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| POLITICAL WRAP | |
 January 15, 1999 
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Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot discuss the Senate impeachment trial with Jim Lehrer after a second day of presentations from the House managers, following a background report by Kwame Holman.
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JIM LEHRER: Some final thoughts now from syndicated columnist Mark Shields, Wall Street Journal columnist Paul gigot. Bottom line, gentlemen, after two days, any evidence that there are still not 67 votes to convict the President or remove him from office? MARK SHIELDS: No. I don't believe there are 67 votes to - JIM LEHRER: I don't think I said that right. Did I say that right?
JIM LEHRER: In other words, has anything changed after two days? MARK SHIELDS: I think there's a change in the -as far as witnesses are concerned. I mean, I think there is - the Senate is - JIM LEHRER: But I mean the bottom line in terms of whether or not the President is going to be- PAUL GIGOT: No evidence that that has changed. MARK SHIELDS: No. JIM LEHRER: But on the witness thing you think it's changed. MARK SHIELDS: On the witness thing, yes, because there aren't 67 votes, if you want the President removed, you've got to change the dynamic, change the chemistry of the situation. You've got a couple of ways of doing that, bringing the President up, bringing witnesses. You've got to somehow - I think the White House was - some dread - with two words - Alexander Butterfield. I mean, Alexander Butterfield was the Nixon White House aide who came in and they said, any - any audio visual equipment - he said, well, there's a taping system, we taped the President's conversations. Oh -
MARK SHIELDS: Well, I'm saying - JIM LEHRER: We're waiting for anything. MARK SHIELDS: Anything, that's right, to kind of change the equation. JIM LEHRER: How do you read this? PAUL GIGOT: I just - I judge the effectiveness of the House Managers by reaction by Senate Republicans. You know, Jim, there was a real chance, I think, that this was going to be a short trial, even a sham trial. There are a lot of Republican Senators who didn't want this to go on very long, and they were worried, frankly, as Frank Murkowsky said on Kwame's taped piece, that this wasn't going to go very well. But I think they were reassured particularly that yesterday afternoon's two presentations by Asa Hutchinson on the obstruction charge, Jim Rogan of California on the perjury charge, they said, okay, not only did they make a substantive case but they did it in a fashion that wasn't condescending, that put the facts together in a way that a lot of them hadn't confronted before because the Senators lead parapathetic lives. You know, they get their news in six-second sound bites like everybody else. The facts were all laid out, and I think it increases Mark's suggestion substantially the prospects that they can get 51 Senators to vote for witnesses. |
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JIM LEHRER: And that creates an uncertainty, a new element, and they can hope and pray because they haven't got it as we sit here. MARK SHIELDS: That's right, and they're relying upon that first principle of elementary education - repetition is the first law of learning. I mean, we're confronted with a situation where four out of five Americans believe Bill Clinton - at least testify to the fact that Bill Clinton lied under oath. Call it perjury, call it lying under oath, that he lied under oath, and yet, two out of three Americans want him to remain as President, and that's what - that their point they're trying to drive home.
PAUL GIGOT: It happens because of the internal dynamic of the Judiciary Committee. He was one of the first people to propose that the President be impeached, the first person to introduce an element of the resolution of impeachment. I think Henry Hyde - in choosing 13 House Managers - pretty much took everybody who wanted to do it, and everybody gets a speaking role, and this - today was a case, I thought, that was not as effective as yesterday's. It was partly because of - it was about dry law. I thought that Steve Chabot was pretty effective in raising the point about the President's intents to get a state of mind, but this was a day that could have used an editor. JIM LEHRER: How do you feel about that?
JIM LEHRER: So you agree with Paul's analysis of why it happened? MARK SHIELDS: I think it was lack of leadership. I've spoken of my respect for Henry Hyde. I think he failed to show strength. I think that he didn't have a Speaker of the House at the time; they were going through a period of upheaval. Somebody just should have said we need three, we need our three best or four best, I don't care if you put in Canady and Hutchinson and Rogan and whoever else, maybe a fourth, but quite frankly, you know, you don't need everybody going over there, and it does get repetitious, and interest does wander. |
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| Inviting Clinton . . . | ||||||||||||||||||||
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PAUL GIGOT: I think it is going somewhere. I think it's going to be a source of some debate. Trent Lott raised it, I believe, Wednesday morning at a - excuse me - Thursday morning at a session with the Republican Senators - at the end of the session said, I want you to start thinking about this, because this is going to become an issue - something we have to think about. I think it makes sense for the Republicans to push it. I think there's also a discussion among Republicans of offering the President use immunity, frankly, of inviting him and saying, look, anything you say in the Senate cannot be something that Ken Starr might be able to use against you because one of the arguments the Republican can use, Ken Starr, the Sword of Damocles out there who's going to use any fragment of information against us - well, if you take that off the table, it makes it harder for the President to - to say, I don't want to come up and defend myself. And I think it's a strong political point for the Republicans as well. You know, the polls here have all been against the Republicans. People don't want to remove. This is the one area -- the President testifying -- where by two to one the public says, yes, the President should come up and testify. JIM LEHRER: How do you read that?
