[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 121 (Monday, September 14, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H7675-H7676]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  PRESIDENT SHOULD RESIGN FROM OFFICE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I stand before my colleagues again to 
reaffirm my position made a couple of weeks ago that the President of 
the United States should resign from office.
  Now, I know that a lot of my colleagues are engaged in a very active 
debate which will continue for some period of time about whether or not 
the President in fact should continue in office, or whether or not the 
President is guilty of certain allegations that have been brought 
forth. But I want to put this on a practical point of view.
  I think the best comparison that we can make is to compare it to the 
quarterback of a football team. Our President is the quarterback of 
this team. He is the most important and most responsible, is supposed 
to have the most responsibility of any individual citizen in this 
country. Frankly, we now have a quarterback with a broken arm.

[[Page H7676]]

  Now, think about it. No matter how we think that quarterback got his 
arm broken, and I happen to think it was self-inflicted, I happen to 
think he brought it upon himself, but there are those of us who think 
that it was not brought on by his own actions, or that he did not 
deserve a broken arm, but the fact is, the President has a broken arm. 
He cannot quarterback the team.
  Now, our team is the most powerful team in the world. There are a lot 
of people that are gunning for us. We cannot afford to have a 
quarterback who cannot carry out the responsibilities of the team on 
the field.
  But we had the foresight to think about this. We have in this country 
a backup plan. We have a backup quarterback. We have a backup 
quarterback on the sidelines ready to go. It is important for this 
team, it is important for the United States of America, to have 
somebody who can carry out the responsibilities that are placed upon 
this job.
  I also want to speak about standards. Coming on the airplane today 
back to Washington, D.C., I heard people say, well, let us just take a 
wink at this thing. Let us put it aside. I said, wait a second. What 
would happen to a school teacher? How many teachers in any district in 
this country, if they got that kind of report on them, on Friday, would 
be in a classroom today, on Monday?
  Let us go back to sports. Look at Marv Albert. He had some kind of a 
sexual problem. He had a public job, he was in the public. It is the 
same thing here. People say, well, it is one's private life. Folks, 
this is a public job. It is public business. The same thing with Kelly 
Flynn. She was flying a nuclear bomber. They relieved her of command of 
that bomber because that position involves so much responsibility, is 
so important to the team, we could not afford to have her on this with 
the lies about her affair.
  What about the Commander in Chief? We have standards. We have 
standards for a Boy Scout or a Girl Scout to get a good citizenship 
award. How can we explain to them that, well, the standards are 
applicable unless one is in elected office in this government, and then 
we kind of wink about it?
  I heard somebody on the airplane say, well, you know, everybody lies. 
Everybody does not lie. Everybody does not lie to a spouse or a grand 
jury.

                              {time}  1815

  Everybody does not deal in that way. Everybody does not lie to a 
civil jury. Everybody does not do this kind of behavior. I am one of 
those people that is pretty optimistic to think in fact everybody or 
most everybody in this country has a sense of responsibility.
  Most people in this country want high standards for their 
schoolteacher. They want high standards for the principal. They want 
high standards for their Congressman, and they certainly want high 
standards for the President of the United States.
  Whether we agree or not that the President got himself into his own 
problems, the question is can he now, with the situation as it exists, 
meet those high standards? Has he met those high standards?
  Is this the example that any one of us would go into a classroom 
tomorrow and say I am proud of the President of the United States; this 
is what the Presidency should reflect?
  How many of our young people at our schools when we ask them the four 
or five most admired people in the world, how many of them are going to 
list the President of the United States as one of them?
  Since the President's speech on August 17, I have not been to one 
group, not one group of three or more people, where I have not heard a 
joke degrading the Presidency of the United States.
  Folks, put our arguments aside about whether the President should or 
should not be there. The question is: Can he effectively quarterback 
our team with a broken arm? And the answer is very, very simple. He 
cannot. The President of the United States should resign. It is his 
responsibility. It is his duty. It is his country which comes first.

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