December 20, 1998
Rep. John Baldacci
US House of Representatives
Washington, DC
Dear Rep. Baldacci:
I am writing to express my profound disappointment with your
partisan vote against the Articles of Impeachment passed by the
House Judiciary Committee. Your statement for the record
(published in the Bangor Daily News on Dec. 19, 1998) is unworthy
of the Representative of Maine's 2nd District. You should find a
new speech writer, sir.
Your published statement doesn't come within a mile of having an
original thought on the subject, but instead regurgitates the
evasions, sophistries, and falsehoods that Democrat staffers have
spun out for members to read in front of the cameras. It's all
been focus-grouped and opinion-polled to appeal to the lowest
common denominator of apathetic ignorance and stupidity in the
electorate. You are better than this, Mr. Baldacci.
You state: "The matter at the root of this situation is a
private one, not related to the President's conduct of his
official duties." You can't be serious.
According to the unrebutted testimony outlined in the referral
from the Office of Independent Counsel (which you claim to have
read), our Commander-in-Chief was being "serviced" by
Monica Lewinsky while he was on the phone with a member of
Congress discussing troop deployments in Bosnia. Do you really
think that was a "private" matter, or was it the
arrogant and reckless act of a sociopath who has no shame and no
conscience, a self-absorbed lecher showing his contempt for both
the military and the Congress?
We also know, from undisputed sworn testimony, that Billy Boy
engaged in kinky "phone sex" with Monica on dozens of
occasions, on an unsecured phone line that the President himself
worried might be tapped by a foreign government. A
"private" matter? Give me a break.
And we know that he took time away from his "official
duties" to involve his secretary (also a government
employee) in the cover-up of his squalid sexual liaisons with Ms.
Lewinsky. And that he made sure Secret Service agents were aware
of his implied threat to damage their careers if they told what
they knew.
Don't try to tell me these are private matters, Mr. Baldacci.
Don't insult the intelligence of the people you serve.
If you learned that your chief of staff had lied to internal
investigators looking into a sexual harassment complaint, tried
to get others to lie, and used every legalistic device at his
disposal to hold up the investigation, what action would you
take? Surely you wouldn't dismiss it as a "private"
matter unrelated to his fitness to serve as your (our) employee.
But wait; it gets worse.
Suppose you learned that the same employee, a middle-aged married
man and the father of a teenage daughter, had been involved in
sleazy sexual trysts with a fellow employee, a female barely
older than his daughter, on the premises of your office on
company time, repeatedly over a period of many months. And that
the accused employee lied to you about it for eight months before
belatedly admitting guilt in the face of compelling evidence, but
then backed away from the quasi-confession and resorted to
juvenile quibbling about the meaning of the words "is"
and "alone."
(There should have been a fifth article of impeachment for
Clinton's cold-blooded, pre-meditated murder of the English
language.)
You would not tolerate the above-described conduct in your office
for a second. The accused would have his desk cleaned out and be
off the property faster than you can say, "Doesn't rise to
the level of high crimes and misdemeanors."
Neither you nor your family, friends, and neighbors would
tolerate this sort of conduct from a high-school principal, an
athletic coach, a personnel manager, a corporate CEO, or a drill
sergeant. In fact, I can't think of many occupations where an
employee would survive what Sick Willie has admitted to. Can you?
In your statement, you said that what Clinton did was wrong,
"but I do not believe that his mistakes warrant his removal
from office." Please, Mr. Baldacci, don't try to candy-coat
the toxic waste flowing from the Oval Office. These were not
"mistakes." This isn't about misplacing the car keys or
going through the express check-out with more than 10 items.
Don't join the Democrat partisans who trivialize Clinton's
in-our-face aggression against common decency and morality, and
his deliberate, repeated, willful violations of his marriage
vows, his oath of office, and his oath to tell the truth in
court. Such lawlessness in the office of the nation's chief
executive cannot be rationalized away by members of the
President's party as mere "mistakes" subject to a
letter of reprimand in his personnel file.
Good grief, even Clinton's former press secretary Mike McCurry
says now that he has "enormous doubts" about Clinton's
fitness to serve, given the reckless and irrational nature of his
conduct.
Your vote and your statement unmask you as a camp follower of
unprincipled partisans, such public embarrassments as Maxine
Waters, Barney Frank, and Jerrold Nadler. These apologists for
sleaze were unable to put basic justice and the rule of law ahead
of their narrow partisan loyalty to a man who (according to the
toothless "censure" resolution you favor) has disgraced
and dishonored the high office he holds. They embrace a double
standard of justice in America -- one for ordinary citizens in
the real America outside the Beltway, and a different, much lower
one for their guy in the White House.
Shame on them, and shame on you.
Sincerely,
Lawrence Lockman
POB 331
Howland, Maine 04448
207-732-4156
ldlockman@telplus.net