Stop the tape

Congressional Republicans have been generally cautious about how they viewed the legal questions raised in special investigator Kenneth Starr’s report, and that has worked to their political benefit. They risk ruining this advantage, however, by pressing on an already repulsed public the grand jury testimony of President Clinton.

Releasing the tape is tempting. The president is said to have not only lied during testimony but have looked lousy while doing it. Working snippets of the testimony into campaign attack ads would be an effective way to grab votes from Democrats. But the problem with making the tape public is threefold.

The first part is practical. Anyone who has had the slightest interest in what the president did and what state of undress he was in when he did it now knows more detail than the average stomach can handle. Making the public go through this again not only suggests it is too dense to figure out the president has acted improperly, it threatens to throw sympathy his way.

Think the president can’t play the martyr? Think he can’t put on that hang-dog look and say, “I’ve admitted I lied, I’ve asked for forgiveness and this is how they treat me.” Plenty effective with the first lady by his side to ward off the vast right-wing conspiracy.

Secondly, a common theme in the investigation has been that the president is not above the law. But the law is fairly clear about who may receive copies of grand jury testimony and under what circusmtances. Nowhere does it say that the secret testimony may be broadcast primetime. In fact, the criminal code goes to some lengths to specifically prevent that from happening. Congress can fashion its own rules for the impeachment process, but it ought to identify some clear benefit of releasing the tapes to the public before doing so.

Third, and most importantly, is that the impeachment process, one hopes, remains a rare and carefully used legal tool. However members of Congress decide to use the process this time surely will establish a crucial precedent for the next time — whether Democrat or Republican is in the White House. Significant history will be made in the coming weeks over the future of the presidency. It shouldn’t be burdened with the mischievous release of this tape that does little more than humiliate a thoroughly humiliated figure.

The House Judiciary Committee can and should proceed with the impeachment process. But its work is likely to be far more respected if it keeps this piece of evidence out of this fall’s political advertisements.