In an unprecedented move, the Utah Democratic Party Tuesday morning called for Congress to censure President Clinton.
But Democratic state party chairwoman Meg Holbrook went further. "We're opening the door for the resignation" of Clinton over the "disgusting and inexcusable" affair Clinton admitted to with ex-White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Holbrook said.Across the country, Democratic leaders are turning against their own president.
"I totally agree" with several of the statements made by Democratic U.S. senators over the past several days, some of which question whether Clinton can continue in office, Holbrook said.
Holbrook said she stops short of calling for Clinton's impeachment. "That is a matter for Congress to decide. But we are opening the door" for resignation.
The question, she said, is whether Clinton can lead and what Utah Democrats think of his conduct.
"President Clinton's 18-month-long sexual misconduct with a young intern in the White House is both disgusting and inexcusable. With his 7-month-long finger-wagging lie to the American people (in denying the affair), Bill Clinton selfishly betrayed everyone who believed in his presidency," Holbrook said.
"Because - tragically - he seems not to understand the gravity of his misconduct, we must hold the president accountable to our standards of public morality. In this regard, and at a minimum, Congress should censure William Jefferson Clinton," she said.
Holbrook said she was the first state party leader to call several weeks ago for Clinton to stop lying to the American people.
And she doesn't feel she is out of line with the censure call. (The U.S. Constitution has no provision for a "censure" of a president, but Congress could pass a resolution to that effect.)
While chastising Clinton and calling for some kind of congressional action, Holbrook said Utah Democrats and their candidates this year don't condone or agree with what Clinton has done.
"We uphold Utah's 150-year commitment to family values and personal integrity," Holbrook said.
She called on Utahns to give Democratic county and legislative candidates this year a fair hearing and respect for the issues they're pushing, "like farsighted growth management, middle-income tax cuts, anti-tobacco programs and education funding."
But will voters hear?
"I wish I knew the answer to that question," Holbrook said. "I'm not being coy. I don't know what will happen" in the November elections. "What a year. Who could have believed this would happen" to Clinton and Democrats across the country?
Meanwhile, Clinton seems to be foundering in trying to grasp not only the situation he's in, but in trying to save his presidency.
Foreign travel is often the last refuge of lame-duck presidents, but Clinton's trip to Russia and Ireland over the past two weeks did not allow him to escape the impact of his confession of misbehavior with Lewinsky.
"Moral authority" is the term that's come into use to question whether a scandal-hobbled president, facing the prospect of even more investigation, can effectively lead.
The failure of Clinton's Aug. 17 speech "has reverberated all through the system and I think the president has completely lost momentum," said Colin Campbell, director of the Public Policy Institute at Georgetown University. "His capacity to deploy moral suasion is going to be greatly diminished."
Senate GOP Leader Trent Lott said Saturday that Clinton had "eroded the moral dimension of the presidency" and pledged Congress would step into the vacuum. "We are determined to maintain - and to justify - your (the American people's) confidence, no matter what else may happen in other branches of government," Lott said.
Former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., who investigated the Iran-Contra affair and chaired the Senate ethics committee, said he sees little international peril arising from having a weakened Clinton in office for the next 2 1/2 years.
"Having watched the way the system works, I don't have any doubt that people of both parties would put all this aside if there is a genuine threat to the national security," Rudman said.
"The bottom line is that any president who faces a Congress controlled by the other party and is in the last two years of his presidency has problems anyway," he added.
Last week's explosion of Democratic dismay with Clinton may be only a taste of what awaits with special prosecutor Kenneth Starr's report, expected soon.
Even if it adds no new dimensions to the sexual scandal, laying out all Starr has learned in months of investigation is likely to cause more Democrats to cut their ties from Clinton, further isolating him. To use a Watergate-era term, he could be left twisting slowly in the wind.