Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Hyde nor hair of sanity

Sunday, Dec. 6, 1998 | 8:36 a.m.

Which hunt?

The headline in Thursday's Las Vegas Sun read: Reid blasts Hyde panel's "witch hunt." It referred, of course to Nevada's senior senator, Harry Reid, who in his newly elected position as Democratic whip was speaking out against what most sane people in America believe is much ado about nothing.

Correction, most Americans believe that President Clinton's actions with Monica Lewinsky and his efforts to keep them secret -- to the point of not telling the truth about them -- were wrong and far more than nothing. In fact, it has been the kind of something that this country and our president will regret happening for a very long time.

The fact of the matter is, though, that what Clinton did or didn't do is not an impeachable offense. I realize that is a difficult concept for our friends on the Far Right and other Clinton bashers to comprehend, but that's just the way things are. The Constitution of the United States didn't contemplate an Oval Office affair -- if the truth be told the Framers of that great document probably considered such an activity as perfectly normal -- as grounds for removing the president. They set the standards of deviant behavior significantly higher to include acts of treason and other crimes against the state of America's political affairs.

What Congressman Henry Hyde and his band of not so merry men have been trying to do since their stunning comeuppance on Election Day is find something, anything, upon which they can hang an impeachment vote and not look to the overwhelming majority of voters like a collection of Grinches salivating over the thought of stealing not only Christmas but the 1996 presidential election! That's why they suddenly veered away from Ken Starr's sex act on paper and into the murky waters of campaign finance.

And that's why Nevada's senior senator cried "witch hunt" and called Mr. Hyde to account. No sooner, though, had Harry challenged the man who was once an honorable and respected chairman than did Henry change his mind. Actually, the GOP came a cropper when they studied some secret Justice Department reports and found, to their great dismay, nothing impeachable. Hyde had no choice but to back off.

That's the way the news was played this past week in most newspapers across the country. On the cable television shows, the hunt for impeachable offenses continued at full tilt in a search, not for justice, but for higher ratings. And there is no reason to believe that good will and good sense will soon overcome this blood lust that is threatening not only the body politic but the political process for decades to come.

What was most curious to me, though, as an avid newspaper reader was the news story that appeared on page three of the same newspaper that screamed a front page full of impeachment stories. Under the headline, "GOP leaders want tax cut," was a brief story that proclaimed the Republican leadership of the House and Senate's pledge to "preserve Social Security, cut taxes and improve education" as they work on an agenda for the 106th Congress that convenes next month.

Here's the kind of action the voters expect from their elected officials and the reports of their willingness to do so are displayed only briefly in a far less substantial format than the stories of this impeachment farce. Now, before the hate letters come pouring in, I'll admit that a simple majority of the House of Representatives can impeach a president. And from the sounds of things coming out of the Capitol, the whipping operation will produce a sufficient number of Republicans to make that happen. The process, however, will thankfully die in the Senate along, I suggest, with the GOP's hopes of holding on to the House in the year 2000.

But through all this brain-damaging gamesmanship, we are losing sight of what is really important to people. Whether it is tax decreases, education investment or Social Security reform, the voters have spoken loudly and clearly. "We want you, our elected officials, to concentrate on our needs and not yours," is the message just sent this past November. What we are hearing back is quite different.

When Harry Reid calls the latest zig or zag of the Judiciary Committee a witch hunt he is not far off. Salem, Mass., is not that far from Washington. But, it seems, the rest of hard working America is. What most Americans want is to face President Clinton and slap him soundly on both cheeks. And then tell him to go back to work. And they want their congressmen to go back to work, too.

Why is that so hard to understand?