Bartlet for America
Leo gets offered a deal under which Bartlet accepts a censure resolution (1) so that the House stops hearings that will cause Leo much humiliation. Sam tries to go on the attack against a tell-all book written by a former White House photographer (2). Bartlet wants to put up an old map that does not show Israel (3).
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Censure (last updated January 22, 2002) (back to top)
Under the United States Constitution, the House of Representatives has the power to impeach the president and certain other federal officials, and the Senate has the power to convict such an impeached person and thus remove him or her from office. The House has impeached 16 people over the course of American history, and the Senate has convicted seven, all federal judges.
Congress thus clearly can remove the president from office. But it is unclear whether it can censure him. Bill Clinton was impeached, tried, and acquitted on charges of obstructing justice in 1999, but he was never officially censured, though several leading Democrats did seek a censure resolution as a compromise solution to avoid impeachment.
In a November 1998 hearing held as the House debated whether to impeach Clinton, constitutional scholars disagreed on whether a Congressional censure was permissible and what effect it could have on a president. Andrew Jackson was censured in 1834, but the constitutionality of that measure was challenged at the time and the censure itself was voided three years later when Jackson's party regained control of the Senate.
The Senate censured Jackson on charges that he had violated the Constitution by expanding federal powers (for one thing, he established that a Cabinet member sat at the president's will and could be dismissed from office) and by refusing to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States, an institution which was upheld as a constitutional use of Congress's power in the famous Supreme Court case of McColloch v. Maryland in 1819 even though it had lost public support after a financial panic in 1818 and reports of mismanagement. Led by Senator Henry Clay, whom Jackson had recently defeated in the 1832 presidential election which was in large part a referendum supporting Jackson's actions regarding the Bank, the Senate voted on March 28, 1834 in favor of the following resolution by a 26-20 vote:
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Resolved, That the reasons assigned by the Secretary of the Treasury for the removal of the money of the United States deposited in the Bank of the United States and its branches, communicated to Congress on the 4th of December, 1833, are unsatisfactory and insufficient.
That the President, in the late executive proceedings in relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of both. |
Jackson did not take the censure lightly and he did not accept it as valid. Less than a month after the censure, on April 18, Jackson went to Congress and delivered his protest against the censure, calling it unconstitutional and against the will of the people (four of the 26 senators voted to censure Jackson did so even though their state legislatures had endorsed Jackson's actions regarding the Bank). He also declared that the President, and not those in his administration, is the direct representative of the American people and responsible only to them, and not to Congress, a revolutionary idea at the time. The Senate responded by re-affirming the censure, and even increased its margin of victory to a 27-16 vote.
In any case, the censure was taken by history as a political act, and not one based on constitutional violations. In 1837, just before Jackson left office, the Senate voted to expunge the censure with a 24-19 vote.
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Resolved, That the said resolve [of censure] be expunged from the journal; and, for that purpose, that the Secretary of the Senate, at such time as the Senate may appoint, shall bring the manuscript journal of the session 1833 '34 into the Senate, and, in the presence of the Senate, draw black lines round the said resolve, and write across the face thereof, in strong letters, the following words: "Expunged by order of the Senate, this __ day of ___, in the year of our Lord 1837." |
Censure has been used against Congressmen to more effect and with less constitutional ambiguity. A total of nine senators and 22 House members have been censured. Senator Joseph P. McCarthy was censured in 1954. Two representatives, Gerry E. Studds (D-Massachusetts) and Daniel B. Crane (R-Illinois), were censured in 1983 in separate cases of sexual misconduct; Crane was defeated in the 1984 election but Studds was re-elected several times.
Sources: Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833-45 (Harper & Row Publishers, 1984). Linda Greenhouse, It's impeachment or nothing, panel is told by experts, New York Times, November 10, 1998. R.W. Apple, Jr., Seeking a middle road on impeachment, but finding only roadblocks, New York Times, September 16, 1998.
Gary Aldrich (last updated January 22, 2002) (back to top)
The most successful and infamous account of the Clinton White House by someone who professed inside knowledge was Gary Aldrich's Unlimited Access, which spent 19 weeks on the New York Times' best-seller list in the summer of 1996.
