Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [423]
Whatever the circus atmosphere that had pervaded the House of Representatives had been, it did not penetrate the walls of the U.S. Senate. Chaplain Lloyd Ogilvie offered a brief prayer, imploring Almighty God to impart “a special measure of wisdom” to those seated in judgment of President William Jefferson Clinton, and praying for “a spirit of nonpartisan patriotism.”
Chairman Henry Hyde now stepped up to the narrow wooden lectern, commencing the House managers’ presentations. Hyde swept his hand across the rows of senatorial desks, declaring, “We are here, Mr. Chief Justice and distinguished Senators, as advocates for the rule of law, for equal justice under the law and for the sanctity of the oath … You are now stewards of the oath.”
Wearing a dark suit and a shimmering silver tie, Hyde introduced his fellow managers, who, for the next twenty-four hours of Senate time, would present the case for impeachment of the president. They unveiled charts and played video clips on huge television screens, largely for the benefit of the national television audience, hoping to drive public opinion polls that in turn would exert pressure on these senators to remove Bill Clinton. The managers pounded away, presenting argument upon argument to buttress the charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, reading from typed scripts prepared by staff members who had been working round the clock. In this trial, the prosecutors from the House were leaving nothing to chance.
Chief Justice Rehnquist sat in his large brown-leather chair, hands folded. His only visible movement was to stand in a dignified fashion, at periodic intervals, to stretch his bad back. At one point, Majority Leader Lott tried to exercise his leadership role by announcing a short recess for a bathroom break. Rehnquist vetoed the idea, interjecting: “I don’t need to go, so thank you very much. We won’t leave.” The uneasy twitters subsided and the group went back to work, as the majority leader retook his seat with a polite bow. The senators were not used to a foreign creature in robes telling them how to run their business.
Parliamentarian Robert Dove, who had a bird’s-eye view from beside Chief Justice Rehnquist’s seat on the raised dais, observed that many senators appeared as if they had been confined to prison. All of them “had to sit without speaking, a totally unnatural act for a senator.” As Dove observed it, “the longer they sat, the more unhappy they became.” Six hours of listening was an eternity for this collection of extroverted public officials who liked to deliver orations to adoring audiences without restraint. As time passed, there was a palpable sense that the House prosecutors and their Senate audience “were eyeing each other increasingly in an adversarial mode.” The fact that the managers were seated in a cluster on the Democratic side of the aisle only made the feeling of unease more acute. As one senator recalled, there was an unmistakable sensation of “friction” in the room.
At 6:59 P.M., when the chief justice rapped his gavel to end the first day’s proceedings, nearly half the spectators in the gallery had already left. Outside, freezing rain shellacked the streets in front of the Capitol, creating hazardous driving conditions for those returning home for a night’s rest. Bad weather was the least of the problems for the senators; they worried that this trial would go on for weeks, perhaps months. There was no way to tell when, or how, it would end.
THE House managers committed several major blunders as they marched forward, putting in their case. For one, the fact that all thirteen managers made presentations led to repetition that annoyed the already perturbed senators. Henry Hyde later admitted that if he had it to do differently, he would have cut the number of managers in half. “I’d have learned to say ‘no’ a little better,” he said. Nor did it help that all the managers were white males, starkly reinforcing the lack of diversity among the group. (In contrast, the president’s defense team was lean