Mainers’ reactions to Friday’s historic votes during the Senate impeachment trial were as varied as those expressed elsewhere around the nation.
In an informal poll, some Mainers said they wanted to see President Clinton removed from office, while others agreed with his acquittal. Many who affirmed the president’s remaining in office also thought he should have been censured for his conduct.
Pembroke resident Nancy Delnicki said she believes the president should have been found guilty. “He is the president. He holds the highest office, and I think he should be held accountable. … He is the chief of the military, yet if someone below him had done what he did, they would have lost their job,” she said.
Even before impeachment proceedings began Friday morning, the outcome was clear to many.
“We’ve wasted a lot of time on something we already knew the outcome of in advance,” said Alan Drew of Mount Desert. “Congressmen and senators need to do the job we sent them there for. We didn’t send them there to go after the president who is elected by the people.”
Peter Thibeault of Hallowell, who was in Bangor on business, gave impeachment proponents the thumbs down.
“The deflation of bloated clowns is about to occur,” he said. “The men with plastic hair have been derailed.”
Added Tony Brinkley, a University of Maine professor: “Clinton has shown real courage in his stand and is surviving the mindlessness that has been directed at him.”
Though the televised pre-vote activities drew little interest at Applebee’s Neighborhood Bar and Grill on Hogan Road in Bangor, patrons perked up when the actual voting began around noon.
Among the lunch time crowd monitoring the impeachment trial on Cable News Network were Howland’s Tami Colbath and her daughter Bianca, who turned 16 this week.
“This is the biggest waste of money I’ve ever seen in my life,” Tami Colbath said in disgust as she kept an eye on the proceedings. “I think it’s terrible that it’s had to go this far.”
Colbath was of the opinion that the president’s sexual antics should remain private, between him, his wife and Monica Lewinsky. “That’s none of our business. It’s private, private, private,” she said, tapping the table for emphasis.
Dwayne Jenkins of Orrington concurred: “He’s human, he’s not a god,” Jenkins said of Clinton. “I think that has really overstepped his boundaries.”
Laurel Brown of Calais said she believed the president’s actions were “gross.” Unlike many Washington County residents who didn’t watch the trial, Brown said she did.
“I thought there were a lot of holes in the case. So I don’t think the Senate had any choice. But I think it is a shame they did not pass some kind of censure,” she said.
Brown’s husband, Francis, is a Calais lawyer. He said the vote did not surprise him.
“The impeachment process is one that is rather a heavy-handed remedy for something less than, say, selling the country’s secret defense plans. When you get to the level of what happened in this case, people begin to have second thoughts about whether you impeach a president for something like that,” he said.
“Where do you draw the line? It became more and more evident when some of the Republican senators had some doubts and some misgivings about it,” he said.
Francis Brown added that while there was no precedent for a censure vote, “a lot of people felt that at the very least there should have been a censure. … But it’s over, and now the historians, politicians, lawyers and judges and all the rest will tear it apart for years.”
Another Calais lawyer did not agree. Assistant District Attorney Paul Cavanaugh said he was disappointed that Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both Republicans, voted for acquittal.
“I think he probably should have been removed from office. I find it hard to believe he’s going to be able to deal with any national political issues,” Cavanaugh said.
“He has lied to us repeatedly. Of course a lot of us believed he lied when he got elected, but now it has been documented in more egregious ways. … I don’t think he is going to have the moral authority … to make us do the right thing. He has lost that authority,” he said.
After votes on both counts were cast and became part of history, some residents gave Snowe and Collins high marks for their roles in the national crisis.
“I’m really proud of our senators from Maine,” said Marla Saliba of Brewer. “They don’t approve of what he did but they support him as our president.”
Saliba added that she was not proud of the president’s conduct: “He has totally disappointed me. I voted for him. I’ll pay more attention next time.”
Said Jenkins: “I’m glad they both voted not to impeach him. I think they represented us very well.”
Not everyone was satisfied with Snowe’s and Collins’ votes.
“I was kind of disappointed,” said Michael Craft, a Fort Fairfield native now living in the Bangor area.
“They didn’t vote on Republican lines,” said Craft, a Republican who admitted to being a news junkie. “I lost some faith in them.”
On Main Street in Rockland at 1 p.m., the response to the acquittal was mostly positive.
Pam Bridges from Calais said she believed it was in the best interest of the country that the president was acquitted. “I think it makes a mockery of our government to impeach him for some of the things he has done. He is a sleaze and a liar, but I don’t think he is impeachable,” she said.
“I think the whole thing was foolish and money-wasting,” said Monique Enders of Owls Head. Though not a religious person, Enders said the biblical admonition “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” came to mind.
Enders’ friend, Barbara Nickerson of South Thomaston, agreed.
“It’s his own personal affair,” she said, and other presidents have had extramarital relationships and not faced impeachment.
“They’ve all done it,” she said. “I can think of better uses of that money” — the cost of the investigation and trial — such as spending it on health care and education, she said.
David Hurley of Belfast believes the trial should not have proceeded to its conclusion.
“I don’t think they even should’ve gone this far because they knew beforehand what the outcome was going to be. And I hope that Kenneth Starr will be out of work,” he said. Hurley said Presidents Bush and Reagan should be investigated for their roles in the Iran-Contra matter.
Robert Sprague of Rockland was glad to hear of the end of the trial.
“I like it,” he said when told the president had been acquitted. “I thought it was a waste of time and money.”
NEWS reporters Samantha Coit, Dawn Gagnon, Diana Graettinger and Tom Groening contributed to this report.
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