Impeachment Evaluations and Reasons for Essay

The Jones case was dismissed, as the alleged conduct clearly did not meet federal standards for sexual harassment, and although Lewinsky confirmed the affair and produced evidence (an infamous blue dress with the President's semen stain on it) she said she had never been asked to lie or had been given a job in payment for her silence. Yet impeachment proceedings, rather than censoring for bad conduct (as called upon by Democrats in Congress) were instated against Bill Clinton, based upon his voluntary testimony before Starr's grand jury for Jones' spurious lawsuit and the Whitewater investigation. Votes on the final impeachment were decided on strict party grounds: On Article 1, the charge of perjury, 55 senators, including 10 Republicans and all 45 Democrats voted not guilty. On Article 3, obstruction of justice, the Senate split evenly, 50 for and 50 against the President, well beneath the two-thirds majority needed to impeach the president (Impeachment: Bill Clinton, 2000, the History Place).It was widely thought by both Democrats and the nation at large that Clinton's voluntary testimony for a frivolous lawsuit, aided by a biased Republican special prosecutor was not worthy of impeachment, and the proceedings were more an indictment of Republican morals than the president's admittedly poor sexual judgment. The president had committed human errors of personal folly, not disrespect for the law like Nixon, or human rights like Johnson.

Works Cited

Ellis, Richard. (2009). Impeachment. U.S. Supreme Court. Retrieved from Answers.com

April 1, 2009 at http://www.answers.com/topic/impeachment

Impeachment: Andrew Johnson. (2000). The History Place. Retrieved April 1, 2009 at http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/impeachments/johnson.htm

Impeachment: Bill Clinton. (2000). The History Place. Retrieved April 1, 2009 at http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/impeachments/clinton.htm

Impeachment: Richard Nixon. (2000).….....