[Mb-civic] Newspapers Urge President to Quit By Greg Mitchell

[Michael Butler]

    Go to Original

    Newspapers Urge President to Quit
    By Greg Mitchell
    Editor & Publisher

    Friday 06 January 2006

    Outrageous, out of the question? Of course. Then again, here's what
happened in the summer of 1998 when the president was named Clinton. Dozens
of editorial pages clamored for him to quit (see this list). "He should
resign," the Philadelphia Inquirer declared, "because his repeated, reckless
deceits have dishonored his presidency beyond repair."

    What did "I" do? On Dec. 21, I wrote a little news story for this site
about the sudden appearance of the "I" word - impeachment, that is - in
reputable publications. The outrage over revelations about President Bush's
approval of spying on Americans without a warrant was then at its height,
before subsiding to its current level of what-will-they-think-of-next
cynicism.

    We got a lot of negative mail about that article, even though we didn't
take a position on the matter, but simply pointed out that the "I" word was
now being uttered in some surprising places (Barron's magazine?). Certainly,
it's no "slam dunk" - to coin a phrase - that the president should be
impeached, and most Democrats don't even want it to happen, either because
they think they can make hay in the November elections with Bush still in
office, and/or they fear a short but perhaps brutal reign of our own King
Richard I.

    Still, it amazes me when people make fun of the very notion that a
president under a dark cloud might be asked to leave office, or given a
push, in light of the very recent experience involving one William Jefferson
Clinton. This seems especially poignant, in light of President Clinton
leaving office with an approval rating over 60%, while the current occupant
of the White House sits at around 40%. Then there's the perennial debate
over the relative demerits of fooling around with an intern vs. fooling an
entire country into going to war based on false evidence (and anything else
you'd care to add on top of that).

    In any case, while still not taking a position on impeachment, I thought
it would be interesting to look back at how the press reacted to the Clinton
Crisis of 1998. Did newspaper editorials condemn Clinton for his screwing
around, and lying about it, and leave it at that, or did they come out
squarely for his exit from office?

    What follows, from an Associated Press rundown on September 15, 1998, is
a long list of newspapers that "called for President Clinton's resignation."
AP added that some of those listed "did so before the release of Kenneth
Starr's report on Sept. 11."

    Indeed, the Philadelphia Inquirer responded to the coming of the Starr
report this way: "Bill Clinton should resign. He should resign because his
repeated, reckless deceits have dishonored his presidency beyond repair."

    The Los Angeles Times pointed out: "The picture of Clinton that now
emerges is that of a middle-aged man with a pathetic inability to control
his sexual fancies."

    The New York Times, on its Howell Raines-led editorial page, thundered
that until the Starr turn, "no citizen ... could have grasped the
completeness of President Clinton's mendacity or the magnitude of his
recklessness." Yet a Washington Post poll that month showed that while a
majority of Americans wanted Congress to censure Clinton, they did not want
it to boot him out of office.

    Here is that AP partial list of newspapers calling for Clinton to quit
(other papers no doubt joined in later):

    National:
    USA Today

    Alabama:
    The Mobile Register
    Montgomery Advertiser

    Arizona:
    Tucson Citizen

    California:
    San Jose Mercury News
    The Orange County Register
    The North (San Diego) County Times
    The Record, Stockton

    Colorado:
    The Denver Post

    Connecticut:
    The Day of New London
    Norwich Bulletin

    District of Columbia:
    The Washington Times

    Florida:
    The Orlando Sentinel
    The Tampa Tribune

    Georgia:
    The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
    The Augusta Chronicle

    Illinois:
    Chicago Tribune

    Indiana:
    The Indianapolis Star
    Chronicle-Tribune of Marion
    South Bend Tribune
    The Times of Northwest Indiana

    Iowa:
    The Des Moines Register

    Kansas:
    The Topeka Capital-Journal

    Louisiana:
    The Times-Picayune of New Orleans
    The News-Star, Monroe

    Michigan:
    The Grand Rapids Press
    Detroit Free Press

    Minnesota:
    Post-Bulletin of Rochester

    Mississippi:
    Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Tupelo

    Missouri:
    Jefferson City News-Tribune

    Nebraska:
    Lincoln Journal Star

    Nevada:
    Reno Gazette-Journal

    New Jersey
    The Trentonian, Trenton

    New Mexico:
    Albuquerque Journal
    The Santa Fe New Mexican

    New York:
    Sunday Freeman of Kingston
    Utica Observer-Dispatch

    North Carolina:
    The Herald-Sun of Durham
    Winston-Salem Journal

    Ohio:
    The Repository, Canton
    The Cincinnati Enquirer
    The Cincinnati Post

    Oklahoma:
    The Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma City
    Tulsa World

    Oregon:
    Statesman Journal, Salem

    Pennsylvania:
    The Philadelphia Inquirer
    The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

    South Carolina:
    The State, Columbia

    South Dakota:
    Argus Leader, Sioux Falls

    Texas:
    San Antonio Express-News
    El Paso Times

    Utah:
    Standard-Examiner, Ogden
    The Spectrum, St. George
    The Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City
    Deseret News, Salt Lake City

    Virginia:
    Daily Press of Newport News

    Washington:
    The Seattle Times

    Wisconsin:
    The Post-Crescent, Appleton
    The Journal Times, Racine

    Greg Mitchell is editor of E&P and author of numerous books on politics
and history, including Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady.