By Wallace Kaufman
Pittsboro, NC, Dec 16
(The GLOBE)
Five years ago an ordinary attempt to recruit a retired millionare to donate money to Democratic candidates set off a chain of events that last week resulted in President William Clinton becoming the second American president in 228 years to be impeached. All political parties recruit wealthy donors. All political parties give government jobs to people recommended by these donors. After a retired insurance executive began to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Democratic Party, the White House agreed to take on his friend�s 22 year old daughter as an intern. Her name was Monica Lewinsky. She started work in July 1995 as an unpaid intern.
Lewinsky was not very different than thousands of young Americans who won a chance to work in the White House. Many form romantic or ambitious dreams of being noticed by the President and his advisors. Within months White House professionals had tagged Lewinsky as a political danger to the President but they were too late. The President had begun his adulterous sexual affair with her. Even after his assistants kicked Lewinsky out of the White House and sent her into the depths of the Pentagon, the President could no save himself. Some say he is the victim of an uncontrollable illness, an �addiction to sex.� Others say he is a sexual predator who is as reckless in his political life as he is in governing. Both his top advisors and his critics know him as a man who often does not deal with important matters until they become crises. Both agree that when a crisis arises, whether in his political life or foreign affairs, he is a tireless and thorough worker.
THE PRESIDENT
ENTANGLED IN A NEW KIND
OF LAW
The President�s affair with an intern not much older than his daughter was different than affairs and sex scandals that have plagued him in the past because his adultery became part of the proceedings in a civil rights law suit filed by a woman who charged that he had sexually assaulted her while he was governor of the state of Arkansas.
It was the kind of law suit that has become common in the United States�a woman employee accusing male superiors of sexual harassment. Both the President and his wife, a prominent feminist, had supported women�s rights to file such suits. Since the alleged offenses in these law suits often offer little but one woman�s word against one man�s denial, the woman often introduces evidence that the man has a history of harassing women. The lawyers for the state employee, Paula Jones, heard rumors that the President was having an affair with the young intern Monica Lewinsky. When the President appeared before them and a judge and swore an oath to tell �the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,� they asked him about Monica Lewinsky.
The President lied and allowed his lawyer to lie to the court about Lewinsky. (The President says he misled, and witheld information, but did not actually lie.) Lewinsky, apparently at the President�s suggestion, also lied to the court about their affair in a written statement. But before the President appeared in court, Lewinsky had already told several people the truth, including an independent counsel, Kenneth Starr, who had been appointed to investigate the possibility that the President or his wife had committed crimes in relation to the use of FBI files, real estate deals, bank fraud and campaign contributions. Most important, Lewinsky had proof the President could not deny�his dried semen on her dress. Biological analysis of the DNA in the stain and from the President�s blood proved he had stained the dress.
The President, who must have remembered putting the stain there, did not know that Lewinsky and her confidante Linda Tripp feared that they might actually be in physical danger if the President ever felt he needed to silence them. Tripp had been a professional assistant at the White House but sent to the Pentagon after she witnessed a woman, Kathleen Willey, coming out of the President�s office with clothes disheveled and saying the President had kissed her and fondled her breasts. Tripp convinced Lewinsky to keep the stained dress as irrefutable evidence of the President�s conduct if they ever needed it.
In January of 1998 the President, not knowing that Lewinsky had talked to the Independent Counsel or saved the dress, went on national television to deny a news story that he had had sex with a young intern named Lewinsky. He stared into the television camera, pointed his finger at the American viewers and said, �I want you to listen to me. I never had sex with that woman.�
By mid-August Lewinsky had made a deal with the Independent Counsel to provide the dress and honest testimony. The President immediately went on television. He did not admit lying under oath before the court. He admitted he had �misled� the American people. He admitted he had had �inappropriate� relations with Lewinsky. He accused the Independent Counsel and Republican enemies of making the matter a national scandal. He tried to put the matter behind him with a series of public apologies and the appointment of religious leaders to counsel him on morality. Again, he never admitted he had lied under oath or that he had real sex with Lewinsky.
The President�s defenders, most of whom believe he lied, said he could not admit it because it would leave him open to criminal prosecution when he leaves office. They cite his right under American law to avoid admitting anything that might be interpreted as a crime and they say his lie in the Jones case was not important to the proceedings. His critics say his conduct illustrates that he is a politician who will sacrifice anyone and anything, including his family and his country to save his own skin.
When the President agreed to give a video-taped testimony to the Independent Counsel, he once again refused to admit he lied or that he had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky. The Independent Counsel sent a very detailed and graphic account of the evidence of a sexual relationship to Congress and said that it proved that the President, the chief law enforcement officer in the country, had lied under oath in a court of law for his own benefit and to deprive a woman of a fair hearing on charges of sexual harrasment.
The Inependent Counsel also charged that in order to save himself, the President had encouraged members of his staff to lie in court and that he had conspired with friends to purchase Miss Lewinsky�s silence by finding her a high paying job in government or business. The president continues to be under investigation on charges of paying other witnesses to remain silent about other possible crimes. Neither the President nor his lawyers have ever seriously challenged any of the testimony that the Independent Counsel relied on for his charges or the Counsel�s conclusions that the President had so seriously abused the power of his office that Congress should consider impeachment.
