Going Down With the Ship

During a recent a campaign appearance, Senator Hillary Clinton described one of the main challenges of her prospective administration as undoing virtually the entire program of President Bush.

Given the realities of politics, Senator Clinton’s proposal was breathtakingly ambitious. Granted, her target audience – Democratic primary voters – regards the Bush presidency as a disaster. Nonetheless, erasing the work of an eight-year administration would be a mammoth undertaking, even for a President with no other agenda.

Historically literate citizens realize that – good or bad – established policy is nearly always harder to undo than to initiate. But this leads, inevitably, to a further consideration.

If the entire Bush administration has been such an unmitigated disaster, wouldn’t it have been easier to avoid the whole sordid mess by preventing Mr. Bush’s election in the first place?

And if so, wasn’t First Lady Hillary Clinton in an ideal position to do just that in 1998 – by insisting that her husband resign at the nadir of the Lewinsky scandal?

After all, Mrs. Clinton knew the precedent. President Nixon, crippled by Watergate, was forced to resign when his own party turned against him. Indeed, since Vice-President Spiro Agnew had already resigned in disgrace, Gerald Ford – America’s first appointed Vice-President – assumed office.

The result was entirely positive, for the nation and the GOP.

Relieved of the distractions of scandal and the faltering leadership of a President hopelessly on the defensive, America began addressing a host of problems – including the endgame in Vietnam.

And the Republican Party – by refusing to follow Nixon into oblivion – put itself in position to run a strong race in 1976 and to recover the White House in 1980 – the beginning of nearly three decades of power only now drawing to a close.

Apparently, it never occurred to most Democrats – including Mrs. Clinton – to follow the Nixon precedent.

It did occur to me. In 1998, mine was a rare Democratic voice urging President Clinton to resign. Sadly, Congressional Democrats – and the First Lady – chose another course. Instead of demanding Mr. Clinton’s resignation, they rallied behind him – effectively dooming the prospects of his successor.

Instead of running as the incumbent – and his own man – Vice President Al Gore was tainted with the stench of a scandal in which he had played no part. Despite a roaring economy, Federal budget surpluses, progress on most international fronts, and a general sense of national well-being, Mr. Gore lost – by the narrowest of Electoral margins – to a candidate promising to bring personal morality back to the Oval Office.

The result has been six years of scandal, incompetence, assaults on the Bill of Rights, and needless, bloody war – with nearly two more to go.

None of which would have occurred had Governor Bush faced an incumbent President Gore in 2000. Under those circumstances, Mr. Gore would almost certainly have won election in his own right, and America – and the world – would have taken a very different course.

Yet today, congressional Republicans - ignoring the Nixon precedent – are repeating the Democratic blunder of 1998.

It’s a poor choice.

Imagine, if you will, that congressional Republicans summoned the courage to confront President Bush with this ultimatum:

“Respectfully, sir, your usefulness is at an end. Your credibility – the indispensable coin of the American presidency – is lost. The list of your failures is long. Almost unattended, Afghanistan is slipping away. Two years after Katrina, a major American city still lies in ruins.

“Worst of all, we are mired in a Mesopotamian civil war which cannot be ended under your leadership. Perhaps the situation can still be saved. Perhaps not. But your mental inflexibility, your inability to heed advice that does not conform to your preconceptions and your obsession with your ‘legacy’ virtually assures defeat.

“They also assure an electoral disaster for our party in 2008.

“It’s time for you to go.”

Now, Mr. Bush is a stubborn man, but congressional Republicans have the means of persuasion. President Nixon left office – not because of Democratic pressure – but because congressional Republicans were prepare to impeach him.

Once again, grounds for impeachment exist.

Mr. Bush’s deliberate falsehoods in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq; his sweetheart deals with favored corporations; his complicity in the political removal of Federal district attorneys; and his utter disregard of statutory and constitutional protections for individual privacy and the rights of prisoners and defendants – any one would provide legitimate grounds for impeachment.

If they chose, congressional Republicans could compel Mr. Bush to resign – preceded by Mr. Cheney.

And if, following Mr. Nixon’s precedent all the way, Mr. Cheney’s replacement were someone of stature and military competence – a Colin Powell, say – Republicans might yet stand a chance of retaining the White House, and regaining Congress, in 2008.

It won’t happen, of course. As the Democrats clung to Clinton, the Republicans will go down with Bush.

But if the whole tragic cycle ends with Mr. Clinton back in the White House – as the President’s consort – Republicans will have only themselves to blame.