# During the Clinton impeachment, did many people truly believe he would be removed from office? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 23, 2019, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266 "2019-12-23T01:30:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/1 "2019-12-23T01:30:03Z")
Everyone pretty much takes it as a given that the Senate will acquit Trump. I was in high school when the Clinton impeachment was going on, and while I followed the proceedings, I can’t say I paid much attention to what the political pundits were saying. I did remember some comedians joking about Al Gore becoming president, and recall a gag on the Simpsons featuring Gore measuring for drapes in the White House. But during the Clinton impeachment, was there ever serious concern that enough Democrats would break ranks and vote to remove him from office? At the time, the Republicans held 55 Senate seats, so they would have needed 12 Democrats to cross over (in reality, five Republicans voted to acquit him on both counts). Or, like with Trump today, did everyone assume that Clinton would remain in office? ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/2 "2019-12-23T01:32:13Z")
I don’t recall anyone thinking that Clinton would be convicted. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/3 "2019-12-23T04:04:27Z")
Nope, there was more talk about the upcoming Y2K than serious talk about Clinton leaving office. Everyone, including Republicans, knew it was a sham. A few political journals pointed out that it would probably mean an easy win for President Gore running as an incumbent. They also pointed out that’s why Reagan was never impeached over Iran-Contra. Impeachment is a political act and that scandal occurred too late in Reagan’s presidency. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/4 "2019-12-23T04:15:25Z")
Only a tiny minority of Republicans even entertained the thought seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/5 "2019-12-23T04:41:28Z")
I seem to recall a whole lot of Republicans _saying_ how absolutely certain it was that Clinton would be convicted for such dastardly Constitution-wrecking Republic-destroying behavior, how could any right-thinking (literally, _right_ thinking, get it?) people imagine otherwise!!! But as others above say, it was pretty obvious that nobody (probably not even the die-hard Republicans saying that) really believed it. Okay, maybe some. That’s what I think I remember. Maybe it’s just me remembering it that way because I thought all those Republicans were such f-ing jackasses. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/6 "2019-12-23T04:54:47Z")
I was 36 during the Clinton impeachment: nobody thought he’d be removed, if only because the vote threshold is so high. And because it was partisan bullshit of course. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/7 "2019-12-23T13:49:30Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > I was 36 during the Clinton impeachment: nobody thought he’d be removed, if only because the vote threshold is so high. **And because it was partisan bullshit of course**. And it was _obviously_ partisan bullshit, that was arrived at after years of investigations into Clinton that turned up absolutely nothing else to impeach him on. Pretty much everyone knew it was a weak-sauce attempt to pretend that those years of effort weren’t a _complete_ waste of time and effort. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/8 "2019-12-23T14:21:42Z")
No way. I think most people thought that lying about a blowjob was peanuts, and that if he had lied to cover up blackmailing foreign leaders then that would be serious stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/9 "2019-12-23T14:24:12Z")
It was no surprise he cheated on Hillary , he pretty much admitted that before he was elected when they both went on 60 minutes. Of course he did not expect Ken Starr to ask about his sex life. So most people didn’t really care about his affair with Lewinski. And of course the funniest thing was it turned out more than a few GOP politicians also were cheaters. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/10 "2019-12-23T17:00:58Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > I was 36 during the Clinton impeachment: nobody thought he’d be removed, if only because the vote threshold is so high. And because it was partisan bullshit of course. I was only 14, and these are what I remember–that it was seen as a partisan attack rather than legitimate, and that there was no way they would get all the Republicans plus enough Democrats to vote to convict. [Looking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Bill_Clinton) [it up](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/106th_United_States_Congress), it seems that, in fact, 5-10 Republicans crossed over to vote with the Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/11 "2019-12-23T22:31:17Z")
I was 22 at the time and the general thought among moderates was that what Clinton did was bad and deserved censure, but removing him from office was a little over the top. Even a lot of Democrats were in favor of censure. IIRC, the Republicans thought that if they could get someone like Robert Byrd or Joe Lieberman on board that they might bring enough other senators with them, but it was going to be a tall order. But nowhere near something like the slam dunk that Trump’s acquittal will be. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/12 "2019-12-23T23:14:55Z")
