Rep. Bob Barr - Character, Accountability, Dignity, Impeachment
"We Are Talking about the Office of the President of the
United States"
Rep. Bob Barr, (GA-7) a former federal prosecutor, called for immediate adoption of his Impeachment Inquiry bill at the Annual Conservative Political Conference on Saturday. Warning the nation "every now and then Democracies, like people, get tired. And when they do they let their guard down. It happens most often after wars.
"When vigilance seems no longer necessary, and the country wants nothing more than to relax and forget conflict. After the Civil War it was the Gilded Age. After World War I, the Roaring Twenties. At the close of the Vietnam War, Watergate. After the Cold War, this period of moral drift that we find ourselves in today and for which there is not yet a name. But, we all know there are numerous names that are being bandied about for this latest presidential indiscretion. We hear them on TV, radio and in the hallways.
"It's really tragic, though when you take a moment to reflect that what we are talking about is the office of the presidency of the United States of America. That office has been occupied by such giants of History as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan! In such times it is the function of our great and durable institutions to transcend human failures and weaknesses, to reassert the rule of law by which we must live or count ourselves as nothing.
"Without the rule of law, nor what our successes, and despite all our wealth we have forfeited everything, betrayed our history, mocked those who fell in so many battles and given up our birthright.
"I came to the conclusion long ago that this President has brought disgrace upon the Office of the Presidency and that something had to be done.
"For months I urged the leaders of my Party to take action to finally say, 'Enough is enough!' But my cries fell on deaf ears. The last straw for me was when it became obvious that this Attorney General had no intention whatsoever of holding this rogue administration accountable. Something had to be done.
"So, on November 5, last year, I introduced, with 18 other courageous men and women in the Congress, House Resolution 304, An Inquiry of Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton. (Applause)
"Yes, that's right. The 'I' word. The word that some political drifters hate and fear as much as a snowstorm in Atlanta. According to one GOP pollster, Republicans are no longer supposed to be silent as was first advised by that same pollster. It is now permissible for Republicans to now discreetly talk about this latest question. They can ask questions, but don't use the "I" word or the 'R' word - that's resignation.
"Well, friends, the alphabet I use have 26 letters in it. And no pollster or political drifter is going to remove the letter "I" or the letter "R" from the vocabulary I use in behalf of America. (Applause)
"It does concern me greatly that our party is moving away from governing by principle to governing by polls. We have been elected and our leaders have been elected to lead, not to follow. And remember it was strong conservative principles that brought us the presidency in 1980 and the congressional majority in 1994. Some of those strong conservative principles that we espoused were character, responsibility and accountability.
"Well, my friends, I am here to deliver a message to the President. Character counts! Responsibility is required and Accountability will be demanded! (Applause)
We say to the President, "Mr. President, you are responsible for bringing same to a great institution and we the People of the United States of America will hold you accountable, (Applause)
As I was preparing to be with you today, I noticed a book on one of the shelves in my office in the Longworth Office Building. I hadn't noticed it for quite awhile. It's funny how things like this happen. It was titled, PROFILES IN CHARACTER -The Values That Made America. It was authored by members of the 1994 Class of the United States Congress.
"I took it down and reread the introduction written by William J. Bennett. He concluded that introduction by writing, "Profiles in Character is a good book because it affirms good things. It show cases the kind of good character in the lives of men and women, both famous and obscure. It reminds us of what is MOST important that excellence of character trumps position, income and education any day." Ultimately it is a call for character in our own lives.
"Mr. President, character counts! Accountability will be demanded! (Applause) Daniel Webster once wrote about character and George Washington. He wrote, "America has furnished to the World the character of Washington and if our American institutions had done nothing else that fact alone would entitled them to the respect of all mankind."
"Can anyone in America today honestly imagine substituting the word 'Clinton' in that passage? I think not.
"When I introduced the Inquiry of Impeachment, I placed a call to George Wills. I wanted to see if I could garner his support. I could not. In fact his secretary passed us a very polite message that Mr. Wills was not interested in talking about impeachment.
