Monitor: US comment on the impending Senate trial of President Clinton

All the News of the World

WE PERSONALLY favor a bipartisan resolution of censure by the Senate. Under such a plan, President Clinton would have to accept rebuke while acknowledging his wrongdoing and the very real harm he has caused. The Congressional resolution should contain language stipulating that the President's acceptance of these findings - including a public acknowledgment that he did not tell the truth under oath - cannot be used in any future criminal trial to which he may be subject. (Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter)

The New York Times

THE FASTER the Southern Republicans rush to dump Clinton, the greater his popularity will be among African Americans. Many blacks see impeachment as a thinly disguised attempt to hammer the President for acting and speaking out on black causes, and as a backdoor power grab for the White House in the year 2000 - and they're right. But as long as Southern Republicans control such a huge bloc of Congressional votes, they believe that impeachment is the civil war they can win. (Earl Ofari Hutchinson)

Los Angeles Times

IT WAS an earlier Democratic President, Andrew Jackson, who once told Congress that, while it was free to censure its own members, it had no right to censure the head of another, co-equal, branch of government. When he was censured, Old Hickory dared the Whigs to impeach him so he could defend himself at trial like a man. Now we have a Democratic President who wants Congress to censure him, pretty please, so he can avoid trial. Yes, surreal. Is this the Republic of Jefferson and Jackson, of Washington and Hamilton, or of PT Barnum and Bill Clinton?

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

THE NATION will not be best served by a Senate conviction, but, whatever is to be done, "then 't were well 't were done quickly", as Macbeth said about the disposition of another leader. As for censure, nothing could be more censorious than impeachment, with which Clinton's name will be forever linked.

The Boston Globe