[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 26 (Friday, February 12, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1637-S1638]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                A CALL FOR AN END TO THE POLITICAL WARS

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, today's votes on the Articles of 
Impeachment mark the end of a long and difficult journey. The story of 
this impeachment process suggests a number of lessons on which I expect 
we will all reflect individually and collectively for some time.
  From the beginning of this process, I objected in the clearest terms 
to the President's legal hairsplitting and attempts to find a legal 
excuse, or any excuse, for his deplorable personal conduct. In my view, 
the President violated the public trust and brought dishonor to the 
office he holds. For that, he will have to answer to the people of this 
country, and to history.
  But it was every senator's duty to put personal views aside and 
render impartial justice, based on constitutional standards and the 
evidence before the Senate. In my view, the President's conduct did 
not, under our Constitution, warrant his removal from office. Others, 
acting on equally sincere motives, reached a different conclusion.
  It is regrettable that something about this process led to a 
situation, particularly in Washington, where sincere voices on both 
sides were too often drowned out by partisan voices--again, on both 
sides. But, if we listen to voices outside the nation's capital, the 
voices of citizens rather than of partisans, those voices tell us that 
something has gone terribly wrong in our public discourse.
  Those citizens see the impeachment process not as a solemn 
constitutional event, which it assuredly was, but rather as another sad 
episode in the sorry saga of a bitter, partisan and negative political 
process that runs on the fuel of scandal. In this sense, to many 
Americans, the Starr investigation, and the impeachment process it 
spawned, were all too familiar.

[[Page S1638]]

  To much of the American public, this whole process was a long-
running, 50-million-dollar negative ad built on personal attacks, the 
likes of which Americans regret and reject.
  I know this belief is shared by thousands of South Dakotans and 
millions of Americans who hold widely varying views of what the outcome 
of the impeachment proceeding should have been--conviction or 
acquittal, removal or continued service by the President to the 
conclusion of his term.
  What are the elements, the component parts, of this political process 
that so many Americans judge to be merely an ugly spectacle 
increasingly unworthy of their participation? What is making Americans 
so cynical that they are voting in record-low numbers and tuning out 
the government meant to serve them?
  Surely they must be concerned about the increased use, and misuse, of 
the legal process in our political process. They are no longer certain 
they can distinguish the proper application of the law to address real 
wrongdoing properly before the courts from the hijacking of the law to 
bludgeon political opponents and extend the battlefield of political 
attack.
  In just ten years, we have seen the public careers of three House 
Speakers, representing both political parties, destroyed by scandal. As 
the process has escalated, Independent Counsels have pursued members of 
Presidents' cabinets--of both parties--and then, the President of the 
United States himself.
  We have watched what we all acknowledge as ``the politics of personal 
destruction'' threaten to devour our democratic ideals.
  We can, and we will, argue the merits of the Independent Counsel 
statute when it comes up for reauthorization this session. We can, and 
we will, continue to pursue those who are corrupt, who use their 
offices for personal gain, or who otherwise deserve punishment.
  But the law must be preserved as an instrument for the rendering of 
justice, not manipulated to serve as another readily accessible weapon 
to be used against political adversaries.
  And the law should not become a substitute for elections. Political 
choices in this country must remain in the hands of the people of this 
country, not conveyed to prosecutors and lawyers.
  It is not the law's fault that there has been a hardening of position 
and a commitment to win at any cost. To paraphrase our former colleague 
Dale Bumpers' now famous declaration in his presentation to the Senate, 
``Sometimes we want to win too badly.''
  It is time for elected officials to ask themselves, ``Does anyone in 
this country really feel as though they have been winners in this 
seemingly interminable process of investigation, media spectacle and 
impeachment controversy?"
  I hope we can keep Senator Bumpers' words in mind and honor each 
other with the same degree of commitment that we bring to our 
disagreements. I hope we can persuade without spinning; that we can 
argue without shouting; that we can dissent without dividing.
  We can be passionate in our beliefs without prosecuting those who 
believe differently.
  There were no winners in this impeachment process, but there were 
plenty of losers. There are good people who have accumulated thousands 
of dollars in legal bills as a result of the years of investigating the 
President. There are good people--on both sides of the aisle--whose 
private lives will be never be private again. There are people whose 
reputations have been battered and beaten.
  I hope we can keep those people in mind and call for--indeed, insist 
upon--a truce in the political wars. We need now to think about what we 
owe ourselves, each other and the public as we move--and I hope without 
further delay--to address the true agenda of the American people.

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