to be under current circumstances.…”

Now there was anger, except from the other side. Republicans were shouting at Democrats, “Are you fucking happy?” “Is this what you motherfuckers wanted?” Even House veterans could not recall an uglier, or more surprising, turn of events. Peter King, the Republican impeachment opponent, who was on the floor at the time, recalled later that the moment reminded him of when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald—the sense of national vertigo, of events spinning out of control.

“…  I will not stand for speaker on January 6 …” Livingston continued through the buzz around him. “I thank my wife most especially for standing by me. I love her very much.

“God bless America.”

Standing ovations notwithstanding, Livingston’s admission of adultery had cost him support among hard-core Republicans—“the perfection caucus,”
as they were sometimes called. If Livingston lost only half a dozen Republican votes, as he well might have, he could not have won the speaker-ship. The Louisianan bowed to the inevitable.

Moments after Livingston finished his remarks, Richard Gephardt came to the floor and uttered a heartfelt invitation to his adversary to change his mind. “I believe his decision to retire is a terrible capitulation to the negative forces that are consuming our political system and our country,” Gephardt said. “We are now rapidly descending into a politics where life imitates farce, fratricide dominates our public debate, and America is held hostage to tactics of smear and fear.” In this, the Democratic leader was wrong. The politics were already there.

In one respect, Livingston’s announcement achieved the impossible: it rendered the impeachment of the president an anticlimax. Article one, perjury in the grand jury, passed by 228 to 206. For all the talk about party defections, only five Democrats voted for impeachment and five Republicans against it. Lindsey Graham’s opposition to article two, perjury in the deposition, made it a safe way for Republicans to appear reasonable, so twenty-eight members voted with the Democrats. The article lost, 229 to 205. Article three, obstruction of justice, passed by just 221 to 212. (If the vote on this article had been delayed until January, when the Democrats would have five more seats, it almost certainly would have lost.) The garbled article four, ultimately based on Clinton’s written answers to the Judiciary Committee, failed by a wide margin, 285 to 148.

As ever, the great fear of people around Clinton was that there would be a stampede of Democrats calling for his ouster. So in the days leading up to the inevitable, the president’s advisers gently encouraged House members to make a postimpeachment show of support. Immediately after the vote, about fifty Democrats walked down the great steps of the Capitol and into buses that were waiting for them.

Clinton was subdued, almost embarrassed, on meeting the delegation from Capitol Hill. But the Democrats weren’t faking their outrage at the proceedings that had just ended, and soon the president was savoring their encouragement. In a few moments, as Clinton chatted in the East Room, his spirits began to revive, and then, standing around with a group of members and staffers, the president said, “Anybody want to hear a dirty joke?”

It was suddenly very, very quiet.

There’s this guy, Clinton recounted, and he’s caught on a cliff in a storm. As the wind and rain rages around him, he grabs on to a branch and he’s just about to fall off the cliff when he looks up and says, “Why me, God?”

And God looks down on him and says, “I just don’t like you.”

There was nothing dirty about the joke, and Clinton told it often, once even at a press conference. It is always possible to read too much into a joke, but one can see Clinton’s attitude toward the entire swirling scandal contained in this little story. Clinton saw little difference between the man on the cliff, Richard Jewell, and himself—all victims of forces beyond their control. To be sure, he will be remembered as the target of an unwise and unfair impeachment proceeding. But just as certainly, history will haunt Clinton for his own role in this political apocalypse, and for that, despite his best efforts, this president can blame only himself.

20

These Culture Wars

T
he trial of the president in the Senate had relatively little to do with Clinton himself. With only fifty-five Republicans sitting in the upper chamber, there was never any real chance that the president’s accusers could muster the two-thirds vote—sixty-seven senators—necessary to remove him from office. Clinton’s poll ratings had actually improved during the undignified proceedings in the House of Representatives, so it was inconceivable that all the Republicans plus twelve Democrats would vote for Clinton’s ouster. Barring sensational new disclosures—which remained, as ever, the great Republican hope—the president’s job was safe.

Rather, the real drama of the Senate trial concerned the efforts of all the participants to avoid making bad situations worse. The Lewinsky story had diminished everyone it touched. The scandal had indirectly cost two speakers of the House their jobs, driven the Republican Party to new depths of unpopularity, and, of course, led to Bill Clinton’s impeachment. In light of this sorry history, senators were united as they prepared to take up their constitutional duty. They wanted the whole thing to … just go away.

For a brief moment, Trent Lott tried to makes those wishes come true. The former Ole Miss cheerleader had worked his way through the ranks in
Washington, as a congressional aide, a congressman for sixteen years, a senator for ten more, and majority leader since 1996. Like many Republican senators who had come up through the House, Lott was a strong conservative and resolute partisan. But he had been forced to adapt to his new surroundings. Unlike most House members, who effectively run unopposed, all senators run statewide, often in competitive races. They ignore public opinion at their peril. Lott didn’t like Clinton any better than his House colleagues, but he knew a losing fight when he saw one.