JIM LEHRER: Do you agree that it would have to be bipartisan? PAUL GIGOT: No, I don't. JIM LEHRER: No? PAUL GIGOT: I think it would certainly help, but I think if the invitation is issued, he's going to have a hard time resisting it. I think he probably will, but there's a flip side to what Mark says, and maybe Mark agrees with this, is that there are risks for the President going up there, but on the other hand, the - he could do pretty well. If he could somehow do well enough to reclaim some credibility on some of these questions, he might actually emerge with enhanced stature, or at least somewhat repaired stature. Right now, the danger - he thinks he can get out with a relatively partisan vote that doesn't remove him; that doesn't revive his presidency. |
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| The State of the Union. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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MARK SHIELDS: Everything looks like it's going to happen right now. Sen. Lott announced it today. Jim, I think the President - the President has sparkled at this particular performance. It's a great ceremony; it's a great pageant. It's a time the President commands public attention and all the rest with the joint chiefs and the Supreme Court and everybody there and the ambassadorial corps, and Bill Clinton has done well at it in the past, and he did exceptionally well last year under enormous pressure. I think Bill Clinton has to consider one thing and the reason he shouldn't do it - is there are 55 constituents that matter to him right now; that's the Republican Senators. And what he doesn't need is to make any of them uncomfortable, to make any of them discomforted by the - do they stand up - do they cheer - do they not - do they applaud - and what about when the Democrats on their side start getting noisy and applauding and rah, rah, rah - what - those Senators are going to face questions from their home state press corps. JIM LEHRER: It's going to be an interesting evening.
MARK SHIELDS: I had one Democrat recommend strongly to the White House when the President does go in that he not in any way do the - on the aisle - reaching out - how are you, good to see you - back and forth - just walk directly in and come directly out after you're finished. JIM LEHRER: That's going to be some evening, as I said. Well, thank you. This has been some evening too. Thank you both very much. |
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MARK
SHIELDS: Yes. I was trying to answer the question you intended to ask.
PAUL
GIGOT: You're saying there are videotapes over there? 
JIM
LEHRER: Now, Paul, you mentioned Asa Hutchinson and the people who presented
the case yesterday. What did you think about today? There was a lot
of commentary about Bob Barr, the man who has been advocating the impeachment
of President Clinton almost since the day he was elected to be the guy
who kind of summed it up here late today. How does something like that
happen?
MARK
SHIELDS: Yesterday was a good opening day, I think, for the Republicans
and the House Managers, I agree with Paul on Asa Hutchinson and his
presentation, I thought, was probably the most persuasive of all, but
today was a disaster. It was boring. It was long. Senators were tired.
They were uninterested and disinterested. Bob Barr is a red flag to
Democrats. I mean, one Senate Republican said to me if you could imagine
in 1974, if Richard Nixon had been tried in the Senate, if the Democrats,
if Tip O'Neill never would have allowed Father Robert Drinan, the liberal
Jesuit priest who was a member of Congress who had like Bob Barr introduced
the first resolution to impeach Richard Nixon. I mean, Bob Barr wanted
to impeach Bill Clinton before he had done a fox trot at his inaugural
ball in 1993. I mean - and so if you're sitting there as a Democratic
Senator, you're wavering, you say, gee, maybe Clinton isn't the best
- you know, whatever - and Bob Barr gets up and says, wait a minute,
I can't be with this guy.
JIM
LEHRER: Now, McCollum today, Paul, introduced the idea - the first one
to introduce at least by a House Manager on the floor of the Senate
- the idea of inviting President Clinton to come and testify - is that
going anywhere? 
MARK
SHIELDS: Well, I think, first of all, it's been suggested to President
Clinton by his own supporters that he state publicly and clearly that
he welcomes a trial on perjury charges on January 1, 2001, that this
is about punishing Bill Clinton and holding Bill Clinton accountable
for what Bill Clinton did and not punishing the presidency. He's chosen
not to follow that, that path. I think use immunity, with all respect
to Paul, doesn't make any sense for Bill Clinton. What's Bill Clinton
is talking about is hanging onto his presidency. If the invitation goes
down, if it's in the form of a strongly-worded invitation, if it's overwhelming,
if it isn't simply a partisan invitation from the Senate, at that point,
Jim, Bill Clinton is in a bind. If he accepts, he runs a risk - political
and legal - of testifying, of saying, as Senator Bob Bennett did, you
know, we're going to go into what the definition of "is" is, or if he
turns it down, then he runs the risk of offending the Senators and incurring
some political damage in the public because the public support for him
has been constant throughout, and if he risks that, then I think that's
another dynamic that could go into this situation where he looks pretty
strong right now.
JIM
LEHRER: Speaking of the President, on Tuesday, he's supposed to go up
there for another purpose and that's to deliver the State of the Union.
How do you feel about that? Is that going to happen, and should it happen,
and what are the risks for everybody involved? 
PAUL
GIGOT: Yes. On the Democratic side, I think, they have to make sure
that they don't overdo it and make it look like that pep rally on the
south lawn after the impeachment was passed, that it's an attempt to
buck up the fellow and we don't really care what's been going on, on
the other side of the capitol. Republicans feel they're in a box, though.
If they - they felt they'd be petty if they didn't go - on the other
hand, some of them are saying, well, maybe they'll act like Supreme
Court justices at this thing - when the President enters, they usually
stand, when he leaves, they stand, but they don't do a lot of applauding
in-between. 