Aldrich, a FBI agent of more than 20 years' service, had had a minor job coordinating background investigations of new White House employees. Upon retiring from the FBI in 1994, he took out his anger and disgust with the Clinton administration and staff in his book, in which he described the Clinton staff as "Berkeley, California, with an Appalachian twist" and charged the staff with, among other things, hanging pornographic ornaments on a Christmas tree.
The most infamous assertion in Aldrich's book was that Clinton frequently visited a downtown Washington hotel to a room rented by a woman who "may be a celebrity." But this assertion, like others, quickly came undone. David Brock, then a conservative reporter for the American Spectator, said that he had unwittingly been the source and that he had merely been repeating a rumor to Aldrich, who then wrote the rumor as fact in his book. Aldrich himself then admitted that what he had wrote was merely a "possibility" and that many events described in the book were second- or third-hand reports without any corroborating evidence.
Even conservative journalist George Will grilled Aldrich on "This Week with David Brinkley" and said Aldrich's sourcing "would not pass muster in any particular journalistic organization I know of."
Aldrich's book caught public attention through some initial disclosures in conservative newspapers and tabloids. Aldrich first wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal accusing Hillary Clinton of hiring as the head of the White House security office Craig Livingstone, who had been involved in improperly acquiring confidential personnel files (White House officials responded that it had been Vince Foster, Jr., who had hired Livingstone). Excerpts of his book were then published on the front page of the New York Post and the Washington Times. The Clinton administration then responded with an attack on Aldrich. Presidential advisor George Stephanopoulos said that the book was a "fabrication" and that it "couldn't get past the fact-checkers at the National Enquirer."
By writing his book, Aldrich may have violated some Federal Bureau of Investigation rules. According to the Washington Post, all current and former FBI employees must submit for review any publications that could have been based on knowledge gained as a result of their employment, and must resolve any issues before publication. FBI sources told the Post that Aldrich had not resolved all issues at the time of publication, and that the bureau could pursue civil litigation to control the book's profits.
Nevertheless, the book sold well despite the news articles disputing its accuracy, obviously tapping into many people's hatred of the Clinton administration. And, as Jeffrey Toobin reports in his book on the Clinton impeachment scandal, A Vast Conspiracy, Aldrich's success was what inspired former White House secretary Linda Tripp to seek out literary agent Lucianne Goldberg, thus bringing together two key players who later brought public attention to Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Sources: Jeffrey Toobin, A Vast Conspiracy (Random House, 1999). Howard Kurtz, White House assails "made-up" book, Washington Post, June 29, 1996. Serge F. Kovaleski and Pierre Thomas, Aldrich despised Clintons, colleagues say, Washington Post, June 29, 1996. Howard Kurtz and Michael Weisskopf, Ex-agent retreats on Clinton charge, Washington Post, July 1, 1996. Howard Kurtz, Gary Aldrich's debunked beds, Washington Post, July 8, 1996.
Israel-Palestinians : Overview (last updated May 3, 2002) (back to top)
Map taken from the CIA's 2001 World Factbook,
on-line here.
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Israel before the 1967 Six Days War
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Israel after the 1967 Six Days War
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Israel after the 1973 Yom Kippur War
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Israel after returning the Sinai Peninsula in 1982
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Click on one of the historical maps to get an enlarged version in a separate window.
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For more than 50 years, the state of Israel has existed in uneasy tension with its Arab neighbors and with the Palestinians who originally occupied some of the same territory. This tension has erupted into wars such as the Six Days War of 1967 and into violent uprisings (aka intifadas) within Israeli-controlled territories such as the one that began in September 2000 and continues into 2002.
In March 2002, after months of increasing numbers of Israeli and Palestinian deaths, the Israeli government declared Yasir Arafat an enemy and sent military forces to his Ramallah headquarters and to launch an extended operation in Palestinian-occupied territories. Israel withdrew from its siege on May 2, thus allowing Arafat some movement within the West Bank, but a similar stand-off continued at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
The United States and Saudi Arabia have become increasingly involved in attempting to reach a resolution. In February, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia began floating a proposal in which his country would recognize Israel and normalize relations with the country if Israel withdrew from occupied territories to its pre-1967 borders and if it reached a peace agreement with the Palestinians. In mid-April, President George W. Bush sent Secretary of State Colin Powell for meetings in the Middle East, laying some foundation for ending Israel's confinement of Arafat.
