Well, we now have the latest in White House lawyerspeak available to us, the "Answer of President William Jefferson Clinton to the Articles of Impeachment." I don't have space here to include the full text of the Answer, but you can read it for yourself. Let's see what a little reality does to their fantasies.

To begin with, I have a serious problem with seeing "Honorable" and "Clinton" in the same line. Those two words don't belong in the same galaxy, let alone the same line. And now, on to the more substantive part of my rant:

The Preamble of Clinton's answer only regurgitates the hackneyed 'high crimes and misdemeanors' argument. I refer you to the House managers' brief to the Senate on the impeachment trial for a fuller explanation of this, but the prosecutors' argument goes basically as follows:

a) that Federal Judges have been impeached for and convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice regarding issues *that had absolutely nothing to do with their official duties.* Two precedents that were quoted had to do with filing a false tax return and interfering in the case of a friend's son by getting the prosecutor of that case to drop it.

b) that Federal Judges are no different than any other civil officer of the United States, including the President (based partly on the impeachment trial of Judge Harry E. Claiborne, the false tax return filer, who moved for dismissal of his case on grounds that "[t]he standard for impeachment of a judge is different than that for other officers" and that the Constitution limits "removal of the judiciary to acts involving misconduct related to discharge of office." That didn't convince the Senate, which convicted him. It was also stated in those proceedings that the phrase in the Constitution to which Claiborne referred is and has been generally accepted not to indicate a different standard for judges than for other civil officers, but to indicate a life tenure for judges).

c) that perjury and obstruction of justice are both capital crimes and therefore impeachable. The example is used of bribery of a witness in a court proceeding. Both perjury and bribery of a witness (and possibly obstruction of justice, in this case) have the same end result, the giving of false testimony under oath, through slightly different means. Since bribery is specifically defined in the Constitution as an impeachable offense, it is a very short leap to construe perjury and obstruction of justice as impeachable also.

and, therefore, d) that Clinton's conduct fits under the definition of 'other high crimes and misdemeanors.'

Next in Clinton's 'answer' comes the standard denial: "The President did not commit perjury or obstruct justice" blah blah blah. I won't go into it except for a few points later; there are too many ways the House managers' brief puts the lie to this. Read it...it's only 30 pages.

Following that are 'factual responses to Article I.' I have to laugh, because a lot of those so-called 'facts' are in direct conflict with the testimonies of Lewinsky, Tripp, Currie, and several others.

There is a 'myth', Clinton and his Maraud Squad assert, that Clinton didn't admit to an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky to the grand jury. First, Clinton doesn't begin to rise to the level where any story about him, whether true or not, would be considered mythology. That implies heroism, which Clinton never had, or godhood, which he might think he has, but he's wrong. So, for now, let's call it a 'belief'. Whose belief is it? It's not mine, nor that of anyone that I know, including people who take Clinton's part in this. Just another attempt to confuse the Senators and the American public, but especially the Senators.

Following that is a quote from Clinton's grand jury testimony: "When I was alone with Ms. Lewinsky on certain occasions in early 1996 and once in early 1997, I engaged in conduct that was wrong. These encounters... did involve inappropriate intimate contact." Umm, sorry, chum...three times in 1995, five times in 1996, and three times in 1997, according to Lewinsky's testimony and the corroboration of several other witnesses. Note the suspicious disappearance of those times in 1995, when Lewinsky was working as a White House intern.

There's more about how Clinton responded truthfully about his testimony in the Jones deposition to the grand jury. More doublespeak.

Now we get to the meat. "Indeed, the House specifically considered and rejected an article of impeachment based on the President’s deposition in the Jones case. The House managers should not be allowed to prosecute before the Senate an article of impeachment which the full House has rejected." Is that the White House attempting to instruct the jurors in Clinton's trial? Better watch yourselves...you don't want to piss off too many Senators.

Then, it is denied that Clinton perjured himself regarding representations his lawyer in the Jones deposition, Robert Bennett, made to Judge Susan Webber Wright: "The President was truthful when he explained to the grand jury his understanding of certain statements made by his lawyer, Robert Bennett, during the Jones deposition." Does that imply that he wasn't being truthful about certain other statements Bennett made to Judge Wright? It certainly leaves the door open for speculation...

"The President also was truthful when he testified that he was not focusing on the prolonged and complicated exchange between the attorneys and Judge Wright." Not according to the House managers, who state that Clinton was very attentive during that exchange in the videotape of his Jones deposition.

And now, for my next denial... Clinton denies the fourth accusation of Article I, that he perjured himself about witness tampering in the Jones deposition, since he denies the accusations of Article II, which specify that he committed witness tampering in the Jones case. We'll deal with that in tomorrow's piece.

Now come the 'affirmative defenses.' An affirmative denial? Only in Clintonspeak, folks. Clinton's first defense is 'high crimes and misdemeanors' all over again. Been there, done that. His second defense is that the House Articles of Impeachment aren't specific enough, and that "no reasonable person could know what charges are being leveled against the President." Funny, but it's pretty clear to me, especially after having read the House managers' brief to the Senate. What no reasonable person would do is put the Maraud Squad's half-truths, untruths, and obfuscations down on paper, let alone publish them. Fair warning!

And the third defense (this is the gem of the lot) is...well, here it is:

THIRD AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSE: ARTICLE I CHARGES MULTIPLE OFFENSES IN ONE ARTICLE

Article I is fatally flawed because it charges multiple instances of alleged perjurious, false and misleading statements in one article. The Constitution provides that "no person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present," and Senate Rule XXIII provides that "an article of impeachment shall not be divisible for the purpose of voting thereon at any time during the trial." By the express terms of Article I, a Senator may vote for impeachment if he or she finds that there was perjurious, false and misleading testimony in "one or more" of four topic areas. This creates the very real possibility that conviction could occur even though Senators were in wide disagreement as to the alleged wrong committed. Put simply, the structure of Article I presents the possibility that the President could be convicted even though he would have been acquitted if separate votes were taken on each allegedly perjurious statement. For example, it would be possible for the President to be convicted and removed from office with as few as 17 Senators agreeing that any single statement was perjurious, because 17 votes for each of the four categories in Article I would yield 68 votes, one more than necessary to convict and remove.

Purest technicality. Unfortunately, I am forced to agree with it, no matter how much it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Not that their example of 17 Senators is particularly likely, because it's not; each of those 68 Senators would have to find perjury in one and only one area. That's the extreme case, but it is possible, and there are other, more likely cases that fit under their argument. I think 'very real possibility' is vastly overstating the case, but what do you expect from lawyers?

The converse is what really bothers me: that a two-thirds majority of the Senators could find perjury in one or more of the four areas and still not be able to convict Clinton.

It isn't necessarily fatal to Article I, though, and is completely inapplicable to Article II, which I will demonstrate tomorrow. For my next trick... I also see the possibility that the Senate could send the Articles of Impeachment back to the House for modification. There's no precedent for it, but then there's not really a precedent against it that I know of, either.

I'm not sure whether the House managers can defeat this one otherwise, but if their memo to the Senate on the case for impeachment is any indication, I'm going to find out that they can. Kudos to Henry Hyde and the rest of the House managers for a clearly written, logical, and convincing case, free of partisan rancor. Though there do seem to be a few stretches in reasoning, none of these stretches threatens the stability of the overall case, as I read it. Certainly nothing in Clinton's denials does.

Perhaps this quote from their memo to the Senate will be a direction the House managers take in arguing against 'the Third Affirmative Defense': "We respectfully submit that the evidence and testimony must be viewed as a whole; it cannot be compartmentalized. It is essential to avoid considering each event in isolation, and then treating it separately. Events and words that may seem innocent or even exculpatory in a vacuum may well take on a sinister, or even criminal connotation when observed in the context of the whole plot."

The House managers respectfully submit to the Senate, and the White House tries to instruct the Senate. King Willie?

- The Watcher (My scorecard reads: a few lies, a few half-truths mixed in to confuse, and one technicality so far. Not good for Slick Willie, but par for the course.))