COMMENTARY: Impeachment and the American public

c. 1998 Religion News Service (Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.) UNDATED _ With an impeachment vote on President Clinton set to occur within days, one wonders at what point we, the […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.)

UNDATED _ With an impeachment vote on President Clinton set to occur within days, one wonders at what point we, the American people, will become engaged in the proceedings and what will be the shape of our involvement.


Unlike the Nixon hearings of a generation ago, when the public was engaged and, at the end, firm in its belief, we seem confused and bewildered about these proceedings, as if wondering what all the fuss is about.

For example, according to a recent Gallup poll which asked Americans to express their views on the four draft charges against Clinton, roughly two-thirds of Americans believe the president guilty of at least three of the four impeachment articles adopted by the House Judiciary Committee.

That is, the vast majority of us believe Clinton perjured himself before Ken Starr’s grand jury and in the Paula Jones lawsuit. We also believe he obstructed justice by attempting to influence the testimonies of Monica Lewinsky, Betty Currie and others. Moreover, fully 50 percent think Clinton abused his office by making false and misleading statements to the public.

Yet, despite this apparent agreement with the Judiciary Committee’s allegations, 63 percent of those polled felt the committee should vote against impeachment. Even more shocking, only a little more than half followed the impeachment hearings with any degree of closeness.

Thus, we Americans agree with the nature of the charges against Clinton, but don’t feel he should lose his job over it.

Why? Because we don’t believe the charges are serious enough to warrant impeachment. And, because we don’t believe the president will be removed from office, we’re not following the proceedings too closely.

Congress, however, doesn’t see it that way.

On Dec. 17, a debate on the president’s future _ and that of the nation _ will begin before the full House. Impeachment on at least one of the four charges appears a virtual certainty.


This will be followed by what could be a lengthy trial in the Senate, presided over by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The effect of the Senate trying a sitting president, in a proceeding presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, could result in the equivalent of another shut-down of the government.

This, one suspects, is what the framers of the Constitution had in mind: to set aside normal business in order to address a government in crisis.

Yet, to date we, the people, have not set aside normal business. We seem to feel, as one friend told me, that the outcome will not affect us one way or the other.

The government will continue to function, we believe, impervious to the crisis it faces. Yet, even at this moment, the nation is rapidly approaching a point of constitutional brinkmanship. The crisis is taking on a life of its own and the public seems only remotely aware of its ramifications _ to our detriment.

I suspect we have gotten so used to the stability of our government that we have come to take it for granted. We have been seduced by the success of our democracy and are at risk of being victims of that success. Yet nations with greater histories than ours have enjoyed far less stability.

Ed Murrow once said,”As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age.”I pray we have the wisdom to appreciate our inheritance before the crisis we face worsens.


DEA END ATCHISON

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