Order In The Court

(2 of 4)

Hardest to convince was the "damn the torpedoes" faction, conservatives who want to barbecue Clinton as long as possible or who hope something might turn up to draw 12 Democrats into the hanging party. Lott had to convince this crowd that a full-blown trial wouldn't pull Democrats in but would drive moderate Republicans out; it takes only 51 votes to adjourn. "You should never damn the torpedoes," said a G.O.P. leadership adviser, "because torpedoes explode."

Right up to the edge of the cliff they walked, in private meetings on Wednesday and Thursday, peering over and seeing the bodies of Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston and the others who have been sacrificed to this scandal. But pride kept pushing them to the precipice. When the proceedings formally began Thursday morning, there was still no agreement, and the clock was ticking. The world's foremost deliberative body was ordered to keep quiet "on pain of imprisonment," and the proceedings began with, of all perfect things, an oath that the Senators would do "impartial justice" as they go about deciding in all likelihood that perjury doesn't matter.

But after the session was adjourned and the cameras turned off, something remarkable happened. Don Nickles, the majority whip, approached Lott, and the two started talking. Tom Daschle conferred across the aisle with three fellow Democrats. Oregon's Ron Wyden crossed from the Democratic side and sat down with Bill Frist, a moderate Republican from Tennessee. It looked like a junior high dance, when the boys and the girls finally tiptoe into the center of the gym. The group grew from six Senators to 10, to 25 to 40 to more than 50. Susan Collins, the moderate freshman Republican from Maine, was on the outer fringes when she felt drawn into the huddle. "Everyone wanted to be a part of it," she said. "You had to lean in to hear everything. It was extremely cordial. It wasn't tense. It was, 'Let's work this out.'" No one shouted; no one stormed away. No one talked over others. Everyone seemed to listen intently to what was being said.

And what was being said? "I am heartbroken right now," Republican Connie Mack told Daschle. "To think that we're going to march into our partisan camps and establish with our flags the beginning of this process just breaks my heart." In that fear and sorrow he was not alone. For all the disagreements, some consensus was plain: we don't want our first vote to be a party-line standoff. There has to be a way out. Let's throw out the staffs, get rid of the microphones and find out what we can all agree on. They would reconvene that afternoon in the Old Senate Chamber, a bipartisan caucus searching for a final game plan. Lott, looking relieved and even euphoric, told reporters that "I got up this morning thinking, 'I've gotta make a lot of important decisions today. I hope I make the right ones.'"

The group hug was so pleasing that the shock was that much worse when everything fell apart. Even though he had been in the center of the Senate-floor powwow, Daschle pulled the plug on the bipartisan conclave, complaining to Lott that he had not proposed the meeting formally. Something strange had happened quickly: privately, Republicans and some Democrats speculated that when the White House heard about the scrum--and the fact that it had produced a near compromise on a plan that would have led to a vote on whether to call witnesses--it pushed Daschle to cancel the meeting. The White House feared that in a room of 100 Senators, Clinton's interests might not be defended. Bitterness had returned, and the sniping was beginning, albeit in sober tones. Nickles, Arkansas' Tim Hutchinson, Olympia Snowe and others came out and criticized Daschle for not going along with the meeting.

In the Republican caucus late Thursday afternoon, some members argued for total war--a party-line vote to proceed however they chose. The Democrats were doing Clinton's bidding, they argued, and would never go along with a bipartisan deal; they were counting on a long trial to make Republicans look partisan and obsessed. The fear of a voter backlash was no reason to abandon principle. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who won with just 49% of the vote in 1994, told the conference, "I'm up in 2000. And if you read the papers, I'm an endangered Republican species. But I'm not worried about that. I'm worried what my one-year-old daughter will read about the role her father played in the impeachment process in 20 years. So to those of you who are doing what you're doing to help the class up in 2000, stop it. Don't help me. Don't help me."