From the archives: The impeachment trial

This story was originally published in Newsday on February 14, 1999.

Even as Americans digest the results of President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial - acquitted on both counts by a weary, sharply divided Senate - historians and politicians are assessing the still-unfolding impact of the year-long scandal.

Who won? Who lost? Who will reap reward from the painful process culminating in Friday's votes? Whose career has been enhanced? Whose has been damaged? Who will be rewarded? Who will be punished?

There's broad agreement in political and academic circles that winners are few, losers are more numerous and the biggest group may be those for whom the jury is still out, or for whom the jury appears to be widely split.

Having blunted the effort to remove him from office, Clinton is the most obvious winner, at least on the surface. But in advance of the Senate vote, Press Secretary Joe Lockhart promised the White House would be a "gloat-free zone" after acquittal. "I don't think there is anybody here who thinks anything out of this process constitutes a victory," Lockhart said. "This . . . has not been good for anyone who has been involved in it."

At campuses across the country, most history and political science professors agreed there are few winners.

"In the impeachment debacle, I can only find losers," said Harry Wilson, associate professor at Roanoke College in Salem, Va. "The president and, more important, the presidency are certainly losers . . . Congress is likewise a loser."

Thomas Cronin, president of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., and a presidential scholar, believes "the institution of the presidency will survive pretty well."

"What is being punished here is the individual, not the institution," he told the Washington Post.

There's no question that Clinton, even with acquittal, has seen his legacy severely damaged. The 42nd president will go into history books as only the second chief executive to face an impeachment trial - Andrew Johnson also was acquitted 131 years ago in the first presidential impeachment trial.

Still uncertain is how else Clinton will be remembered decades from now. Most historians say it is too early to rate his two terms in office, but many say it is unlikely Clinton will find himself ranked above the middle tier of presidents - far below the upper tier of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.

History's jury also is out on a number of other players in the impeachment drama, but it is clear some of the principal characters were both winners and losers.

One is Hillary Rodham Clinton. The first lady's standing with the public has never been higher, largely because she's seen as showing exceptional emotional strength. But the chief reason for that favorable public view - her handling of a husband's shameful conduct - surely is something she would rather not have faced.

Hillary Clinton made frequent trips to New York last year to campaign for Charles Schumer in the Brooklyn congressman's successful run for the Senate seat held by Alfonse D'Amato, and she invariably got a warm, friendly greeting. In the months ahead, New Yorkers may be seeing a lot more of her; she has not ruled out the possibility of establishing New York residency and seeking the Senate seat being vacated in 2000 by a retiring Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Monica Lewinsky, the former White House intern whose affair with Clinton triggered the scandal and who will be known forever as the president's sexual playmate, got generally high marks for her poised performance in the videotaped deposition that became a major part of the Senate trial.

She's got a big book deal with Andrew Morton, biographer of Princess Diana, and has agreed to an interview with ABC's Barbara Walters. But she also has huge legal bills, and her current notoriety probably insures it will be difficult for her ever to enjoy a normal life.

Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel whose relentless pursuit of Clinton triggered seemingly endless controversy, also faces a cloudy future. He still must wrap up other dangling elements of his $ 40-million investigation and decide whether to seek to prosecute Clinton in criminal court. But he also faces a Justice Department investigation of whether he engaged in prosecutorial misconduct in his handling of the Lewinsky affair.

While a prosperous private law practice awaits his return, the former U.S. solicitor general had to back off his acceptance of a post as law school dean at Pepperdine University in California, and he has acknowledged that his long-held hope of serving on the Supreme Court will never be realized.

For a freshman senator, Schumer got an unusual amount of attention during the impeachment trial, in part because as a House member he had voted on the issue both in the Judiciary Committee and on the House floor. At every step his vote was in Clinton's favor - against the articles of impeachment in the House, and not guilty in the Senate.

Also receiving lots of national attention was Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), the lone House Republican to argue strenuously against Clinton's impeachment and to describe his own party as blinded by its hatred of Clinton.