In late April, the two leaders met and committed their respective countries to pressuring their respective, traditional ally into reaching some kind of resolution. On May 2, the United States also committed to participating in an international conference this summer, though it downplayed hopes that the conference would be as successful as those that started the once-promising peace process of the 1990s.
Some Significant Issues between Israel and the Palestinians
Beyond religious differences and historical enmities, some pressing political and economic issues dividing Israel and the Palestinians include:
- Terrorist actions by groups such as Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) and the Islamic Jihad. Since December 2001, Israel has sharply criticized Yasir Arafat for not doing more to stop terrorist actions by such groups, charging that he lacks either the power or the will to do so and thus has become irrelevant to the peace process. As part of its biannual review of foreign terrorist organizations, the United States recognized in October 2001 six terrorist organizations that directly oppose Israel’s involvement in Palestine, as opposed to Islamic separatist organizations such as al-Qaeda.
- Control of occupied territories. Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization agreed in 1993 to begin a transition process in which Palestinians would gradually be given self-government over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, two areas which Israel has occupied since its military successes in the Six Days War of 1967. This two-track process was broadened by the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement. However, each side has accused the other of not living up to the conditions set forth in the agreements, and progress has stalled.
- Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. Israelis have created many settlements in the occupied territories, thus provoking Palestinians in such areas and complicating the resolution of who controls the land. As of August 2000, there were an estimated 231 settlements and civilian land-use sites in the West Bank, 42 in the Golan Heights, 25 in the Gaza Strip, and 29 in East Jerusalem. Israel says it has stopped creating new settlements, but is simply allowing currently-existing settlements to grow naturally. The United States has consistently opposed Israel’s settlement policy since the Carter administration, and has criticized growth patterns that seem to cover new territory while existing territory goes relatively unused.
- Control of Jerusalem. With both Israel and the Palestinians seeking to have Jerusalem as their capital, the status of this city has been constantly deferred from political negotiations. It was deliberately not resolved in the historic September 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement and was to be negotiated in future rounds.
- Poor economic conditions and massive unemployment in the occupied territories. Israel is a technologically advanced market economy, which had in 2000 an estimated gross domestic product of $110.2 billion, GDP per capita of $18,900, and a GDP growth rate of 5.9 percent, as reported in the CIA World Factbook. Israel’s unemployment rate was about 9 percent in 2000.
By contrast, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have relatively undeveloped economies with only some small industry. Both areas saw declining economies and rising unemployment from 1992 to 1996 as a result of Israeli border closure policies that responded to security incidents but also disrupted market relationships. Both areas then began to recover when Israel used such policies less frequently from 1997 to 2000. Recovery has at best stalled since the uprisings beginning in late 2000 and continuing into 2002. Estimates for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 2000 showed a GDP of $3.1 billion and $1.11 billion respectively, GDPs per capita each less than one-tenth that of Israel, and a combined unemployment rate of 40 percent.
The Peace Process
The 1990s started off with the promise of successful – though difficult – negotiations towards the peaceful transfer of authority over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from Israel occupation to Palestinian self-government. In the wake of the Gulf War, Israel met with Palestinian and other Arab leaders in the Madrid Conference and began talks. After a round of talks in Oslo, Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) signed a joint Declaration of Principles on September 13, 1993. That declaration called for a five-year transition period in which Israel would gradually withdraw its troops from major Palestinian centers and Palestinians would gradually govern themselves.
Several divisive issues, such as the status of Jerusalem and Jewish settlements in areas such as the West Bank and the Gaza strip, were officially set aside for a second stage of negotiations to begin no later than 1996.
Since 1993, negotiations have moved on two separate tracks, one towards Palestinian self-government as an interim step, and another towards a permanent adjustment. The interim track culminated with the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat signed on September 28, 1995. This agreement was implemented in stages over the next few years.
However, other issues continued to go unresolved. First, the status of Jerusalem, which both Israel and the Palestinians want for their capital city, was left for future negotiations. Second, though Israel stopped creating entirely new settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, it continued to support the growth of existing settlements; this policy, which the United States has opposed continuously at least since the Carter administration, has been a particularly severe grievance to the Palestinians. On the other hand, Israel has complained that the Palestinians have been slow to implement their obligations under the Interim Agreement, including policing their own radicals.
