The Blue Dress - Why Clinton Has to Resign

After 6 months of anxious waiting for the DNA report from FBI, we could finally read on the Internet that Monica wasn't bluffing: She really had secured a memoir of "the Big Guy". But while this may have been what most of the readers were looking for, there was something much worse in there: A good case for perjury.

Most people seem to think that the Lewinsky affair was about sex, but I disagree. While distasteful, the sex is Washington business as usual. As long as there has been government in Washington, DC, bright and beautiful women have been trekking there to have sex with the powerful men, and many have indeed found it worth their time and efforts. In this respect, Monica was quite successful, but not unusual. And for all of that time, the company of these women has been seen as one of the fringe benefits of a political career.

Up until the release of the report, I was supporting the president, however much it made me cringe. Unlike Jessica Hahn, and maybe Paula Jones, it seems fairly clear that Monica Lewinsky was not a victim of sexual harassment, but a willing instigator. Until I read about the cigar, I was willing to believe, that Clinton - as the seasoned lawyer that he is - had managed to trick the Grand Jury into accepting a definition of sexual relations that would let him truthfully claim that he had not had sexual relations with her (although she had with him). "I did not inhale" at a lower level ... roughly 18 inches lower: "But I did not ejaculate!" It was clear that he had blatantly lied in his public statements, but there was still hope that he had technically not commited perjury. Now that we have lost that last hope, I can no longer support the president: He should resign immediately, and if he will not do that, the Congress should remove him through impeachment.

There are those who will say that he has suffered enough, and we should forgive him and be done with it. They claim a variety of reasons, each of which I shall try to address. But the core of my argument is that if we allow perjury to go unpunished, we will need to re-think a lot of our criminal procedure law, and I do not think we can accept the consequences.

Here, then are some of the arguments raised in the president's defense:

• He was entrapped by Kenneth Starr, and had no choice but to lie.
  Mr Clinton was telling convenient "white lies", and not expecting to be put under oath. When he was compelled to testify under oath, he had several choices available:
  • He could have "taken the fifth", i.e. refused to testify "on the grounds that his answers might incriminate him". Since Paula Jones was at the time pressing sexual harassment charges against him, this would have been an entirely appropriate response.
  • He could have - through his lawyers - made a case that he would refuse to testify about intimate details, unless the secrecy of the proceeding could be guaranteed. After some (probably weak) assurance was given, he could have confessed to the grand jury and continued to protest his innocence in public.
  • He could have come clean in public as in the jury. With hindsight, it is clear that this would have been the best choice, and if he had done that in January, the case would have been over in March. It would have been embarrasing, but he would have been forgiven. And none of the details would ever have had to come out.
• Everyone else would have taken the fifth, but that was "politically unavailable" to the president
  Those who make this argument seem to forget that taking the fifth is almost always inconvenient for the not-yet-indicted suspect-as-witness, because it usually is tantamount to an admission of guilt. In fact, much useful testimony is brought forth in criminal trials solely because the threat of harsh punishment for perjury compels the witness. I see no reason why we should have different rules for presidents than for the rest of us, so the consequence of this defense amounts to an automatic exemption from perjury charges in any situation where a witness is lying with the intent of concealing his own culpable behaviour. The effect of this would be to make most testimony useless in cases with multiple defendants.
• The perjured testimony occurred in the prosecution of a case that was subsequently dropped, and so the perjured testimony is now moot.
  Again, the general application of this principle would leave our criminal courts in chaos.
• Allowing impeachment proceedings to go forward will undermine the constitution and damage the office of the Presidency.
  That's what Nixon's supporters said; it was wrong then, and I think it is wrong now. The damage was done not by the impeachment process, but by the actions that made it necessary. There have been many impeachments started, but the unworthy ones tend to disappear quickly and quietly in the dusty halls of the House committees.
• Too much time and money has been spent already, let's just drop it
  It is too late to pretend we do not know. Now that we do now, we have to act according to that knowledge. And at this point, the time and money spent from here on out is in the President's hand.
• The matter is unrelated to the president's office and work, therefore the impeachment process is overkill
  It is my understanding that the impeachment process is the only avenue for pressing criminal charges against a sitting president. If a sitting president assaulted someone after a night of drinking, that charge would also be unrelated to his work in office, but we would nevertheless expect to prosecute it.

I like Bill Clinton, and the only reason I did not vote for him is that as a foreign national I cannot vote (without committing perjury on my voter registration), but I think his transgressions are bad enough that he should hand the baton to Al Gore. Yes, I know there are those who would impeach Gore for making personal telephone calls during office hours, but I really do not expect the impeachment articles on those charges to ever come before the House.