"Listen to Mr. Wills today: 'The Presidency is beyond resuscitation. In 1967 the Constitution was amended to provide for the orderly removal of physically incapacitated presidents. However, the Constitution has always contained a provision for the removal of morally incapacitated presidents. (Applause)
'Its impeachment provisions supplies the remedy for certain kinds of political problems, such as chronic lying to the nation about chronic behavior deeply offensive to it. The apparent Republican consensus perhaps principled is that the Independent Counsel investigation should be completed before any impeachment process should begin. This subordinates broad concerns about the nation's civil health and security to considerations of prosecutorial tidiness.
'It misses the point which is not to punish Clinton but to end the punishment of our nation.' (Applause)
"George Wills is right! We are not prosecuting a president in a court of law. We are using a legitimate political instrument - impeachment - for addressing political misconduct of the highest order: violating the public trust. And as Thomas Jefferson says, "When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself public property the property of the people of the United States of America."
"We are well within our rights to expect decent, moral behavior from our president. That is not an extremist position. That is a mainstream American position. It always has been and hopefully always will be. (Applause)
"You know, the presidency is the pinnacle of accomplishment in America. After all, how many millions of parents have encouraged a child by telling them they can grow up to be anything they want, including being president of the United States?
"How hollow that adage rings today! Mr. President character counts, and accountability will be demanded.
"For years now we have been in a family values, in a morality crisis. Our inner cities suffer from a lack of strong male role models. Drug use is once again rising among teenagers. Too frequently athletes whose photographs are hanging in the bedrooms of our children are ending up in jail or in rehab.
"What we are saying is that qualities and the character that we expect and demand from our elected leaders are but the reflection of our own communities. To turn a blind eye to the behavior of the President is to tacitly endorse his actions. We can never let that happen in America! (Applause)
"If all that is important to governing is what the current interest rates are, with no regard to the currency of character, then we are in pitiful shape indeed as a nation.
"Character counts and accountability will be and must be demanded. I understand that impeachment is a difficult and dark road - a road less traveled. It not to be taken lightly or quickly. But we have come to a rare point in our nation's history where it is indeed time to travel down that dimly lit road towards that glimmer of hope off in the distance.
"At the end of that road lies dignity. The dignity of a proud nation that has stood the test of time and of all the challenges of the evil regimes and empires of the world have thrown at us over the years, we owe it to ourselves, to our children, to the men and women who have given THEIR lives to protect the ideals that we hold so dear; we owe it to our founding fathers to restore dignity in America.
"As Thomas Jefferson so aptly put it: 'Let our object be our country, our whole country and nothing but our country.' President Reagan, a man of impeccable character said some very poignant words in his second inaugural address in January 1985. That seems like a 100 years ago. As he always could do, he put things in proper perspective and provides the hope that has always been the cornerstone of the American dream.
President Reagan said: 'Now we hear again the echoes of our past. A general falls on his knees on the hard snow at Valley Forge. A lonely president faces the darkened halls of Congress in his struggle to preserve the Union. The men at the Alamo call out encouragement to each other. A settler moves west and sings a song and that song echoes out forever and fills the unknowingair. It is the American sound. It is hopeful, big-hearted, idealistic, daring, decent and fair. That is our heritage. That it our song. We sing it still. For all of our problems and our differences, we are together as a whole as we raise our voices to the God who is the author of its most tender music and may He continue to hold us close as we build a world with OUR sound - found in unity, affection, and love. One people, under God, dedicated to the dream of freedom that He has placed in our human heart called upon now to pass that dream on to a waiting and hopeful world.'
"Friends, the true American sound is not one of scandal, but of character. Not of excuses, but of strength. Let us raise that American sound from your street, to Main Street, from Pennsylvania Avenue to the corridors of the Congress. Raise the American sound so loudly that it drowns out scandal and poll figures all across this land.
"God bless the United States of America."
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