Abstract

Diary of a Mad Law Professor

The article presents the author's comments on the impeachment trial of U.S. President Bill Clinton. When Republican legislator Henry Hyde wound up the U.S. House managers' presentation to the Senate, he employed the rhetorical form of a classic jeremiad characterized by polemical lament. But for all the power of that style, Hyde's speech was devoid of legal content and devoid of constitutional import. Hyde said political prisoners and war-weary soldiers would understand best why the House managers want to impeach Clinton. The author says that he suspects the greater fear of all political prisoners and politicians and of weary warriors is a government run by intolerant moralists who can abide no human error and whose taste for punishment knows no plumbed depths.