IMPEACHMENT:
A PECULIARLY AMERICAN
PROCESS
Impeachment is a charge that a member of the judicial or executive branch of government is unfit to hold office. If the lower house of Congress approves the grounds for impeachment, the Senate must hold a trial to consider the evidence. If the Senate convicts the accused, he is removed from office. Only one other president was impeached and tried. That was Andrew Johnson in the mid 19th century, and he was acquitted. Richard Nixon resigned when it was clear he would be impeached.
The first hearings on impeachment were conducted by the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives. Its 37 members include 21 Republicans and 16 Democrats. Before they began hearing witnesses, they asked the President to answer 81 questions in order to find out if they already agreed on some facts and could avoid discussing them again. The President answered the questions in the same way he answered the questions in the Paula Jones case and before the Grand Jury. He gave answers that avoided any admission of breaking the law or lying. He would not even say directly that he admitted being the highest law enforcement officer in America. (The executive branch controls all major law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the CIA and all branches of the military.) His very legalistic and ambiguous answers frustrated and enraged Republicans. In his inability to give a straight answer or to admit an actual lie, they found the same weakness that prevented him from giving up his affair with Lewinsky until she had turned against him.
Even the President�s own lawyer, testifying before the Committee, said the President�s answers had been very legalistic and �maddening.�
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES
DIVIDE CONGRESSIONAL
COMMITTEE
In the hearings that followed this past week, the strategy of the President�s defenders and his accusers reflected their underlying approaches to politics. Democrats, who generally take a more lenient view of human failings, argued that while the President had misled everyone, he had done so only because he was embarrassed about a private matter. His conduct and even his lies had not damaged the nation or his ability to govern.
Republicans, who allow less room for human failings and take a more traditional view of morality, argued that the President�s behavior would be very damaging to the moral atmosphere in America if he were not impeached. They said that the President could not walk away from acts for which other Americans, including many members of the military, had been tried in court and put in jail or stripped of their positions.
CONGRESS AND
PRESIDENT PREPARE
FOR THE FINAL ACTS
At the end of the week, on Friday, it became clear that the Committee would approve at least one article of impeachment. Only minutes before the first vote the President made a short speech from the White House garden. He once again admitted that he had misled his family, the courts, his staff, the Grand Jury and the American public, and said he was very sorry. He did not admit that he had lied or obstructed justice. He clearly hinted that he would accept some punishment less than impeachment.
The Democrats on the Committee proposed that the Congress should vote to censure the President for misleading the courts and the public and for delaying a legal investigation. Several even admitted that they believed the President had lied under oath, but that these lies were not serious enough to deserve impeachment. The Republicans argued back that the censure proposal was not a serious punishment, that it did not record any specific crimes by the President, and that Congress was limited by the Constitution to Impeachment or nothing. All but two Democrats voted for censure and the Republicans, the majority, voted unanimously against it.
The Committee then voted that the full House of Representatives should consider impeaching the President on two charges of perjury, one charge of obstructing justice, and one charge of abusing the power of his office. The final charge is in some ways the most similar to the charges that brought down President Nixon in 1974. The Committee based that charge on the �maddening� legalistic and misleading answers to ten of the 81 questions they sent to him before the impeachment hearings began.
The battle now moves toward a vote on Thursday. The President�s staff and Democratic supporters have identified about 22 Republican congress members who might be persuaded to vote against impeachment. How they will try to influence their votes is not yet clear. Without doubt the Republicans will be subjected to heavy attempts to win them to the President�s side. The President is in Israel but he will certainly be on the telephone, perhaps to speak with undecided Republicans. At least one them is accompanying the President in Israel.
So far the main arguments of Democrats are three. First, they say the President is the victim of political foes who trapped him in a series of difficult circumstances. Second, they agree that his actions were repulsive and even immoral, they say the actions were not serious enough to deserve removing him from office. Finally, they argue that time after time the American public in many polls has shown that it does not want the President impeached.
Republicans reply that government is not run by polls, that public opinion changes quickly, and that the law requires them to carry out their duty. To the Democrats dismay the opinion polls are suddenly turning against the President. A poll taken at the end of the Committee�s hearings showed a ten percent rise in the number of Americans favoring impeachment�38 percent overall.
The Democrats have also launched a new argument. They are beginning to say that because a new Congress will take its seats in January, this Congress does not have the right to send an impeachment to the Senate that will come to Washington in January. They have also rolled out a strategy used effectively in political campaigns. They have begun to argue that a trial in the Senate would be very long and would paralyze government for up to a year. They are also aware that a majority of Americans say they are tired of the long investigation and impeachment and want the process to end.
Republicans say this is the Democratic strategy uses the same kind of exaggeration that Democrats used to scare Americans during election campaigns when they said electing Republicans would destroy government health care and pension programs. (After his re-election the President agreed to adjustments in health care spending that were almost identical to Republican proposals, but by then Republicans had lost several seats in Congress.)
The House of Representatives can send an impeachment proceeding to the Senate by a simple majority vote. In this Congress Republicans have a larger majority than the five vote majority they will have in January. If they send an impeachment proceeding to the Senate, the Senate will need a two thirds majority to convict and remove the President if they decide the evidence is strong enough.
No one expects a Senate that is almost evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans to convict the President and remove him from office. Republicans do not expect a President who has been impeached and sent to stand trial before the Senate to be a strong obstacle to their own programs during the rest of his term. Beyond the political strategies lie the ideological foundations that have become the engines of the two parties. Liberal Democrats see the defense of the President as a defense against forces that would roll back the power of government to shape social programs that they feel benefit the poor and minorities. Conservative Republicans see an impeachment as an important step in re-asserting that morality matters in politics and in the larger life of the nation.
On Thursday the full House of Representatives will vote on the conclusion recommended by the Judiciary Committee�s Republicans. It says, �Wherefore, William Jefferson Clinton, by such conduct warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.�
by Roberto Coloma
SINGAPORE, Dec 16 (AFP)
The imminent debut of the euro offers a chance for Asia to have a new reserve unit and reduce the US dollar�s dominance, but the impact on the region�s battered currencies remains uncertain, economists say.
The euro will come into force as the single currency for 11 of the 15 European Union (EU) members on January 1, marking a watershed in global finance and creating a powerful counterweight to the American greenback.
East Asian currencies closely linked to the dollar have sharply weakened since mid-1997, when the de facto devaluation of the Thai baht against the dollar triggered a devastating domino effect across the region.
�We believe that in the long run, the euro is destined to be a strong rival to the US dollar as a reserve currency due to its expected wide usage as a means of payment, a unit of account and a store of value,� said Fong Cheng Hong, senior vice president at Nomura Research in Singapore.
With the onset of European monetary union (EMU), �we expect further substitution of US dollars with the euro in reserves and portfolio management,� she said.
East Asian countries hold some of the world�s largest foreign reserves.
�Thus, the world will be watching Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore to get a gauge of the acceptance of the euro as a reserve currency,� Fong added.
Last week, Chinese officials said Beijing would be adjusting the structure of its foreign currency reserves and debt. China�s foreign exchange reserves stood at 143.7 billion dollars at the end of October, the world�s second biggest after Japan�s.
Chinese experts �expect that the euro may be weak at the initial stage but will become strong in the long term,� the Xinhua news agency said.
Thailand has set up a special task force of finance ministry and central bank experts to study the possibility of stocking up on euro reserves.
The Philippine central bank is also considering putting some reserves in euros. About 20 percent of the Philippines� exports go to euro-zone countries, but only 10 percent of its reserves are in their currencies.
In Tokyo, Hiroshi Morikawa, an economist at Sanwa Bank Ltd., said �there is no denying that the euro will have a tremendous impact on the world�s monetary landscape.�
�But it is difficult right now to fathom the euro�s impact on Asian currencies,� he added.
by Nathaniel Harrison
WASHINGTON, Dec 16 (AFP)
The birth of the euro will have little effect on management of the US economy, which relies heavily on foreign capital to finance public and private spending, many analysts here argue.
The main concern is not that the euro might attract money away from the US credit market but that the whole single currency plan is a highly risky adventure.
If the euro plan goes wrong, Europe will not be able to pull its weight in boosting the global economy, they fear.
If the euro does work, analysts here are confident that the dollar will continue to reign supreme and the United States will attract funds without undue concern about the exchange rate or that interest rates might have to rise.
Financial analysts here acknowledge that the euro zone could prove to be an attractive alternative to international investors anxious to diversify their holdings, but stress that the impact on the US market will be limited.
For at least a year now US Treasury officials have wished the euro well, assuring audiences that the stature of the dollar will be unaffected by competition from the new currency � provided that US economic fundamentals remain healthy.
Many analysts in Europe have raised the possibility that the arrival of the euro, in creating the first truly alternative vehicle to the dollar, might drain huge amounts of international funds which until now have tended to flow with little question into the US economy.
This flow compensates in part for a huge shortfall of US domestic savings, which are now a negative factor, and a current account deficit.
Private forecasts say that the US current account deficit this year could rise from 1.9 percent to 2.8 percent of output or to 235 billion dollars.
People in Europe and Japan, overall are net savers, but the average American lives on credit.
This week Deputy US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers repeated the official view:
�The bottom line is that the attractiveness of the euro will ultimately depend on the same factors determining the attractiveness of the dollar: the long-term credibility of policies underpinning the currency and the efficiency of European financial markets,� he wrote in a special edition of Newsweek magazine.
Vibrant European capital markets, according to the US argument, will help allocate investments more efficiently and boost Europe�s role as an engine for global growth, taking pressure off the United States.
Once the single currency takes effect, national central banks in the EMU area can be expected to reduce their dollar reserve holdings. Estimates of the value of unneeded reserves vary from 50 billion to 230 billion dollars, according to the International Monetary Fund.
But Fund analysts said such amounts were small in relation to overall US international assets and liabilities and the sale of these �surplus� dollars would not therefore exert much downward pressure on the US currency.
However development of highly liquid European financial markets could drain off some of the 11 trillion dollars that were invested in US equity markets last year.