Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [3]
Democratic leader Dick Gephardt hustled out of the cloakroom and offered an olive branch, urging Livingston, for the good of the American people, to reconsider his resignation and calling upon both parties to end the “politics of personal destruction.” The Republicans weren’t buying it. They were convinced that Clinton and his political operatives were behind the Democratic leader’s insincere expression of sympathy. “I somehow think of Aesop’s fable about the crocodile tears,” Robert Livingston later said.
Order was finally restored, long enough for members of Congress to vote on the impeachment question. Two counts passed with solid majorities—those relating to Clinton’s lying in front of the grand jury and his obstruction of justice. Two articles failed—those relating to Clinton’s lying in the Paula Jones deposition and his general abuse of high office. The vote was strictly along party lines.
David Schippers turned to a Republican staffer and gasped, “My God, they have just impeached the president of the United States!”
As pandemonium erupted, members of Congress took refuge in the restrooms as reporters flooded into the halls. One of Bob Livingston’s fellow Republicans, looking shell-shocked, told a reporter, “This has not been a rational day.”
Years later, after building a successful international lobbying firm and leaving this nightmare behind him, Robert Livingston would reconstruct his decision to resign: “I stood up and resigned my job in an effort to convince the president of the United States that he had done wrong.” Livingston’s voice turned hard, almost icy: “I wanted him gone. I wanted him impeached. I wanted him to be shown for the liar under oath that he was when he was president of the United States and [that] he violated his oath of office to the United States of America.” To accomplish this, Livingston said, he was prepared to “take the heat.”
President Clinton would later disavow any participation in the “outing” of Representative Livingston by Larry Flynt, or in the chaotic events that brought down Bob Livingston. “I knew nothing about it,” Clinton said, sitting calmly at his home in Chappaqua, New York. Although Clinton had “always liked” Livingston as a political acquaintance, he was disappointed at how Livingston had “rah-rahed along with Gingrich and DeLay on the impeachment.” Livingston’s fall from grace in his own personal sex scandal, as Clinton saw it, was “just one more example of [the Republicans’] hypocrisy.” The former president continued: “The interesting thing was, Larry Flynt turned out to be a better guy than Ken Starr. I mean basically, the story was that Mrs. Livingston went to him and pleaded with him not to release any more of the details. And [he agreed to that after] Livingston resigned from Congress.”
Clinton also scoffed at the assertion that Livingston’s resignation was driven by some sort of moral reawakening. The president’s intelligence from behind enemy lines indicated that the Republican leadership “came to [Livingston] and said he would have to quit, not because they were upset about what he did, but because he was standing in the way of my impeachment.”
Chairman Hyde walked back through the marble halls of Congress on that cold Saturday in December, somberly contemplating what a Senate trial might look like. This had been “a heavy day,” Hyde would admit, reflecting upon the weekend when he garnered enough votes to impeach the president of the United States. Glancing at the chilly rain pelting against the windows of the now empty Capitol, the representative from Illinois knew that the days ahead would be even heavier.
IN Arkansas, time momentarily stood still. Christmas shoppers in downtown Little Rock paused on the streets. Supporters and detractors of Bill Clinton alike froze in their tracks, absorbing the news: The House of Representatives had voted to impeach the first native son of Arkansas ever to occupy the White House.
The day in Little Rock was