Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [2]
“To the president I would say: Sir, you have done great damage to this nation over this past year.” Livingston’s hands flew out of control, making gestures and pointing as if out of sync with his speech. “You, sir, may resign your post.”
The Democrats erupted into boos, hisses, and catcalls.
Livingston’s face became pinched and defiant. He had been stewing over this segment of the speech ever since that vile pornographer Larry Flynt had “outed” him. The previous day, he had ripped up the draft into a hundred pieces. “It just needs a kicker,” he had said to his secretary, Raine Simpson, his eyes puffy with exhaustion. “It needs a better ending.”
At two or three in the morning, Congressman Livingston had awakened in a cold sweat, lying beside his wife, Bonnie, his faithful mate of thirty years. At that god-awful hour it had struck him like a fiery bolt: “I realized what the ending was going to be,” he recalled years later.
Bob Livingston now stared at the sea of angry Democratic colleagues, raising his hand like a policeman to halt them.
“You resign!” they shouted back, unfazed by the Speaker designate’s quivering hand. “You resign!”
Speaker pro tem LaHood pounded his gavel. He bellowed over the melee, “The House will be in order!”
Livingston waited for a lull. Then he delivered the punch line with a loud and defiant voice: “And I can only challenge him [President Clinton] in such fashion if I am willing to heed my own words.” There came a scattering of gasps. The House fell into silence, as if members suddenly recognized what was about to happen.
“To my colleagues, my friends, and most especially my wife and family,” Livingston said, delivering his own eulogy, “I have hurt you all deeply, and I beg your forgiveness.”
The congressman’s hands shook as he gripped the sheet of paper. “I must set the example that I hope President Clinton will follow. Mr. Speaker … I shall vacate my seat and ask my governor to call a special election to take my place.”
Pandemonium now erupted on both sides of the aisle, like an earthquake shaking the foundations of a city. Livingston spoke over the din: “I thank my wife most especially for standing by me. I love her very much.”
As his final declamation in the well of Congress, the dishonored representative declared, “God bless America.”
Livingston grabbed his sheaf of papers, looking like a man who had just walked into the mouth of hell. Members stood up, uncertain how to handle the news. They burst into spontaneous applause that filled the House chamber like the roar in the Roman Colosseum after a dozen lions had been unleashed. Democrats and Republicans pounded their hands together, giving ovations for wholly different reasons. Journalists scribbled frantically on note pads, preparing urgent news releases to inform the world that one of the most powerful congressmen had just resigned and had dared President Clinton to do the same.
Chairman Henry Hyde slumped back in his chair, absorbing this latest bombshell with a sense of deep sorrow. He later recalled, “I wished he had stuck it out.… I’d have liked to see an honest show of hands of members who had had the same experience [of marital infidelity].” Said Hyde, with undisguised bitterness, “I felt it was an unnecessary waste of a good member.”
David Schippers, chief counsel to the Judiciary Committee and close ally of Hyde’s, stood at the rear of the hall in a state of shock. He walked over, draped his arm around Bob Livingston, and told him, “I hope to God you’ll be back.”
Schippers perceived, suddenly, that the Democrats “were acting disgraceful.” He could hear them laughing. “They were taking pleasure in our discomfiture,” he later said. Within the Republican caucus, a new strain of anger was bubbling up. “We felt that Clinton was behind it all,” said Schippers. “That was his mode of operation.”
Democratic representative José Serrano of New York, who had taken over the microphone, only incensed Republicans further by declaring, “My constituents don’t hate Bill Clinton.