ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 15, 1997 TAG: 9701150097
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
BARE-LEGGED men in trench coats, sarcastically calling themselves "Flashers for Clinton," flipped their coats for photographers Monday on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court. Nearby, a group of chanting women called on the president to come clean about "Zippergate."
Welcome to Bill Clinton's second term.
The scene outside the high court reinforces the case made inside for delaying Paula Jones' sexual-harassment lawsuit until Clinton leaves the White House.
Leave aside for now the suit's merits. The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday not about the allegations themselves, but about whether, while Clinton remains in office, the suit should go forward.
We think it should wait until he returns to private life.
Because the Constitution offers no explicit guidance on whether a president can be sued over acts unrelated to his job, the high court will have to more or less make up the law. Here's what the justices should do:
Protect the principle, at the core of our system of government, that no man is above the law. But also protect the office from the appalling prospect of a sitting president being forced to testify, in open court, about his genitals; as well as the prospect of presidents being subjected to district judges' whims or harassed and extorted by politically motivated plaintiffs.
This isn't to belittle the seriousness of Jones' charges or the squalor that Clinton seems to invite. We are as struck as anyone by the hypocrisy of women's groups that championed Anita Hill's sexual-harassment struggle against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, yet have been mostly silent about Paula Jones' accusations against Clinton, not to mention the insults piled on her as a result.
Jones did wait three years to go public with her tale about Clinton dropping his pants in an Arkansas hotel room in 1991 when he was governor and she was a state employee. Clinton-hating right-wingers did push Jones and her story forward. And she did seem to be digging for book or tabloid-TV gold. But none of this is relevant to the law the court must decide, and the precedent it will set, for presidential exposure to civil lawsuits.
Jones, like any other citizen, deserves access to the courts for redress of a claimed injustice. Clinton, like any other citizen, can't hide behind his office as if he were a monarch above the law. While the high court has granted presidents absolute immunity from civil litigation for official acts, it should avoid granting such immunity for unofficial behavior (in this case, acts alleged to have occurred before the president's election).
The justices should shield the executive only temporarily, delaying the scheduling of court-supervised action on the lawsuit until Clinton leaves the White House.
That would be protection enough. Without it, presidents could find themselves (1) at the beck and call of judges and (2) vulnerable to unfettered civil litigation, some of it trivial or politically motivated. These problems, founded in the constitutional separation of powers and the threat of presidential disruption and distraction, would apply to pretrial depositions as well as to trials. Exceptions might be made to allow partial evidence-gathering when a court agrees that delay risks the loss of specific evidence.
But no president in 200 years has faced a civil trial in office, and this is no time to start. Keep in mind Jones' purported evidence includes a physical description of Clinton's private parts. That sort of humiliation is best postponed not just for the president's sake, but for the nation's.
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