I know many here will disagree with me on this, but to a degree I felt the Clinton Impeachment somewhat made Impeachment lose its’ shock value, as well.
There was no chance, Clinton was going to be removed, it was basically done just so we could say, that Clinton was Impeached.....Well, so what?
It turned Clinton into a sympathetic figure, and also, I didn’t see much of an upside, if the ultimate result was getting stuck with President Gore, who may very well had won in 2000, if he had gone in as the incumbent.
One of the recollections I had of the Clinton Impeachment process was they had information developed that was not used or “disclosed”. Since no one in Washington can keep a salacious detail unspoken, IIRC there were 4 rape allegations in the boxes in the Ford Office Building only to be open after 50 years I believe. At the time, they believed his conviction was certain, and they were wrong of course.
DK
The difference is that there were actual grounds for impeaching Clinton, the senate came up with the absurd argument that the charges “do not rise to the level” of impeachment even though he was already impeached. Had Clinton been a Republican he would have been thrown out by his own party. There are many more charges that could have been made against Clinton but were not. On the other hand no evidence of an actual impeachable offense by Trump has been released.
That’s a fair assumption about Clinton, who thought he would be removed.
He put the House in a bind with perjury (on camera no less).
But since he was lying about an affair is that a High Crime and Misdemeanor? Not to me but the suborning perjury sure was.
But no one wanted Gore (when you can have Bubba). No one wants Pence (when you can have Trump).
Even so , the paradigm of this as payback is just super ugly.