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TEXT FROM CLINTON LIBRARY DISPLAYS **Exclusive** Wed Nov 17 2004 17:16:08 ET Politics of Personal Destruction In the 1990s, it became common right-wing practice not just to attack Democrats' ideas, but also to question their motives, morals, and patriotism. The civility that once prevailed on Capitol Hill gave way to character assassination. The "politics of personal destruction" was central to the Republican strategy. Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia, who had risen steadily in the Republican leadership during the 1980s, employed new, aggressive tactics to win control of Congress. In 1990, his political action committee issued a pamphlet titled "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control." It instructed Republicans to label Democrats as "sick," "traitors," and "anti-family" -- while calling themselves "moral," "pristine," and "humane." In 1994, shortly before becoming Speaker of the House, Gingrich publicly described Clinton Democrats as "the enemy of normal Americans." The Fight for Power The 1990s were a decade of intense partisanship, with a growing ideaological divide between Democrats and Republicans. It had been building for decades, as the parties fought over civil rights, Vietnam, Watergate, and other issues, and as conservative Republicans gained increasing control over their party's policies and politics. From the start of the Clinton presidency, the administration's opponents waged an unprecedented fight for power. Seeking to steer America sharply to the right, Republican leaders pursued a radical agenda through radical means. They used new tools and tactics -- lawsuits, investigations, new partisan media, front groups, a secret slush fund, and deeply divisive rhetoric -- in their battle for political supremacy. The normal give-and-take of public life gave way to what many called the "politics of personal destruction." After the Republicans won the Congress in 1994, the fight for power culminated in two government shutdowns and an impeachment battle, bringing partisan opposition to a new high and attempting to deny the very legitimacy of the President's election. Throughout, the President and his administration continued to enjoy high public approval ratings and to implement much of their agenda. However, these battles took a heavy toll, affecting the lives, reputations, and financial well-being of many public servants and private citizens, and wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on investigations. Throughout the impeachment battle, the President urged all members of his administration to stay focused on "the work we were sent here to do." During and after the impeachment battle, the President worked with the Republican leadership, reaching bipartisan agreements on important initiatives ranging from health care and education to foreign trade. During the impeachment crisis, the vast majority of Americans opposed the President's removal from office. They disapproved of his personal conduct, but they approved of how he was handling his job. The Democrats' historic success in the 1998 elections was widely seen as a rebuke of Republican efforts to impeach the President. Indeed, in December 1998, a New York Times poll revealed that three-fifths of Americans believed the GOP was pursuing the case for purely partisan reasons. Investigations The shift in control of Congress gave the President's opponents power to step up their investigations. Numerous committees and subcommittees, now chiared by Republicans, convened hearings to investigate the executive branch. Countless subpoenas were issued to individuals whose only transgression was working for the administration. Many were forced to run up tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend themselves in fruitless hearings and depositions. Large black placard -- no title In the partisan wars that had raged since the mid-1960s, neither side was completely blameless. But the rise of the "New Right" in the 1980s led to a dramatic increase in personal attacks by conservatives on their opponents. In 1995, when the Republican Party took control of Congress, self-described Republican "revolutionaries" used their subpoena power to investigate opponents, as the rise of the 24-hour news cycle fuled the media's hunger for constant scandal, real or imagined, and the lines between tabloid and mainstream journalism became blurred. Rumors and accusations spread quickly on the Internet, gained currency on talk radio, and then appeared in television news reports and major newspapers -- sometimes in the course of a single day. "In this combustible climate, the Congressional Republicans took the politics of personal destruction to a new level, using the subpoena power to investigate Democrats, attack them in a number of public hearings, and attempt to change popular public policies by discrediting the president and members of his administration personally. Pasted to glass, large white letters If you are to honor the Constitution, you must look at the history of the Constitution and how we got to the impeachment clause. And, if you do that, and you do that honestly, according to the oath you took, you cannot convict." Dale Bumpers, address to the U.S. Senate, 01/21/99 |
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