LET US hear no talk of President Clinton's resigning. The Constitution says that two-thirds of the Senate is needed to remove him from the term to which the people elected him. No less should suffice.
If it did, a simple majority of the House of Representatives would have ousted the president. The Constitution forbids that. The plea for Mr. Clinton to resign comes primarily from people who made a weak case for impeachment, which they do not expect to succeed, but they want to be vindicated anyway.
It is not only President Clinton's right but his duty to stay unless convicted by the Senate. No one is required to like him. He does not have to enjoy the next two years. But it is his obligation to posterity to protect the institutions established by the Constitution.
House Speaker-designate Bob Livington's decision to resign from Congress is no model. It was a wrong choice that Mr. Livington has, fortunately, given himself six months to reconsider. Speaker Newt Gingrich, in refusing to take the seat to which he was re-elected, is spurning constituents, setting a model for Mr. Livingston and Mr. Clinton to avoid.
The Senate was handed a weak and unworthy impeachment. Yet they should examine it seriously. That certainly means beginning the trial. An action resembling a summary judgment is fitting, should the senators conclude that the charges, if true, do not merit removal from office. But the Senate must show the nation that it is up to combining such a trial with its other duties.
Sparing the country this spectacle was the House's responsibility. Creating the procedural precedents for the future is the Senate's.
The Senate must decide only whether to remove or disqualify the president from office. It should not try to craft a proportionate punishment. Congress is not entrusted by the Constitution with punishment of transgressors. Only the courts are.
Censure would be an expression of the opinion about Mr. Clinton's actions that most of the country holds. Nothing forbids the Senate from saying what it thinks.
The debate in the House of Representatives was low and partisan. Republican Rep. Constance Morella of Maryland's 8th District was the only member of the state delegation to choose conscience over party. Her "no" vote did Marylanders proud.
In doing better than the House, the Senate must first decide whether the charges if true would warrant conviction. If so, it must hold a full trial. Part of the perjury charges in Article I certainly are true. The grand jury testimony contained strong evidence undermining obstruction of justice charges in Article III.
President Clinton, Mr. Starr and the House of Representatives, led by their worst instincts, jointly created a mess -- part farce and part tragedy -- from which only the Senate, with statesmanship and wisdom, can extract the nation.
Pub Date: 12/22/98