Congratulations to you! But, I will stick by their honor...
...not yours,
...not mine.
If the Republican congresscritters had a few ounces of brains in their heads, they would have been able to severely limit the damage Clinton could have done. Given that Clinton had, in 1995 and 1996, largely gone ahead with what Republicans had asked for, the Republicans backing Bob Dole ended up attacking their own programs. Stupid stupid stupid.
The message for 1996 should have been to remind people that 99% of the things Clinton was taking credit for had come from a Republican Congress. Had the Republicans focused on the positive message rather than the negative, they would likely have gained House and Senate seats in 1996. Instead, by putting their efforts behind a feeble candidate because it was "his turn", they lost support from people who saw the GOP as being more interested in doing favors for its own than in looking out for the best interests of the country.
When impeachment came around, the Republican's message should also have been straightforward (but very different from what they actually said): "Look, we'd rather go into the 2000 election with Clinton as a lame duck than with Gore as an incumbent eligible for two more terms. And Clinton's been willing enough to work with us on things like welfare reform, etc. that we wouldn't mind so much having him in office. Unfortunately, if Clinton committed impeachable offenses we have a duty to remove him regardless of how much we'd rather not." How could the Democrats possibly have countered such a message?