Impeachment

Al Gore may have given the speech of his life accepting his party's nomination last week. But he avoided mentioning the elephant in the room: the impeachment of President Clinton. Gore seems to be running away from this fact as fast as he can. He must think that it's nothing but a loser for him. But this is an issue he should exploit, albeit artfully and with tact. For a lesson in such implied criticism, Gore should study the Republicans. They have mastered the art of talking about impeachment - without talking about impeachment.

After an emotional debate that left several lawmakers in tears, the Arizona House of Representatives yesterday impeached a defiant Gov. Evan Mecham, forcing him out of office while he awaits a trial by the state Senate. The impeachment of Mecham, a conservative, outspoken Republican who has been under fire almost since the day he took office 13 months ago, marks only the 16th time in U.S. history and the first time in more than half a century that a governor has been impeached.

On the surface at least, independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr's detailed evidence against President Clinton - the secret and repeated sexual encounters with Monica Lewinsky, the deliberate lies and concealment - is politically and morally devastating. Yet, Starr's report to Congress contains no "smoking gun" of felonious conduct, tells only the prosecution's side of events, and leaves open the overriding issue of whether it justifies impeachment of the nation's elected chief executive.

THIS ISN'T JAYWALKING Nothing seems clearer to me than that the impeachment of President Clinton is a "profile in courage. " The Republican Party exhibits leadership in its purest form, bravery in taking, on principle, a stand that the public rejects, a stand for which the GOP has been assured it will be punished at the polls. On the other side of the aisle, the Democrats hide behind the craven idea that lying in a deposition, lying to a grand jury, and lying repeatedly to the American people is OK if it's all about sex. Well, it may not be treason, it may not be burglary, and it may not be a high crime, but jaywalking it ain't.

My entire career has been in the law, government and politics. All are being undermined by the impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives. More important, the national interest is threatened. At the outset, Henry Hyde, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the impeachment process must be bipartisan if it was to have the confidence of the American people. He was right. Unfortunately, the hearings were more ferociously partisan than anything I have seen in nearly 25 years in Washington.

A Pittsburgh lawmaker, saying "somebody's gotta do something," has called for the impeachment of controversial state Supreme Court Justice Rolf Larsen. "You just can't have the Supreme Court acting like this," said Rep. Christopher McNally, referring to Larsen's unprecedented accusation that two of his colleagues were "fix artists" who had committed crimes. McNally's move appeared to be unilateral and mostly symbolic, and received mixed reviews from court observers. "I have good reason to believe that Justice Larsen has intentionally made a false accusation that Justice (Stephen A.)

Rep. Jon D. Fox added his vote yesterday to the tide that appears likely to result in a decision today to impeach President Clinton. The lame-duck Republican from Montgomery County said he would lend his support to all four articles of impeachment. "The Constitution is not some abstract idea," Fox said of his last vote in the House. ". . . It cannot be ignored because we like and admire the President. " Fox, one of the last representatives to make his intentions public, delivered his announcement at a late-afternoon news conference here.

For all the talk about it, the impeachment process has neither an extensive history nor a clear set of guidelines. The Constitution states only that a president may be impeached for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors," and sets out a few basic procedures. Impeachment is more of a political process than a legal one. These are the steps in the impeachment process, and the precedents for each: STEP 1: Kenneth Starr, under the 1978 Independent Counsel Act, sends a report to the House of Representatives that concludes the president may have committed impeachable offenses.

Have you noticed what people have started calling Bill Clinton now that he's in trouble? Not President Clinton. Not Bill Clinton. William Jefferson Clinton. Ah, the middle name. You know you've stepped in it when they use your middle name. It's as if he were still a little boy and his mama found out he'd painted his name on the side of the house. "William Jefferson Clinton!" she'd likely yell. "Get in here right now!" Today, with Clinton facing a crisis that could end his presidency, it's no wonder politicians and pundits are essentially doing the same thing.

The songs of the Christmas season and thoughts of goodwill mingled awkwardly yesterday with feelings of disgust and frustration at churches across Philadelphia as ministers and parishioners struggled to make sense of the presidential impeachment crisis in Washington. Some church members and leaders focused exclusively on the meaning of the holidays. But the looming trial that threatens to oust President Clinton from office found its way into other services and prayers, with at least one Baptist congregation organizing lobbying efforts to prevent further action against the chief executive.