Israel and the Palestinians began negotiating these issues in May 1996 and periodically since then, but without much success. One difficulty has been the frequent turnover in power between the Labor Party and the Likud Party. The Labor Party led by Yitzhak Rabin won national elections in 1992, Likud under Binyamin Netanyahu won in May 1996, and Labor took power again with Ehud Barak in 1999. Barak himself was replaced by Ariel Sharon in February 2001. Labor is generally more secular and favors giving land for peace to the Palestinians; Likud is more religious and conservative, and has greater concerns about security.
The Current Intifada Began in September 2000
In September 2000, a new wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence broke out with an intifada that seems to have set back the entire peace process. Events began with the September 28, 2000 visit of Israeli Parliament member Ariel Sharon (now the country’s prime minister) to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Palestinians protested the visit the next day, and Israeli police reacted with violence to disperse the demonstrations, killing four and injuring hundreds. Violence then continued and escalated through the end of 2000 and into 2001, resulting in hundreds of deaths on both sides, though mostly Palestinians. Amnesty International has reported at least 300 Palestinians were killed in the first three months of the intifada and that more than 570 Palestinians and more than 150 Israelis (including 150 Palestinian and 30 Israeli children) were killed during its first year.
The Sharm el-Sheikh Fact Finding Committee, organized by the United States and chaired by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, later reported in April 2001 that there was no evidence that Sharon’s visit had been anything more than "an internal political act," or that the Palestinians had any deliberate plan to incite violence. On the other hand, the committee found, the violence resulted because "each side assumed the worst about the other and acted accordingly."
The Committee had plenty of criticism for both sides. It criticized Israel’s use of military force, noting that Israel needed to differentiate better between terrorism and protests, and noting that two-thirds of the alleged "attacks" by Palestinians against Israelis did not involve firearms or explosives. The Committee also criticizes Israel’s settlement policy for instigating Palestinian ire. At the same time, the Committee found that the PLO needed to make more efforts to enforce a complete stop of violence and prevent anti-Israeli terrorism.
Tensions and the death toll on both Israeli and Palestinian sides increased over the course of 2001, and the Israel government began taking steps directly against Yasir Arafat. In December 2001, the Israeli government publicly called Arafat an enemy and said he had become irrelevant due to his inability to stop the actions of groups such as Hamas. In March 2002, the Israeli government moved to contain Arafat within his Ramallah headquarters or to force his exile, and began extensive military operations in the occupied territories.
Some Historical Background and Context
Territory that has been dominated by different empires for centuries, the land now known as Israel was previously known as Palestine and was controlled by the Ottoman Empire from the 1600s to the 20th century. Britain then controlled the land as a mandate from 1917 to 1948, at which time the state of Israel was created out of a United Nations partition plan supported by the United States.
From 1948 into the 1970s, Israel fought several wars with its Arab neighbors. However, Israel’s decisive military victory in the 1967 war (known as the Six Days War) and its success in repelling a 1973 attack by Egypt and Syria -- as well as the 1979 Camp David accords that brought peace between Israel and Egypt – have moved the conflict more or less from the military arena to the political. Instead, direct conflict has moved largely to terrorist attacks and internal fighting between Israel and the Palestinians in the occupied territories. Israel began establishing or renewing diplomatic relations with Arab states after the 1993 agreement with the Palestinians, and signed a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994.
Israel has historically received strong support from the United States, beginning first with the United States’ support for the very creation of a Jewish state in 1948. It bought about $8 billion worth of military equipment from the United States from FY 1991 to 2000, though Saudi Arabia and Egypt both bought more equipment over the same period. For more on arms sales, go here.
For a timeline and for more on developments in Israel and the Palestinians, go here.
Sources Report of the Sharm el-Sheikh Fact Finding Committee, April 30, 2001. The United States Department of State maintains a section on the Middle East, available here. The United States Embassy in Israel has collected historical documents (available here) and an ongoing collection of developments (available here). Ahron Bergman and Jihan El-Tahri, Israel and the Arabs: an eyewitness account of war and peace in the Middle East (TV Books 2000). The State Department has a country background report on-line via its website here. Economic information on Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as well as Israeli settlement estimates come from the CIA World Factbook 2001, on-line here. Amnesty International’s report on the first year of the intifada is on-line here.
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