Media events, surreal season By Mohamed Hakki Every year, between Thanksgiving, which falls in the last week of November, and Christmas, America basks in what is called "the Holiday Season". It is usually a festive period of shopping, of family reunions and travelling, and of office parties and newspaper columns full of contemplation, compassion and forgiving. But this year, something happened which is almost unreal. The president, William Jefferson Clinton, is being impeached by the Congress. Then he starts a punitive bombing raid against Iraq half way around the globe, without United Nations or Congressional approval. Then, the newly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives surprises a stunned House by admitting that he has had numerous extra-marital affairs, and resigns his office declaring he will be leaving the Congress six weeks from now. All this happens with such galloping rapidity that it will take several days for most people to absorb and understand. And two of these momentous events during a weekend when half of the US population is not even watching the news! It is true that talk about impeachment has been going on for several weeks, but now it is happening, everybody thinks it is unbelievable, eerie, unreal, almost surreal. Everyone starts asking questions: is this a country at war both abroad and with itself, as some headlines have put it? If the vote follows strict party lines, have the Republicans given up all hope of becoming the real majority party by instead shifting several steps to the right? If so, are they now driven more by their fear of alienating their core base than by their hopes of attracting voters in the centre? What most people agree on is that both sides have demeaned the system. The president demeaned his office, not only by behaving like an adolescent unable to control his sexual impulses, but by lying to everyone about it: his staff, his cabinet, the grand jury, the American people and, above all, his wife and family. In the process, he incriminated himself by lying under oath, which is a felony, and then admitting that he had an 'improper relationship' with Monica Lewinsky, thus perjuring himself. The Congress, for its part, has matched him by demeaning the whole process. The Republicans have been driven by hatred and venom, never even considering a compromise such as censuring the president. As Maureen Dowd of the New York Times put it, "they genuinely hate the president. They think he is a dishonest, immoral, issue-stealing, spoiled, selfish child of the '60s." In short, they have made up their mind that the President is not fit to lead the country and should not finish his term. The Democrats have not made a better showing. They have acknowledged that President Clinton was a weasel and a liar, that what he did with Monica Lewinsky was sinful and morally reprehensible. In the final days of the Judiciary Committee hearings, the President's lawyer Charles Ruft made the best case possible for him, even while conceding that "reasonable people might conclude that he lied to save his own skin". The White House counsel even came before the Committee to say that the President "did not commit perjury by lying because he did not believe that he was lying"! How can any outsider understand what is going on here? One writer described it best by saying that while Watergate (the scandal that led to Nixon's fall 25 years ago) was a historic event covered by the press, the Lewinsky scandal -- even as it moved into stately Congressional hearing rooms -- is essentially a media event with historical ramifications. And indeed, the toxicity of the whole sordid affair seems to have poisoned the media. Never before have the most unpleasant details and obscene definitions of a couple's sexual adventures been laid out before us as they have been with the president and Monica Lewinsky. It was Larry Flint, the editor of the salacious magazine Hustler, who brought down the new Speaker of the House. Flint is now promising he has similar stories on 20 more leading figures in the administration and the Congress. While all this drama is unfolding, the president decides to bombard Iraq. He makes the decision on the plane, coming back from a failed peace mission to the Middle East. Clinton says that he did so because Iraq did not honour its commitments to UNSCOM, the UN mission in charge of monitoring Iraq's disarmament. Yet both the timing and the circumstances are dubious enough to raise a lot of questions. First, the bombing started on the first day of the impeachment hearings. Coincidence? The majority leader of the Senate, Trent Lott, does not think so. Second, the basis on which the administration built its case against Iraq is both weak and shallow. UNSCOM wanted to inspect the headquarters of the ruling Baath Party. Neither this, nor any of the other pretexts cited, sound convincing. The inspection team itself are a dubious crew, with their leader on the ground more or less admitting that he spied for Israel and then turning round and accusing Richard Butler, the head of the UNSCOM mission, of "consulting and coordinating" with the Clinton administration. So much for the "definitive report" of Iraqi obstruction. Whence a hurricane of questions about the integrity of the whole operation. Few people believe that the President acted in good faith, and many questioned his defensive tone. The only reason there has been no harsher criticism of the operation is that the majority of Congress members hate Saddam Hussein even more than they hate the present administration. By consequence, the military operation in the Gulf became a tactic to be used by both sides in their political tug of war. The Democrats tried to use it to shield the president against the impeachment vote; questioning the Republicans' patriotism in bringing such charges while the fighting men and women of America were risking their lives. The Republicans, for their part, criticised the whole idea, either because they saw it as just such a shield, or on the basis that it was "too little too late", and would in any case not guarantee the ousting of Saddam Hussein. What now? Despite the intensity of the drama, with so much happening within a mere three days, none of last week's events has proved decisive either way. In the case of impeachment, the matter still has to go to trial by the Senate. Originally, everyone feared that dragging the trial out over several months would paralyse the whole process of government. Now, they are talking about either reaching a compromise before the trial begins, or limiting its timespan to three weeks maximum. Not a single politician or commentator who commented on Sunday was able to rule anything in or anything out. Under Article 1, Section 3, Clause 6 of the Constitution, the chief justice, William Rehnquist, presides over the Senate impeachment trial. The Senate will determine questions of competency, relevancy and materiality. It may take further testimony in open Senate, or may order that the entire trial be before the full Senate, or ask to hear some witnesses in closed sessions. If the trial is aired on television, then the OJ Simpson trial will pale in comparison. Impeachment requires a two-thirds majority of those Senators present. If the president is convicted on one or two articles, the presiding officer will pronounce judgement of conviction and removal. No formal vote is required for removal, as it is a necessary effect of the conviction. However, many people doubt that it will come to that. The president and the Democrats are relying on the fact that there are a number of Republican senators who are not driven by the same ideological passion as their colleagues in congress. They mention Senators John McCain of Arizona and John Warner of Virginia as examples. But then, no one thought that impeachment by the House was possible, either.
