"If my repentance is genuine and sustained, and if I can maintain both a broken spirit and a strong heart, then good can come of this for our country as well as for me and my family." -- President Clinton, addressing religious leaders, Sept. 11, 1998
In a comfortable Washington suburb, a holiday tradition of family fun and values was in progress -- the decorating of the Christmas tree. Proudly the father unwrapped a very special decoration, the official White House Christmas ornament, a gleaming replica of America's historic presidential mansion. He was frankly thrilled when his daughter, who is just 5, recognized that this bauble represented something very special."Oh!" she cried. "That's the house where Monica lives!"
No, Mr. President, no good can ever come -- not for the country nor for you nor your family -- from your pathetic public conduct of your private life. So for once, lose the swagger and the Swaggart.
As you and your family celebrate your first Impeachment Eve face this unimpeachable truth: No good will ever come from the shirking of responsibility and sheets of lies under oath (and under TV lights) by which, with arrogance and ignorance, you chose to commit a crime in a pathetic attempt to cover up a private consensual activity that was no crime.
(Left for another judgment day is the fact that you committed your crime because you fell into a perjury trap that was baited and set by your political opponents -- and was sprung when a judge ordered you to address under oath a question you would never have had to answer if she had followed the Supreme Court's instruction that she properly "manage" the "scope" of the discovery process in the Paula Jones case.)
None of this, of course, can explain why you compounded your deposition lie with an even more self-destructive act of lying to the grand jury. Nor does it explain the most self-destructive thing you did in recent days: The evasive and insulting way you responded to the 81 questions of the House Judiciary Committee.
Now, Mr. President, as the House is addressing whether or not you should be removed from the presidency for your lies under oath, what is really happening is something that my colleagues in the news media have largely failed to put in context for the public that is your ultimate judge and jury.
It is a reality that comes in two parts: (1) Your presidency is in jeopardy largely because you have failed so miserably to admit to the Congress and the public in plain English just what you did that was illegal: You lied under oath. (2) You are failing to do what you must do to save your presidency because you are the target of a constitutional extortion: The independent counsel Kenneth Starr has made it clear that if you escape impeachment, he might seek to indict and convict you for perjury after you leave office. So now you are afraid to tell the truth.
If there is a fair and reasonable mind still functioning in the leadership of the House and the Judiciary Committee, it must see that there is one compelling solution: The House Republicans should forge a deal with their ally, the independent counsel, by which Mr. Starr will renounce any intention to indict Private Citizen Clinton if President Clinton agrees to finally tell the truth.
But do not hold your breath waiting for reason to inject itself into reality. For this case now hinges on the true motives of those in power. Among them, House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde, R.-Ill. The other day, as an advocate for impeachment, Hyde told us more than he intended about his own motives, when he said:
"We haven't made a prima facie case, we've made a compulsive -- ah, compelling -- case."
Meanwhile, the prima facie evidence before us all is that the Republican leadership owes it to the public to pursue a deal of common sense and fairness with Starr. It may be the only way we can teach our children and our president the same lesson: That the gleaming white mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is where our president can sleep but never lie.
Martin Schram writes a weekly column that focuses on the intersection of the news media, policy and politics.