Too Many Whites for a Fair Impeachment Trial?
by L. Brent Bozell III
January 14, 1999

As the President's impeachment trial begins, some of the 89 percent pro-Clinton establishment press are, to put it bluntly, out of control. Their latest partisan attack on the Republican Party is perhaps their most intellectually and ethically dishonest one yet. 

The House prosecutors are now being blasted for being white. And male. And Christian. On the "CBS Evening News," reporter Phil Jones relayed the latest propaganda line: "Democrats believe House managers are conservative zealots, and some Republicans agree." To validate that slam, Jones turned to one of the most liberal Republican members of the House (but not labeled as such), Rep. Peter King: "It's a very hard core group. Some of them I have a lot of respect for, but I think on balance you're talking about a group of individuals who are very hard-nosed and determined to get Bill Clinton."

Jones elaborated: "Indeed, the impeachment managers are strikingly alike. All 13 are white, all 13 males, all 13 Christians, all 13 lawyers. Eight have been prosecutors. Average age 52. And, says Republican Congressman Peter King who voted against impeachment, they hear something he's not hearing." King: "They, in many cases, live in an echo chamber. They believe that everyone has as bad of an opinion of Bill Clinton as they do. And the fact is the American people don't share their opinion." 

Hmm. If liberal Democrats had impeached a Republican President, how likely is it that CBS News would have spotlighted a conservative Democrat to tag his party's majority as extremists? Moreover, Rep. King knows - as does CBS - that the truth is the opposite of his claim. These Republicans are fully cognizant of Clinton's high approval ratings. But they're not intimidated. It's called principle. And they are committed to climbing the steep, slippery hill with the media pouring grease in front of them.

NBC's Lisa Myers felt the same need to conduct a Caucasian check when she examined the Senate jury. She began: "It's one of the most unusual juries ever assembled, one that looks nothing like America: 91 percent male, 97 percent white. The only minorities: Senators [Ben Nighthorse] Campbell, a native American, [Daniel]Akaka, native Hawaiian, and [Daniel] Inouye, Asian-American." Since this jury was popularly elected, is Myers implying America's voters are racist?

On "The McLaughlin Group," Eleanor Clift predictably picked up the racism card, and predictably blew a fuse. "That herd of managers from the House, I mean, frankly all they were missing was white sheets. They're like night riders going over. This is bigger than Bill Clinton." She added the House managers "put a right-wing, zealous face on the Republican Party which does not serve the party well in the future."

The GOP is no longer the party of religious-right zealots. It's now the Ku Klux Klan. 

Liberal reporters really believe that everything that's wrong in America would be fixed merely by breaking every business, club, and ruling body down into racial and gender quotas. ABC reporter Judy Muller arrived late on the story of the five women who were elected to the state of Arizona's top offices slots last November (perhaps because they include four Republicans). She could have suggested the obvious, that the GOP has scored a major victory with women. But no, she implied the opposite. "They all agree that women tend to persuade not through confrontation but though consensus," Muller declared. In other words, these Republican women are not like those Republicans in Washington. And with that established, Muller asked: "The impeachment trial is under way in Washington. Do you think it would make a difference if the Congress were made up of more than 12 percent women?"

And why is their race or gender or religion relevant anyway? The President is a white male Christian - is that wrong too? The House prosecutors are drawn from the Republican ranks of the House Judiciary Committee. It is entirely white and male, except for new member Mary Bono, who is not a lawyer.

These reporters know this, and yet it doesn't stop them. They can't defend Bill Clinton, but they can destroy the credibility of his opposition, and the race card is a comfortable weapon. Their attacks on the House impeachment managers based on their race and sex and religion reflects the bias, bordering on bigotry, of a liberalism that talks of diversity and harmony but constantly seeks to divide and conquer for political gain.