Summary

Joe Lieberman speaks about his concerns of President Bill Clinton’s conduct in office.

Source CONUS Archive
Record ID 343426
Story Slug JOE LIEBERMAN COMMENTS ON PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON (1998)
Location WASHINGTON, DC
Format TVD
Date 9/3/1998
Archive Time 13:16
TRT 16:44
Supers Senator Joe Lieberman, D-CT
Description Joe Lieberman speaks about his concerns of President Bill Clinton’s conduct in office.
Script (SUGGESTED TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO) Unknown Speaker 00:00 consorted thank my colleagues and I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I rise today to make the most difficult and distasteful statement. For me probably the most difficult statement I've made on this floor in the 10 years I've been a member of the United States Senate. On August 17, President Clinton testified before a grand jury convened by the independent counsel and then talk to the American people about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern. He told us that the relationship was, quote, not appropriate that it was quote wrong, and that it was, quote, a critical lapse of judgment and a personal failure on his part. In addition, after seven months of denying that he had engaged in a sexual relationship with Miss Lewinsky President admitted that his quote, public comments about this matter, gave a false impression. He said, I misled people. Mr. President, my immediate reaction to this statement that night it was delivered was deep disappointment and personal anger. I was disappointed because the President of the United States had just confessed to engaging in an extramarital affair with a young woman in his employ, and to willfully deceiving the nation about his conduct. I was personally angry because President Clinton had by his disgraceful behavior, jeopardized his administration's historic record of accomplishment, much of which grew out of the principles and programs that he and I and many others had worked on together in the new democratic movement. I was also angry because I was one of the many people who had said over the preceding seven months that if the President clearly and explicitly denies the allegations against him, then of course, I believe him. Well, since that Monday night, I have not commented on this matter publicly, I thought I had an obligation to consider the President's admissions more objectively less personally and to try to put them in a clearer perspective. And I felt that I owed that much to the President, for whom I have great affection and admiration, and who I truly believed has worked tirelessly, to make life tangibly better in so many ways, for so many Americans. But the truth is that after much reflection, my feelings of disappointment and anger have not dissipated. Except now these feelings have gone beyond my personal Demet dismay, to a larger, graver sense of loss for our country. A reckoning of the damage that the President's conduct has done to the proud legacy of his presidency, and ultimately an accounting of the impact of his actions on our democracy, and its moral foundations. The implications for our country are so serious, that I feel a responsibility to my constituents in Connecticut, as well as to my conscience to voice my concerns, forthrightly, and publicly. And I can think of no more appropriate place to do that, than on this great Senate floor. I've chosen to speak particularly at this time before the independent counsel files his report, because while we do not know enough yet to answer the question of whether there are legal consequences of the President's conduct, we do know enough from what the President acknowledged on August 17, to answer a separate and distinct set of questions about the moral consequences for our country. Mr. President, I have come to this floor many times in the past to speak with my colleagues about the concerns which are so widely shared in this chamber and throughout the nation that our society standards are sinking, that our common moral code is deteriorating, and that our public life is coarsening. In doing so I have specifically criticized leaders of the entertainment industry for the way they have used the enormous influence they wield to weaken our common values. And now because the president commands at least as much attention and exerts at least as much info fluence on our collective consciousness as any Hollywood celebrity or a television show, it is hard to ignore the impact of the misconduct the President has admitted to, on our culture, on our character, and on our children. To begin with, 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 families, and that even presidents have private lives as he said, whether he or we think it fair or not, the reality is in 1998, that a president's private life is public. Contemporary news media standards will have it no other way. Surely this president was given fair notice of that by the amount of time, the news media has dedicated to investigating his personal life during the 1992 campaign, and in the years since, and, as President Taft said, At another time, the personal embodiment and representative of their dignity and majesty. So when his personal conduct is embarrassing, it is sadly so not just for him and his family. It is embarrassing for all of us as Americans. The President is a role model, who because of his prominence and the moral authority that emanates from his office, sets standards of behavior for the people he serves. His duty, as the Reverend Nathan Baxter of the National Cathedral here in Washington Center under recent sermon is nothing less than the stewardship of our values. So no matter how much the President or others may wish to compartmentalize the different spheres of his life, the inescapable truth is that the President's private conduct can and often does have profound public consequences. In this case, the president apparently had extramarital relations with an employee half his age, and did so in the workplace, in the vicinity of the Oval Office. Such behavior is not just inappropriate, it is immoral, and it is harmful. For it sends a message of what is acceptable behavior to the larger American family, particularly to our children, which is as influential as the negative messages communicated by the entertainment culture. If you doubt that, just ask America's parents about the intimate and frequently unseemly sexual questions their young children have been asking them and discussing. Since the President's relationship with Miss Lewinsky became public seven months ago, I have had many of those conversations with parents, particularly in Connecticut, and from them, I conclude that parents across our country feel much as I do that something very sad, and sorted has happened in American life, when I cannot watch the news on television with my 10 year old daughter anymore. This, unfortunately, is all too familiar territory for America's families in today's anything goes culture where sexual promiscuity is too often treated as just another lifestyle choice with little risk of adverse consequences. It is this mindset that has helped to threaten the stability and integrity of the