I never felt like Clinton was in danger of being removed, but I did wonder if the number of people who voted to remove him would exceed 50 and by how much. Even without being removed, I was concerned that he could be effectively delegitimized by that outcome alone. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2019, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/13 "2019-12-23T23:15:36Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > No way. I think most people thought that lying about a blowjob was peanuts, and that if he had lied to cover up blackmailing foreign leaders then that would be serious stuff. I don’t remember anyone seriously thinking he’d be removed either, but let me correct the record: Clinton was NOT impeached for ‘lying about a blowjob’'. He was impeached for perjuring himself in a civil lawsuit, an action that he was also disbarred for, and for suborning perjury (attempting to get Monica Lewinsky to sign an affidavit that they had never had sexual relations, for use in his civil trial against Paula Jones, among other things). The judge in that case hit him with contempt of court for repeated misleading or false testimony, and fined him $90,000. He also agreed to have his law license suspended for five years in a bargain to keep himself from being charged with a felony for perjury. I think the impeachment was a bad idea, mainly because removing a president is such a big deal that it should only be done with bipartisan support and strong public opinion for removal. But that doesn’t mean Clinton was innocent or that the serious charges against him were nothing more than ‘lying about a blowjob’. He lied to a judge in court to thwart a lawsuit from a woman accusing him of sexual assault. That’s a big deal. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/14 "2019-12-24T02:22:53Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > It was no surprise he cheated on Hillary , he pretty much admitted that before he was elected when they both went on 60 minutes. Of course he did not expect Ken Starr to ask about his sex life. So most people didn’t really care about his affair with Lewinski. And of course the funniest thing was it turned out more than a few GOP politicians also were cheaters. I joked at the time that all the Republican Senators found on their doorstep an envelope containing pictures of their girl/boy friends and mistresses. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/15 "2019-12-24T02:25:52Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > He lied to a judge in court to thwart a lawsuit from a woman accusing him of sexual assault. That’s a big deal. Paula Jones or Lewenski? Lewenski seems to have made every effort to get in bed with him. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/16 "2019-12-24T02:57:38Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Paula Jones or Lewenski? Lewenski seems to have made every effort to get in bed with him. He lied in the Paula Jones court case. He wound up settling with her for an undisclosed amount of money. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/17 "2019-12-24T05:26:28Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > He lied in the Paula Jones court case. He wound up settling with her for an undisclosed amount of money. It was disclosed at the time, please keep up. Clinton walked into an obvious perjury trap and didn’t fall on the grenade like he should have and told the truth: “yeah, I fucked her, yup.” Which had squat to do with his ability to run the executive branch or national security, but was the stupidest thing anyone has done, like ever. So yeah, it was a big deal, but a really small big deal in the grander scheme. The rest was a circus that nobody wanted, but served a longer game (see Bush, GW). Kudos getting the “bipartisan with strong public support” dig in, I’m glad you’re keeping current with this stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/18 "2019-12-24T15:12:56Z")
There are people who think a BJ is not sex, I know someone who thinks that. But I’m pretty sure she would not be happy if her husband gets a BJ from another woman. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/19 "2019-12-24T17:30:01Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > It was disclosed at the time, please keep up. > > Clinton walked into an obvious perjury trap and didn’t fall on the grenade like he should have and told the truth: “yeah, I fucked her, yup.” Which had squat to do with his ability to run the executive branch or national security, but was the stupidest thing anyone has done, like ever. So yeah, it was a big deal, but a really small big deal in the grander scheme. The rest was a circus that nobody wanted, but served a longer game (see Bush, GW). > > Kudos getting the “bipartisan with strong public support” dig in, I’m glad you’re keeping current with this stuff. Again… Clinton did not perjure himself in some House or Senate political trial. He perjured himself in a private civil lawsuit filed by Paula Jones for sexual harassment. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2019, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266/20 "2019-12-24T17:41:17Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > He perjured himself in a private civil lawsuit filed by Paula Jones for sexual harassment. Ha ha ha. And in said lawsuit the only thing Paula Jones could admit to as “harassment” was not getting flowers on Secretary’s Day. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/during-the-clinton-impeachment-did-many-people-truly-believe-he-would-be-removed-from-office/845266.md?page=2)