HARRISBURG - Two legislators asked their colleagues Monday to cosponsor a resolution that could lead to impeachment proceedings against a sitting state Supreme Court justice. State Reps. John Sabatina (D., Phila.) and Glen Grell (R., Cumberland) distributed a memo looking for support to have the Judiciary Committee investigate the conduct of Justice Joan Orie Melvin. Orie Melvin awaits sentencing May 7 after being convicted last month of theft, conspiracy, and misappropriation of state property in a case that centered on allegations she used state workers and resources to wage campaigns in 2003 and 2009 for the state's highest court.

PITTSBURGH - A legislator has drafted a resolution that would be the first step in the possible impeachment of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin following her conviction on six counts of corruption, the lawmaker said Friday. Rep. Glenn Grell (R., Cumberland) said he would confer with fellow lawmakers Monday about whether and when to file the resolution, which would be unnecessary if Melvin resigned. If approved by the House, the resolution would give a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee authority to take testimony and issue subpoenas as part of an investigation.

Visitors to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court website Thursday night were greeted by a group photo of the high court that included a smiling Justice Joan Orie Melvin. There was no indication that a Pittsburgh jury had found Melvin guilty of criminal corruption earlier in the day. Melvin is a still a Supreme Court justice, albeit one suspended without pay. Her conviction on six of seven counts of corruption related to her 2003 and 2009 campaigns for the Supreme Court sparked renewed calls for replacing judicial elections with merit selection of judges.

Jack Brooks, 89, who hounded government bureaucrats, drafted President Richard Nixon's articles of impeachment, and supported civil rights bills in a congressional career spanning 42 years, died Tuesday. Mr. Brooks died at Baptist Hospital of Beaumont after a sudden illness, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department said. He was among the last links to an era when Democrats dominated Texas politics. First elected to the House in his far southeast Texas district in 1952, Mr. Brooks was returned to office 20 more times.

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai said Sunday that he would respect the Afghan parliament's decision to remove two key ministers from office, a dramatic change in leadership during a pivotal stage in NATO's 11-year war. Afghan lawmakers voted Saturday to impeach Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak and Interior Minister Besmillah Mohammadi, both of whom have worked on the United States' most costly - and most delicate - security initiatives....

For six hours last Friday, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing, the subject of which, Chairman John Conyers (D., Mich.) pointedly assured an overflow crowd, was not the impeachment of President Bush. The official title, he said, was "Executive Power and its Constitutional Limits," a semantic bow to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. From the start of her reign, she had declared that impeachment would be "off the table" because it wasn't achievable in the time remaining in the Bush presidency, and would distract the House from other achievable business.

Causes of poverty It is ironic that the story about Stephanie Coles, the unmarried mother of four struggling without government-provided breakfast and lunch for her children ("Summertime's no picnic for hunger-relief groups," June 16) appeared the same day as the report of Barack Obama's comments about absentee fathers ("Obama rebukes absentee fathers"). The senator said, "Responsibility does not end with conception. " Apparently, the responsibility for Coles' children rests only on her shoulders, not on those of the children's father.

More than half the members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted last week to send articles of impeachment against President Bush to the lower chamber's Judiciary Committee. Of course, most of the lawmakers considered their "yes" vote the equivalent of sending Dumbo to the elephant graveyard, from which it would never be seen or heard again. The articles' author, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio), has been written off derisively, both within and outside the halls of Congress, for having launched the impeachment process.

Readers react to Sunday's Currents cover package by Elizabeth Holtzman and Michael Tomasky that debated the pros and cons of impeaching President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Scott Durham Haddonfield s.durham2004@comcast.net Everything President Bush and Vice President Cheney have done since 9/11 have been to protect the American people. When they took on Saddam Hussein and his murderous regime, 99 percent of Americans - including both Clintons, Al Gore, John Kerry, and other members of Congress - thought Hussein had WMD. Bush had the integrity and courage to do what was not politically expedient, something neither his father or Bill Clinton could do. And our miraculous military did it in 17 days.