Clinton impeachment was retaliation for Nixon, says Henry Hyde

[carpe diem]

I guess, since he's getting close to meeting his maker, he wants to unburden himself....

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/042105_ns_hyde.html


April 21, 2005 — Republican Congressman Henry Hyde made some surprising comments Thursday on the impeachment hearings of President Bill Clinton. He now says Republicans may have gone after Clinton to retaliate for the impeachment of Richard Nixon. Hyde is stepping down after this term.

.............

In an exclusive interview, Hyde delivered a big dose of candor and some reflective second guessing. He said, among other things, he might not try to impeach President Clinton if he had it to do all over again.

..............


When asked if he would go through with the Clinton impeachment process again, Hyde said he wasn't sure. It turned into a personal and political embarrassment for Hyde when an extra-marital affair he had in the 1960's became public amid accusations of hypocrisy. He called the affair a youthful indiscretion.

[xxqqqzme]

1. this is a load of

rethug sh*t. scaife & the rest of the rong-wing nuts started after Clinton B4 he had the nomination. There has never been a prez hounded as relentlessly as Clinton was. nixon's actions were impeachable - Clinton's were not.

[punpirate]

2. Hyde has been practicing that phrase...

... "youthful indiscretion" for years. As I recall, when that rather sordid event occurred, he was forty.

[dorktv]

4. Well you know...*I* am happy he has set the bar so high.

I will be happy to have "youthful indescretions" until I am forty and when anyone bitches about it I will say "But I thought I was a youth until forty like Henry Hyde said he was!"

[AntiCoup2K4]

5. And the Chimp too!

Didn't he claim he quit drinking and using coke and "found Jesus" :eyes: when he turned 40?

[arewenotdemo]

14. maybe the married gal he took up with was "youthful"

and there were indiscretions.

Ratsingnazi should spin his troubles that way.

[Devlzown]

3. Already knew that.

My Dad said the same thing while it was going on. He was a big Nixon fan back in the day. I was wondering when they'd finally admit it.

[imenja]

6. that's absurd. The Republicans brought down Nixon

He resigned because they told him they would vote for impeachment.

[LittleClarkie]

7. But the Nixon impeachment wouldn't have gone forward without

help from his own party, would it? I've been told that the more conservative section of the Repub Party at the time didn't like Nixon for opening relations with China and his health care stance. So that's why they were willing to eat their own.

Hyde may believe that the Clinton impeachment was in retaliation, and some other Republicans might have also been motivated in that way, but I don't think that's what was really going on back in the day. Might be a bit of revisionism. But I'm not a student of that time. I was all of 10 years old at the time.

[Andromeda]

9. That was when the Republicans...

at least some of them -- had some integrity. It would never happen today because the GOP has become too corrupt.

Georgy boy never would have lasted in those days. He would have been impeached by now.

They tried to crucify Clinton and I was witness to it from the very beginning and followed it closely. It was an organized, deliberate effort to take Bill Clinton down just because they could. There is a lot more to it but the main motivation of it was revenge.

[Andromeda]

8. What a steaming pile ...

of rancid human waste Hyde and his "house managers" are. No kind of punishment is severe enough for them IMHO.

Those who followed what happened to Nixon strongly suspected that the GOP would get revenge.

[rodeodance]

10. the question for me is-will Bush say something similar about the war when

he hits 80?---"Gee, I wonder if I would have invaded Iraq?"---these sort of reflections make me sick!!

[VOX]

11. Uh, Congressman Hyde, Nixon **wasn't** impeached. He resigned.

The only two presidents impeached were Andrew Johnson (1867) and Bill Clinton (1998), both of whom were acquitted in their Senate trials.

Nixon avoided his public shaming, to his eternal...shame. Clinton took his undeserved medicine from the right wing, to his credit. And with stories like this, his credit gets polished a bit more with each passing year.

[SweetLeftFoot]

12. Yep

Although it's no consolation to a man with a dodgy ticker, in 50 years time Clinton will be ranked among the truly great US presidents and the "Clinton Years" will become nostalgic shorthand for peace and prosperity the world is unlikely to see again.

I was living in Australia when the whole impeachment thing went down and we simply couldn't believe it.

[CWebster]

13. Clinton is a hasbeen

He cozies up and exploits all sorts of sleazy relationships to satisfy his selfish ego. The reign of the Clintons has left the Democratic party weak, compromised and adrift. The Clintons, in keeping their grip on personal power, enable the present corrupt and downright criminal ruling class to ride this country down. The Clintons are just members of the club--and it is starting to look like previous firebrand Dean has had his feathers, ahem, clipped.

[KansDem]

15. Excuse me for being so persnickety, but Nixon was never impeached.

He resigned to avoid such a fate, but if I recall correctly, the Congress never began actual impeachment proceedings. The emerging evidence was enough to convince him that impeachment was in his future.

I don't know what Hyde is talking about when he refers to "the impeachment of Nixon..." Perhaps he doesn't know, either. Perhaps more Republicans are presently laboring under this misconception.

Correct me if I'm wrong...