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.Interesting. While I'm sure the Nixon Retaliation Factor had some play in the decision (Republicans are human too!), I don't think congressional Republicans would have gone through with it if there weren't some serious issues to be explored.
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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.
The 81-year-old DuPage County Republican, who mastered the art of disagreeing without being disagreeable, will be stepping down in January of 2007 after 16 terms and 32 years.
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Andy Shaw asked Hyde if the Clinton proceedings were payback for Nixon's impeachment.
"I can't say it wasn't, but I also thought that the Republican party should stand for something, and if we walked away from this, no matter how difficult, we could be accused of shirking our duty, our responsibility," said Hyde.
I have said all along that the Clinton Impeachment ordeal was not a good idea and that the Republicans should have let it go...
Mark on the other hand...
4:45PM Update
The gents at PowerLine have more on this story...Somehow I have a feeling the "rigid ideology" at work here is Andy Shaw's. Turns out he was the one that introduced the concept of "payback" for Nixon's impeachment--a mere 25 years earlier--and Hyde responded politely, while making the point that the impeachment issue was one of principle. What a scoop!Although, the guys don't say whether or not they think the Clinton impeachment was worth our time...