family, which continues to be the most important unit of civilized society, the place where we raise our children and teach them to be responsible citizens to develop and nurture their personal and moral faculties. President Clinton, in fact has shown during the course of his presidency, that he understands this and the broad concern in the public about the threat to the family. He has used the bully pulpit of his presidency to eloquently and effectively call for the renewal of our common values, particularly the principle of personal responsibility and our common commitment to family. And he has spoken out admirably against sexual promiscuity among teenagers in clear terms of right and wrong, emphasizing the consequences involved. Now, all of that makes the President's misconduct so confusing, and so damaging. Unknown Speaker 09:58 The President's really Relationship with Miss Lewinsky not only contradicted the values he has publicly embraced over the last six years, it has I fear compromised his moral authority, at a time when Americans of every political persuasion agree that the decline of the family is one of the most pressing problems we are facing. Nevertheless, I believe that the President could have lessened the harm. His relationship with Miss Lewinsky has caused if he had acknowledged his mistake, and spoken with candor about it to the American people shortly after it became public in January. But, as we now know, he chose not to do this. This deception is particularly troubling because it was not just a reflexive and in many ways, understandable human act of concealment, to protect himself and his family, from what he called the embarrassment of his own conduct when he was confronted with it in the deposition in the Jones case, but rather it was the intentional and premeditated decision to do so. Unknown Speaker 11:20 In choosing this path, I fear that the President has undercut the efforts of millions of American parents who are naturally trying to instill in our children the value of honesty, as most any mother and father knows kids have a singular ability to detect double standards, so we can safely assume that it will be that much more difficult to convince our sons and daughters of the importance of telling the truth when the most powerful man in the nation evades it. Many parents I have spoken with in Connecticut confirm this unfortunate consequence. The President's intentional and consistent statements more deeply may also undercut the trust that the American people have in His Word. Under the Constitution, as Presidential Scholar Richard Newstead has noted the President's ultimate source of authority, particularly his moral authority is the power to persuade, to mobilize public opinion to build consensus behind a common agenda. And at this, the President has been extraordinarily effective. But that power hinges on the President's support among the American people in their faith and confidence in his motivations and agenda, yes, but also in His Word. As Teddy Roosevelt once explained, my power vanishes into thin air, the instant that my fellow citizens who are straight and honest cease to believe that I represent them and fight for what is straight and honest, that is all the strength that I have. Roosevelt said, sadly, with his deception, President Clinton may have weakened the great power and strength that he possesses of which President Roosevelt spoke. I know this is a concern that many of my colleagues share, which is to say that the President has hurt his credibility and therefore, perhaps his chances of moving his policy agenda forward. But I believe that the harm the President's actions have caused extend beyond the political arena. I am afraid that the misconduct the President has admitted may be reinforcing one of the worst messages being delivered by our popular culture, which is that values are fungible. And I am concerned that his misconduct may help to blur some of the most important bright lines of right and wrong in our society. Mr. President, I said at the outset that this was a very difficult statement to write and deliver. That is true, very true. And it is true in large part because it is so personal, and yet needs to be public, but also because of my fear, that it will appear unnecessarily judgmental. I truly regret this. I know from the Bible, that only God can judge people. The most that we can do is to comment without condemning individuals and in this case, I have tried to comment on the consequences of the President's conduct on our country. I know that the President is far from alone and the wrongdoing He is admitted. We as humans are all imperfect. We are all sinners. Many have betrayed a loved one and most have told lies. Members of Congress have certainly been guilty of such behavior. As have some previous presidents, we try to understand we must try to understand the complexity and difficulty of personal relationships which should give us pause before passing judgment on them. We all fall short of the standards, our best values set for us. Certainly I do. But the President by virtue of the office he sought, and was elected to has traditionally been held to a higher standard. This is as it should be, because the American President, as I quoted earlier, is not just the one man distillation of the American people, but today the most powerful person in the world. And as such the consequences of his misbehavior. Even private misbehavior, are much greater than that of an average citizen, a CEO, or even a senator. That's what I believe Presidential Scholar James David barber in his book The Presidential character was getting at when he wrote that the public demands, quote, a sense of legitimacy from and in the presidency. There is more to this than dignity more than propriety, the president is expected to personify our betterness in an inspiring way to express what he does, and is not just what he says a moral idealism, which in much of the public mind is the very opposite of politics and quote, just as the American people are demanding of their leaders, though, they are also fundamentally fair and forgiving, which is why I was so hopeful the President could begin to repair the damage done with his address to the nation on the 17th. But like so many others, I came away feeling that for reasons that are thoroughly human, he missed a great opportunity that night, he failed to clearly articulate to the American people that he recognized how significant and consequential his wrongdoing was, and how badly he felt about it. He failed to show I think that he understood his behavior has diminished the office he holds and the country he serves, and that it is inconsistent with the mainstream American values that he has advanced as President. And I regret that he failed to acknowledge that well, Mr. Starr and Miss Lewinsky missed his trip. And the news media have each in their own way contributed to the crisis we now face. His presidency would not be imperiled if it had not been for the behavior he himself described as wrong.
Not everything listed in the CONUS Archive is necessarily licensable. Reporter sound/image is not licensable

Keywords

Bill Clinton
Monica Lewinsky
Scandal
}