Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [428]
It was a relief, even for such brief moments, to have a topic to joke about.
THE night after Chuck Ruff’s powerful opening to the senators, on January 19, President Bill Clinton delivered his State of the Union address in the Capitol. He was standing before the very representatives who, by day, were prosecuting him and before the very senators who were sitting in judgment of him. Robert Dove, who attended the president’s speech that night, recalled it as a surreal scene: “I mean, the State of the Union is one of those occasions that normally everybody is relatively happy about. It’s just one of the neat things that happens in Washington, and suddenly it wasn’t neat. People didn’t know how to act.”
House Manager Bob Barr stayed away, as a showing of contempt for Clinton. Chief Justice Rehnquist declined to attend, in part because he was presiding over the impeachment trial and in part because of his back problems. Chairman Henry Hyde was absent, joking that he was skipping all such speeches on a “bipartisan basis” because health problems prevented him from getting up and down repeatedly during these political stem-winders. Hyde declared that he preferred to “sit in my shorts with a cigar and watch the television” at home.
The mood this night in the House chamber was one of supreme unease. If Clinton choked at this dicey moment in his presidency, he might finally run out of wiggle room. His best protection against removal from office was to “[show] that his personal travails were not going to affect his ability to do a good job for the American public.” As aide Doug Sosnik summed it up, “Now, if he ever lost that, then we probably were going to lose the franchise.”
Bill Clinton stepped into the well of the House of Representatives and turned in one of the most brilliant performances of his career, appearing un-fazed by the political chaos surrounding him. During this masterful hour-long address, Clinton condemned the atrocities committed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that recently had necessitated military action. He spoke of the booming U.S. economy and of his plan to earmark $2.7 trillion of the projected budget surplus to shoring up social security. He tipped his hat to Chicago Cubs home-run slugger Sammy Sosa, who was seated in the audience—prompting a wild ovation. He mouthed the words “I love you” to First Lady Hillary Clinton, who waved back elegantly from the gallery. Nowhere was there any mention of the impeachment trial during this virtuoso performance, except for a subtle plea for peace and harmony at the conclusion. “Let us lift our eyes as one nation,” Clinton intoned, “and from the mountaintop of this American century, look ahead to the next one, asking God’s blessing on our endeavors and on our beloved country.”
By all accounts, Bill Clinton, like Sammy Sosa, had smashed a grand slam over the bleachers. Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, who led the standing ovation in the gallery, later described the address as “remarkable.” Even Majority Leader Trent Lott conceded that he marveled at Clinton’s pluck in the face of overwhelming adversity: “I was amazed and impressed. How in the world can he sleep at night? How in the world can he stand up there and give this speech just like everything’s hunky-dory?