TRIAL DAZE

Today the Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton begins in earnest, and if you are a member of “The American People” — and I’m assuming for the sake of argument that you are — then you are worried that the nation’s business will be paralyzed for the duration of the trial. This is what the pollsters keep saying. But do not worry.

Majority Leader Trent Lott’s press secretary, John Czwartacki, has come to the press gallery two hours before today’s session begins. The gallery is packed with reporters, and Czwartacki sits in an armchair before an ornate (and defunct) fireplace, fielding questions about procedure. When will the trial end? How long into the evening will today’s session last? And tomorrow’s session — how late? If a senator makes a motion, will it delay the trial? And the most important question of all: Will we have to work on Saturday, for God’s sake?

Czwartacki is very good at his job and answers the questions crisply, but there’s another bit of information he wants to make sure the hacks take on board. He unfolds a sheet of paper and begins reading. “They came to closure on the following items of their agenda for the future,” he says. “First, preserving Social Security. Second, creating the world’s best schools. Third, making the tax system fair. And last, reining in the appetites of Washington bureaucrats.”

So there, American people. Life goes on!
 
11:20 A.M.

Reporters normally have the run of the Capitol, but not today. Security is tighter than any of us has ever seen it. Our movements around the building are restricted to areas set off with red-velvet rope lines. Up in the press gallery a beefy young man in a buzz cut appears, toting an enormous black canvas bag. He’s wearing a suit two sizes too small and a telltale ear piece: a plain-clothes cop. He drops the bag by the door and stands at attention.

One of the gallery assistants stops him.

“What’s in the bag?” she asks him.

“Gas masks, ma’am,” he says, eyes staring straight ahead.

“Excuse me?” she says.

“In case of airborne chemical attack, ma’am.”

“Well, you can’t leave the bag there,” she says. “Someone might trip over it.”

“I’m just doing what I’ve been told, ma’am.”

“But someone might trip. Can’t you . . . “

“These are for you and your protection, in the event of airborne chemical attack,” he repeats. “You’ll be glad they’re here.”

I seriously consider going home to watch this thing on TV.
 
12:50 P.M.

But what fun would that be? This is history, after all, an occasion of great moment. Of course, today is not, technically, the first day of the impeachment trial. That was last week, when the Senate held a brief session presided over by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, after which the senators huddled behind closed doors to settle the most contentious issue of their deliberations so far — whether or not to call live witnesses to the well of the Senate and subject them to the laser-like application of senatorial intelligence and curiosity. The senators decided this contentious issue as they so often do. They decided to decide later. The vote, needless to say, was unanimous.

The collegiality is holding up, to judge by the conduct on the Senate floor, here in the few minutes before Rehnquist appears and the trial begins. The floor is a swarm, an orgy, of collegiality. Senators love being senators, and they love other people who love being senators, and when they enter the Senate chamber they simply cannot keep their hands off each other. But, as we say in Washington these days, this is not about sex. Senatorial affection is expressed vigorously but chastely. There’s the Joe Lieberman Elbow Squeeze, by which Senator A shakes Senator B’s hand and then, with his free hand, reaches around to knead B’s funny bone in an extra show of delight. There’s the Robert Byrd Lower Back Rub and the John Warner Shoulder Wraparound and the Chuck Robb Back Slam. If he’s feeling really good, a senator can use the Mitch McConnell Hammerlock. (Kids: Please don’t try this at home.) And back in the epochal Year of the Woman, in 1992, Senate rules were revised to allow the Barbara Boxer Hug, although the Carol Moseley-Braun Air Kiss seems to have been retired, out of respect.

With all this senatorial affection gushing like a geyser around them, the House managers look painfully out of place. They sit, stiff-backed and unspeaking, at a specially designed table in the Senate well, amid a mountain of paper and bound volumes. They look like a strange tableau from Madame Tussaud’s (“And here we have a collection of late-twentieth century American white males . . . “). In fact, “white guys in suits” has become the favored dismissive term for the poor House Republicans — “out of touch white guys trying to fathom truth in sex,” is what the New York Times’s Maureen Dowd called them, in a column earlier this week. According to Maureen, apparently, black guys fathom sex instinctively. It’s just how they’re built.
 
2:45 P.M.

