November 21, 1973

Impeachment, Retirement Drives Fizzling

One again, President Richard Nixon has found refuge in the middle.

The radical left and the radical right - in their zeal to punish their old nemesis rather than win their point - have overshot their mark.

By a straight party-line vote, the Democrats of Congress last week voted themselves a million-dollar "Get Nixon" fund from the public treasury.  This, we are told, is the "preliminary" expense of launching impeachment proceedings against the President.

Backing up this partisan move is an equally self-serving effort by the AFL-CIO which in a promised series of 19 statements hopes to obtain millions of signatures on an impeachment petition.

The Democrat impeachment fund, filched from the tax payers' pockets, is being channeled into a gigantic fishing expedition.  Inasmuch as there is no evidence of an impeachable offense by Nixon, a million dollars worth of investigation and propaganda may yet create one.

The preposterous drive for impeachment launched by George Meany, aging head of the biggest labor union, is an even cheaper shot.

Employment in the U.S. is at a record high.  The unemployment rate has dropped to the lowest peace-time level in history.  The average wage rate - and, more importantly, the actual purchasing power - of American workers is at an all-time high.  Runaway inflation has been slowed for the first time in 40 years.

Though these significant statistics have been down played by Meany, his union members instinctively realize that labor has fared better under Republican Nixon than under previous Democrat presidents.

Impeachment efforts are fizzling simply because the hue and cry is obviously political.

Voters aren't buying the Democrat witch-hunt, and union members are shunning Meany's petitions.

With impeachment waning as a practical weapon to destroy Nixon, the mass media has turned to a massive publicity campaign that would force President Nixon to resign his office.

This is more infantile than the impeachment approach.

The premise is that Nixon has "lost the confidence" of the American people and therefore the "ability to govern."

Baloney!

My reading of the mood of Americans - in the Midwest where I live and work, and in the Deep South where I toured last week - is that most people still trust and support the President.

Even with its professed "doubts" of Nixon's governing ability, Congress didn't hesitate one minute to give him sweeping powers to regulate our lives in regard to the energy crisis.

Despite these rather obvious indications of attitude, the radical right and the opportunists flog the resignation horse as a last hope.

The Buckley brothers - senator and columnist - gag over Nixon's accommodations with the communists, with labor and with liberals.

Congressman John Ashbrook, who was a nominal opponent of Nixon for the presidential nomination; and Senator Charles Percy, who harbors the same ambition, take the President to task for harming the Republican party.

Strange bedfellows of the rightists are the opportunists who call for resignation.

Senator Edward Brooke, a black politician from Massachusetts; and Senator Lowell Weicker, a Watergate Committee member from Connecticut, are Republicans who have to out-liberal the Democrats to get elected in their part of the country.

The resignation drive, however, is wilting also under the glare of common sense.

If nothing else, Richard Nixon has shown a steadfast adherence to traditional and constitutional political principles.

Resignation because of a supposed "lack of confidence" would fly in the face of the unique American political process.

When the Founding Fathers drew up the U.S. Constitution, they were quite familiar with the parliamentary from of government whereby a government could be toppled any time by popular dissatisfaction, or manipulated by a strong-willed chief executive - in those days a king.

Those first Americans had put up with the evils of parliamentary government for too long, and they devised the republican form which is acknowledged the most effective in history.

Two fundamental and vital devices were built into the U.S. Constitution: (1) checks and balances between three co-equal branches of government and (2) fixed terms of office.

In the Watergate hullabaloo, partisan as it is, we see a redress of check-and-balance by the legislative branch that for too many decades had kowtowed to the executive.

Having availed themselves of this Constitutional prerogative, Congress must now abide by the guarantee of a fixed term for the executive.

Public opinion, which often sways in demagogic winds, can not be allowed to determine whether a duly elected politician is to be driven from office before his term expires.

A president, a congressman or a state legislator must be permitted enough time to show results of unpopular remedies.  Otherwise, there will be bread and circuses to placate noisy, and sometimes destructive minorities.

In my view of the Nixon character, he would submit to impeachment before he would retire.

But neither possibility now seems likely.  The extreme left and the extreme right - traditional enemies of Nixon - have abandoned the larger, moderate field to their old antagonist.

In this secure position, the president not only will survive but probably will gain additional ground.

Author: Lindsey Williams