I find this email on the subject of impeachment very worthwhile: ON IMPEACHMENT Thomas Nagel Professor, New York University, School of Law Foundation December 14, 1998 Yesterday Henry Hyde compared himself to Jesus Christ in his indifference to public opinion. This is a revealing comment on his conception of the role of Congress in our national life. The inquisition pursued by Kenneth Starr, and the drive toward impeachment by the Republican majority in Congress, are not only violations of legal and constitutional standards. They are also part of an assault on one of the most important values of a free society, the value of privacy. The majority on the House Judiciary Committee have shown that they are bent on publicly shaming the President, by the exposure of graphic details about his sex life. The argument that the President should be removed from office because of his attempts to conceal an embarrassing sexual affair that has nothing to do with the conduct of government must be based on the premise that anything a public official does, however personal, is an appropriate subject of public scrutiny and public condemnation. The destruction of the boundary between public and private between what is everyone's business and what is only the business of the people directly involved is a very serious injury to the public life of our society. Of course it is an injury to the individual whose privacy is invaded, but when it is directed at a public figure, as it spectacularly is in this case, it is also an injury to the public. It overwhelms the scarce and precious space of the public forum with salacious material that does not belong there and drives out of public consideration and attention the important issues that do belong there. Privacy is not merely a good for the individuals whose privacy is respected. It is just as importantly a public good. The boundary between what is public and what is private keeps the limited common space of political debate clear for the consideration of issues that demand a collective response. It is no exaggeration to say that the insistent and apparently interminable takeover of the public forum by politicians and the media for the purpose of a forced judgment of the President's private conduct is a new form of pollution: It clogs up the common domain of attention and discourse that ought to be reserved for the public's business, and it threatens to set a precedent of political irresponsibility for the indefinite future. The impulse to cross this boundary, and to make sexual secrets the subject of public judgment, comes from a dangerous element in our political culture, the conviction held by many people on the right that it is the business of the society as a whole to root out sin, wherever it appears. This is contrary to the ideal of democracy as limited government that is embodied in the U.S. Constitution. The authority of collective decision does not, in this conception, extend into every detail of the personal lives of individuals. Government should concern itself only with public questions that need to be collectively decided. The variety and complexity of a great deal of personal life, including sex, makes it unsuitable and unnecessary to try to subject it to collective control. By seeking to impeach the President for his efforts to conceal his affair with Monica Lewinsky, the Republicans are displaying in an extreme form their sympathy with the advocates of an expanded state control over individual life, in the name of virtue. In a sense, President Clinton is standing in for all of us in a battle for the separation of sex and state. Thomas Nagel, December 14, 1998

This is good stuff, so if you want to read more: http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/nagel/papers/exposure.html

that was good stuff. Prof. Nagel put into words a lot of what i have been feeling about this whole fiasco.

nagel's analysis is superb... gonna check out more (thanks for posting it terry)

