Clinton Conduct ‘Immoral,’ Top Democrat Says

WASHINGTON —  One of the Senate’s most esteemed Democrats on Thursday condemned as “immoral and disgraceful” President Clinton’s affair with Monica S. Lewinsky and flatly rejected Clinton’s contention that it was a private concern.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, a policy soul-mate of the president’s, stopped short in his dramatic Senate speech of endorsing any punitive measures against Clinton, pending completion of the report on the matter by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr. But Lieberman’s remarks served clear notice that Congress almost certainly will punish Clinton in some way.

A centrist, Lieberman delivered his remarks in a measured tone that belied his anger and focused fresh attention on the most discussed form of punishment on Capitol Hill: a nonbinding resolution to censure the president.

Such an idea was first broached by Republican leaders in March in the early stages of the Lewinsky story and at a time when Clinton was flatly denying the affair with the former White House intern. In recent days, most Republicans have retreated from their initial embrace of censure, apparently in the belief that a more severe punishment could be in order--perhaps impeachment.

But even if Starr’s report proves relatively innocuous, many lawmakers, including some key Democrats, are privately saying that censure may be in order--based simply on the known facts as Clinton himself has stated them. Such action looms as a potential way to end the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal without dragging the country through a prolonged impeachment proceeding while still allowing lawmakers to collectively condemn presidential conduct that no one defends.

“A censure has an excellent chance of passage. At least it appears that way before the Starr report,” said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. “There’s too much anger directed at Clinton--from members of both parties.”

Lieberman Spent Days on Speech

Lieberman’s speech, which he had been carefully crafting for days, drove that point home.

With sadness showing on his face, the 56-year-old senator said that Clinton’s behavior has “compromised his moral authority” and may “blur some of the most important bright lines of right and wrong in our society.”

Referring to Clinton’s speech to the nation Aug. 17, when he confessed the affair, Lieberman said: “I must respectfully disagree with the president’s contention that his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and the way in which he misled us about it is nobody’s business but his family’s and that even presidents have private lives.”

However much Clinton may wish to “compartmentalize the different spheres of his life,” Lieberman said, “the inescapable truth is that the president’s private conduct can and often does have profound public consequences.”

As a result, “we in Congress . . . are surely capable institutionally of expressing such disapproval through a resolution of reprimand or censure of the president,” he added.

Still, Lieberman said, it would be “premature” to do so now, urging that lawmakers await Starr’s report--and the White House response to it. For the same reason, “talk of impeachment and resignation at this time is unjust and unwise,” he said.

At the White House, Deputy Press Secretary Barry Toiv read a statement responding to Lieberman’s comments:

“The president has great respect for Sen. Lieberman because of the key role he has played in the president’s accomplishments on behalf of the American people. It’s always hardest to hear criticism from a friend, but I am sure the president will consider Sen. Lieberman’s words with the same care with which they were delivered.”

Clinton Still Out of Country

Clinton was in Northern Ireland on Thursday and had not heard Lieberman’s remarks, Toiv said. Earlier this week, White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles called Lieberman and evidently succeeded in persuading him to hold off delivering the speech until after Clinton had visited Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin in Moscow.

After Lieberman spoke, two other respected Democrats--Sens. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York--rushed to the floor to endorse his remarks.

They were followed by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who said that Lieberman’s comments would help Congress “find a way to rise above petty politics and do the right thing.”

Lott was among those broaching the censure prospect earlier this year. But he is now keeping all options open, telling reporters Monday: “That was March . . . and a lot has happened since then.”

Although a censure vote would be entirely symbolic, “an awful lot of people are looking for some kind of middle ground,” said Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. “And the middle ground seems to be that he’s done terrible things but we don’t want him out of office. And so censure obviously comes to mind.”

But Ornstein added: “The politics of this are nowhere near played out.”

Indeed, one senior GOP senator who requested anonymity said: “Republicans are worried that Democrats will say [of censure]: ‘That’s enough.’ What’s the upside for Republicans to bring closure to this?”

Clinton is said to have rebuffed the idea of accepting such a congressional sanction.

“Any move by the Congress to either censure him or even impeach him will be fought tooth and nail by the president,” said one Clinton advisor.

A second advisor added: “I don’t expect the president to resign, and I don’t expect him to be willing to submit to censure. It is not in his nature, and it certainly is not in her nature”--a reference to First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Utah Senator Argued for Censure

Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) argued for censure during the weekly luncheon Tuesday of Senate Republicans.

He said a senator guilty of similar behavior--including lying about an affair with an intern--surely would be censured. Such a sanction would “in no way” preclude impeachment, Bennett said.

But his censure proposal was “almost unanimously opposed” by his GOP colleagues, according to Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.). “There’s a sense at this point that we have a responsibility as prospective jurors [in impeachment proceedings] to wait until the facts are before us. To take a step that’s intermediate . . . really would be a premature action.”

Bennett said Wednesday that, based on such arguments, he reluctantly agreed not to offer a censure resolution now.

Until Thursday, Lieberman had maintained a public silence while sorting through his own thoughts in the wake of Clinton’s televised address to the nation.

In recent days, as speculation mounted that he was contemplating a tough-minded speech, many of his Senate Democratic colleagues sought to persuade him to change his mind. Among them was Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), who looked grim and sober as he left the Capitol shortly after Lieberman’s comments.

Daschle said that he did not expect other Democrats to come forward with similar denunciations--”unless events change.”

Lieberman was asked by reporters as he left the Senate chamber whether he thought Clinton could repair the damage he had done to his presidency. He replied: “He’s a remarkable person. He has great gifts of communication. And he’s a strong person. . . . I think he has the ability to . . . [repair] some of the damage I talked about.”

Lieberman also said he has no plans to introduce a resolution of censure but could envision supporting one eventually.

Only once has a president been censured. That occurred during a dispute over executive privilege in 1834, when members of the Whig political party in the Senate, led by Henry Clay, adopted a resolution censuring President Andrew Jackson for having withdrawn deposits from the Bank of the United States.

Jackson rejected the resolution as illegal and unconstitutional. The House, which was dominated by Jackson, did not act. And by 1837, Jacksonian Democrats had regained control of the Senate and voted to “expunge” the censure.

“Having studied history . . censure doesn’t do anything,” Lott said this week.

Times Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus and staff writer Janet Hook contributed to this story.

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