Down In History

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Amid so much fire breathing, it was easy to miss the opportunity the Republicans squandered to deal Clinton a truly historic defeat. One after another, Democrats sauced their remarks with contempt for their President. Not a soul defended him; they only attacked the process. And by the end of the day, 429 of the 435 members had voted to launch an impeachment inquiry of some kind. But this was where the Democrats played a clever hand, by framing an alternative resolution favoring a more limited process. The Republicans, had they wanted to appear fair and statesmanlike, could have called the bluff and voted for the Democratic proposal, and awakened on Friday to headlines saying that more lawmakers had voted to investigate Bill Clinton than Richard Nixon. Instead they handed the Democrats the chance to tar the whole process as a vendetta. "I can't for the life of me understand why the Republicans didn't just vote for our proposal," Gephardt told TIME. "They could have made this whole thing look bipartisan. But that's clearly not what they want."

There are at least three reasons the Republicans held out for their full-bore, open-ended inquiry. First, at the very time they were lining up their votes, Appropriations Committee members were working around the clock to cobble together spending bills to avert a government shutdown at midnight Friday. In the process Republicans were trading away just about every item prized by religious conservatives, from funding school choice to defunding abortion. "We would have loved a big budget fight, but they're ready to give on anything," said a White House adviser. Another grumbled under his breath, "They've got even fewer principles than we do." The impeachment vote was the only red meat left to throw to the political base on Election Day.

Second, just before the vote, Starr made a point of teasing the lawmakers with the possibility of more disclosures, which is catnip to the hard-liners. "We would be foolish, especially with Congress going home, to circumscribe the range of inquiry," Hyde told TIME. And finally, many G.O.P. members don't want this to end quickly, before every political advantage has been reaped.

But all that math may not add up to smart politics. At this point, appeasing the political base may not be the problem: social conservatives are already so enraged at Clinton that wrapping voting booths in electrified barbed wire wouldn't keep them away from the polls. Starr may still have more to come, but his aggressive interpretation of evidence in his report suggests that if he had anything impeachable he would have sent it along. And finally, lawmakers who imagine that citizens will be grateful to them if a year from now these hearings are still going on are reading polls from another planet.