Where I Stand -- Brian Greenspun: Byrd's-eye view of it all

THIS BYRD is not given to flights of fancy.

There is a lifetime and an impossible journey that stands between Friday afternoons and Sunday mornings. That can be no more true than this weekend, in which the fate of President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial hangs and during which practically anything and probably everything will happen.

Having covered myself the best way I can, I'd like to talk -- even though it has become abundantly clear that few Americans want to listen anymore -- about where we find ourselves in this first ever impeachment trial of an elected president of the United States.

I don't believe there is an American in my generation who does not remember exactly where he was or what she was doing when the tragic news of President John F. Kennedy's assassination was broadcast around the world. That news was so singularly stunning to a country caught up in its own hopes and dreams because of its young president that news of his death was forever etched in our memories. Even now, 35 years later, I can recall my high school class, our teacher and the subject we were discussing when we first heard the awful news.

There are fewer people, I suspect, who remember the details of President Lyndon Johnson's television speech a few years later in which he informed his "fellow Americans" that he would not seek, and would not accept, his party's nomination for a second term. While the reasons for his decision were based mostly on a failed effort in Vietnam, the impact of his decision could not come close to the pain caused by the news of JFK's death. Nevertheless, it was a matter of some moment in our nation's recent history and so there is cause for some remembering.

Likewise, President Richard Nixon's speech from the White House in 1974, in which he announced his somewhat expected decision to resign his office and leave the White House in disgrace, is also a time of national significance which will be remembered, at least generally, by Americans who were alive and cognizant at that time.

Add a few people who remember when man walked on the moon for the first time, hostages were taken in Iran and terrorism hit our shores and our federal buildings, and that pretty well sums up the indelibility of national traumas on the minds of a fluid America.

In short, what I am suggesting is that people have so much on their plates already that there is little time or inclination to pay attention to that which has no direct effect on their lives and, therefore, our national attention span remains quite short.

And that is exactly what the House managers of President Clinton's impeachment trial -- together with their political advisers and party officials at all levels -- are counting on. They are convinced that the American public at the end of the year 2000 will have only the vaguest recollection of this fine mess we have allowed ourselves to get into and from which no one seems to have the leadership to get us out.

Those who have forced America to sit through this impeachment trial against its will and against its much better judgment are convinced that America will not remember any of the salaciousness that rocked their living rooms through their television sets or any of the pettifogging, time-wasting, thumb-twirling tactics of a political party hell-bent on removing one of the most popular and successful presidents ever to hold office in this great land. And they are willing to risk their political careers and those of their colleagues up and down the ladder, in every city and state in the union, on the premise that the voters will forget. And they will be wrong. And, except for some bad apples that are spoiling an entire political system, it will be too bad for our two-party system.

There is no doubt in my mind, and the minds of every single American with whom I have discussed this issue, that we will indeed never forget the fact that Clinton was the only president of this country ever impeached in this century and in our lifetimes and that the Republican Party was responsible for that happening.

Call it whatever you want, this country is sitting through a most despicable process only because the Republican Party cannot figure out how to gracefully exit what has become a bad idea without upsetting its political base at home. Oh yes, President Clinton shares the blame, too, because his personal life provided the wherewithal for the sexual witch hunting that has led us to this ignoble date.

But when the ballot is printed for the November 2000 election, Bill Clinton's name will be nowhere to be found. There will, however, be thousands of Republican hopefuls looking for the voters' support. And there will be people of sound minds and long memories looking to exact some vengeance!

That's why Sen. Robert Byrd's plan to offer Monday a motion to dismiss this political debacle makes so much sense -- both from an institutional standpoint and as a matter of political back-saving. This is not just any senator. Robert Byrd of West Virginia is the one man in the entire Senate who is looked to by both sides to uphold the honor and dignity of the institution for which he has served longer than most Americans have been alive.

No one expected Sen. Byrd to propose dismissal. In fact, many believed he might be one of a handful of Democrats supporting an extension of the trial and, possibly, a vote for conviction if the facts had been proved. The meaning of this move, though, is quite clear. The facts have not been proved, cannot be proved and will not support the necessary vote for conviction. So it is time, says the man entrusted with the integrity of that venerable lawmaking body, to end it all.

Whether base politics will allow enough Republicans to join their Democratic colleagues to finally put an end to this multiyear effort to undo a national election remains to be seen. But make no mistake. If they don't support Sen. Byrd's considered and appropriate effort to get on with the business of running a country, the voters will make them pay at the next election.

We may never forget the day when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Nor should we. But neither should we ever forget the time when a twice-elected president of the United States was impeached by partisan politics and an entire country was made to pay a price for that petulance. If we do forget, we will be doomed to repetition.

Sen. Byrd knows that. The American people know that. Does the GOP leadership in the Senate have the good sense and decency to understand that?

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