from the nation, jan.25: "...In the public sphere, there are, it is true, some good reasons for particular confidence in the judgments of history. For one thing, we in the present may not have all the necessary information. Some Pentagon Papers may reveal that the facts were quite different from what they seemed to be. The more important and deep-rooted difficulty, however, is that a conflict of interest is built into our attempts to rate our own actions. For each generation is a judge in its own case. To judge oneself fairly is ot an impossible thing, but it's easier to judge someone else. Sometimes the excitement of the moment can even destroy the capacity for judgment. Consider, for example, the ability of the German people in the thirties to arrive at a true estimation of Hitler. Historians are still arguing about Nazism, but does anyone suppose that any future generation will look on Hitler as fondly as did the Germans who supported him and put him in power? Why not invoke history's judgment, then? The problem, of course, is that, thanks to the same passions and interests that cloud our contemporary judgment, we are unable to know what people in the future will think. President Clinton, muse as he will, is the last person likely to arrive at a disinterested estimation of his legacy. Likewise, the Congressional Republicans are the last ones who can tell us what history will think of impeachment. Clinton, at least, has kept his hopes for posterity's congratulat ons to himself. Not so his detractors. They routinely speak as if impeachment is itself a judgment of history--a "black mark," in the words of Senator Phil Gramm, who argued against censure because, in his view, impeachment was already irrevocable censure. It seems not to have occurred to these Republicans that history is as free to condemn impeachment as it is to condemn the President and that the blacker mark may be on their own record. This reliance on as-yet-unwritten history texts, which at first glance may look like a sign of self-confidence, is more likely a sign of nervous insecurity. The uncertainty was inadvertently revealed by former Republican Senator Alan Simpson when he expressed the view, widespread in GOP circles, that the public will have forgotten impeachment by the next election because "the attention span of the American people is 'Which movie is coming out next week?'" How, then, can impeachment be an indelible black m rk in history? People will either remember and judge or forget. They cannot do both. From the start, the scandal has been characterized by an artificial and willful magnification of modest misdeeds into the gigantic and gratuitous crisis that now confronts us. The premature invocation of history is merely the final step in this process. The attempt is to summon up the ghostly legions of posterity as a counterweight to the flesh-and-blood majority of living Americans who consistently opposed impeachment an now oppose conviction. It represents the ultimate step in replacing the facts before us with inflated, constructed reality. In simple truth, we have no access to history's judgments of us. Those who would try President Clinton and remove him from office should weigh the consequences of their deeds here and now, just as ordinary people do every day of their lives. Dependence on the opinion of the unborn amounts to evasion of responsibility by the living. I cannot, without falling into the error I accuse others of, say that history will judge this abdication unfavorably. I will only say that I do." (Jonathan Schell)

My job requires that I spend large amounts of time in the prescence of a TV monitor tuned to CNN. I am therefore all too familiar with the proceedings, and I have yet to hear a single Republican detail the exact statements they believe to be perjurious. I hear lots about lies, but the law is very clear about the difference between perjury and lying. I feel that the Lewinsky/Paula Jones matters are not impeachable - neither is a "High Crime or Misdemeanor". The campaign finance issues involving the Chi ese government seem to be more relevant, but that has been hurled out the window in what appears to be an attempt to smear the President's reputation. I find it amusing that so many of President Clinton's detractors have been divorced, had affairs and, in some cases, fathered children out of wedlock. What's that about glass houses? To my mind, private sexual activity is just that - private. Monica Lewinsky was an adult, Clinton was an adult. Who cares what they did? It ain't my business. Let's focus on the real issues - you know global warming, nuclear proliferation, Kosovo, sub-saharan Africa - you know, the important stuff?

So, has anyone else noticed that the R's keep changing their criteria? When Lewinsky was first mentioned, it was, "If he'd just admit it, we'd understand." When he admitted it, it became, "If he'd just apologize, we'd let it go." When he apologized again and again, it became, "Well, he wasn't really sinces, and he didn't admit to perjury." The same thing is happening in the Senate trial. Makes you wonder if the R's are really interested in justice, or getting Clinton out of office. Seriously, though, I've heard Bob Barr admit that all they have is circumstantial evidence, but that's OK, because they don't have to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt for the Senate to vote for removal. Does that scare the hell out of anyone else?

Senate Acquits Bill Clinton WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States Senate has acquitted President Clinton on charges of perjury before a federal grand jury and obstruction of justice, assuring that he will not be removed from office. The first article drew a not guilty vote of 55-45. The second was split 50-50. Both charges would have required 67 votes for conviction, a threshold that senators have known for weeks would not be met.

[laughing to the point of pain] I'll be calling some Republican Congress offices next week to gloat. I know Clinton isn't supposed to, so I'll do it for him. Rep. Lamar Smith (R, Tx) is already sick of hearing from me about this, but, after his Cavalier dismissal of my concerns, politley expressed in an email, I'm going to make sure that any possible reelection will not be due to my inaction.