And they’re off! After the call to order and a prayer, Henry Hyde opened with a brief statement, introducing the House managers. “As a captain in the army, Rep. Bryant served in the Judge Advocate General Corps and taught at . . . Rep. Rogan is a former California state judge and Los Angeles County District Attorney . . . Rep. Chabot has experience as a criminal defense lawyer and . . . ” He sounded like Bob Eubanks emceeing a Dating Game in Hell. But now we’re into the meat of the matter, as Ed Bryant, soon to be followed by Asa Hutchinson and James Rogan, lays out the facts. Maureen was indeed correct: They’re white guys.

The press seats, set up high behind the rostrum where the chief justice sits, are the worst seats in the chamber. We can’t see Rehnquist, and we can see only the top of the back of the heads of the presenters, which means we are forced to stare at the senators. Amazingly, after almost two hours of lecturing, they don’t look bored. Senators, as any senator will tell you, are accustomed to working long, hard hours, but typically it is hard work doled out in half-hour increments: a quick office meeting with the Pleasant Hills chamber of commerce, then a brief appearance at a subcommittee hearing, a drop-by at a LULAC reception, followed by a round of phone calls in the cloakroom, and so on, throughout a day of constant motion. Seldom if ever do their jobs demand sustained concentration on a single subject. Now they are being asked to sit for hours on end, silently, and I expected the chamber to resemble a special-ed class jumping with kids who forgot to take their Ritalin.

I misjudged them. With a few conspicuous exceptions — Barbara Mikulski, Pat Leahy, Paul Well-stone — the senators follow the presentations closely, turning to exhibits in their briefing books, making notes, attending to the occasional video clips. But up here in the press seats, one’s mind starts to wander and individual senators claim one’s attention. John McCain, for example, is a fine man and a great hero, but his posture, as he slumps in his chair, is terrible. Joe Biden keeps fingering his hairline, as though he’s making sure the plugs are still in place. Paul Sarbanes is a compulsive ice-muncher. Strom Thurmond is still awake! And Senator Kennedy — he’d lost weight right after he got married a couple of years ago, but he’s really beefing up again. When he coughs, which he does often, it’s a full five seconds before his shirt front stops shaking. He doesn’t cover his coughs, incidentally. The Kennedys always had people who would cover their coughs for them.
 
4:45 P.M.

A brief break in the proceedings, but the senators, who normally could be counted on to appear before the press to palaver, are staying in their cloakrooms, incommunicado. To pick up the slack, word comes that James Kennedy, the White House scandal spokesman, will make a statement on the Capitol plaza. A camera has been set up for him outside, in the freezing rain. By the time I get there, Kennedy has finished his statement and is trying to dry off in the carriageway.

One of the cameramen approaches him. “Sorry to tell you this,” he says to Kennedy, “but we lost the audio. Could you come out and read your statement again?”

Kennedy turns to an aide. “Is my hair okay? Good.” And he charges back outside, to get the word out to the American People, and I can hear his reedy voice rising above the pitter-pat of the rain: “The House Republican Managers have begun to lay out a case that is both unsubstantiated and circumstantial . . . “
 
7:00 P.M.

The session is over for the day, but still the senators aren’t talking. In the hallway outside the chamber, a camera is set up, surrounded by reporters — a big, fat, sopping opportunity for each of them to get on national television. Minutes pass. And not a senator appears. It’s beginning to hit me: Maybe they really are taking this seriously.

But I needn’t have worried. Out of nowhere, a clump of senators advances toward the camera. There’s Chuck Schumer and Bob Torricelli and Tom Harkin. “It’s ironic,” Harkin tells a print reporter as he moves toward the camera. “On the one hand, the House tells us they’ve got a compelling case. Then they say, they can’t make their case unless they call witnesses. I mean, they can’t have it both ways.”

Schumer stands in front of the camera. “The thing we should emphasize,” he says, “is that after six and a half hours, there was really nothing new here. They were just trying to make a case for calling witnesses. But look, they can’t have it both ways. They say they’re making a compelling case. Then they say they can’t make a compelling case unless they call witnesses. I mean, come on. Which is it?”

They leave. A few minutes later, Senator Reid of Nevada appears. He walks toward the camera. “I should just make one point,” he says. “The House managers say they’ve got a strong case. And then they say, we can’t make our case unless we call witnesses. You know, they can’t have it both ways.”

There’s never a gas mask around when you need it.

Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.