Unabashed at saying "I told you so," King was treated as a hero in some quarters but was jeered in others. He was taken off the Nassau Democrats political hit list, despite his conservative views. But the prospect of a challenge by a pro-impeachment Republican in a 2000 primary may force him to spend more money preparing for his re-election campaign. He also is keeping an eye on the Moynihan Senate seat in 2000.

Several of King's House colleagues were big losers. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and former House Speaker-elect Bob Livingston (R-La.) both fell from power in the scandal's backlash - Gingrich stepped down in November after disappointing election returns; Livingston said in December he would not serve in the speaker's post after acknowledging having "strayed" from his wife.

Livingston was snared in the net cast by Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, who offered $ 1 million for women to come forward with proof of illicit sexual affairs by members of Congress.

Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), the House Judiciary Committee chairman and leader of the 13 House managers who prosecuted the impeachment case in the Senate, also had to acknowledge an affair with a married woman several decades ago when he was in his 40s. He called it a "youthful indiscretion."

Three months after Hyde won easy re-election to his Illinois House seat, a Chicago Tribune poll suggested that one-third of the voters in his conservative district said they had a lower opinion of him as a result of impeachment.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) drew generally favorable reviews for the way the impeachment trial was conducted. The proceedings were mostly dignified, although they descended at times into partisan bickering.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist also got broad commendations for his performance as the Senate trial's presiding officer. Hyde hailed him "not only for his patience and his perseverance, but for the aura of dignity that he has lent to these proceedings." Washington lawyer Theodore Olson said Rehnquist was the "perfect authority figure" and conducted the trial impartially.

But Rehnquist never was called upon to rule on controversial questions involving evidence or what witnesses could be asked. He never faced an attempt in the Senate to overturn any of his rulings, which it could have done with a simple majority vote, and he never had to confront the unprecedented question of whether the chief justice can, or should, break a tie vote on any trial issue by the Senate.

With the Clinton impeachment trial done, national political focus now shifts to the 2000 presidential race and to a spirited battle for control of Congress.

Vice President Al Gore, unfailingly loyal to Clinton throughout the scandal, appears well on his way to wrapping up the Democratic presidential nomination, especially since House Minority Leader Richard Gephart (R-Mo.) decided to forgo a bid for the White House to concentrate on the Democrats effort to regain control of the House.

With a shift of only six seats needed to overturn the current GOP majority in the House, current polls show the Democrats in a strong position. During the weeks that the House and Senate were debating impeachment, approval scores for Republicans took a battering, while Democrats scores held even or gained. A CBS poll last week gave Republicans a 40 percent favorable to 49 percent unfavorable rating, while Democrats enjoyed a 57 percent favorable score to 32 percent unfavorable.

Richard Fenno of the University of Rochester predicted that "political tensions will be a lot greater and come a lot earlier than they did in the last two Congresses."

"Democrats can sense blood," he told the Washington Post.

Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution in Washington noted Clinton's continued high standings in the polls when he said "his final boost to his party, one that could produce a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress in 2000 unfortunately comes at a very, very high price - his own public humiliation." Some Republicans contend Clinton's travails enhance their chances of recapturing the White House, but others aren't so certain.

John McCain (R-Ariz.), the only Republican senator with a realistic chance of winning the GOP presidential nomination in 2000, faced a quandary: A vote to acquit Clinton would antagonize the Republican right, whose support he needs to capture the GOP nomination. But a vote to convict Clinton and remove him from office would offend the moderate voters whose support he needs in the general election - the same people who said overwhelmingly in polls they did not want Clinton thrown out of office.

McCain voted for both articles of impeachment, joining all but a handful of Senate Republicans in supporting Clinton's removal from office. McCain told a Los Angeles Times correspondent he was "less worried about the impeachment vote" than about a voter backlash in 2000 against all Republicans, for what the public sees as the party promoting little of substance while going after Clinton.

McCain planned to explain his votes today on NBC's "Meet the Press." The co-chair of his exploratory committee, former Sen. Warren Rudman (R-N.H.), discounted the impact of McCain's impeachment vote. "By the time 2000 rolls around," he said, "Clinton will be history, and people will have forgotten most of this."

Ellen Yan and James Toedtman contributed to this story.