Hyde on Clinton's Impeachment

Henry Hyde (R-IL), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee during the Clinton impeachment hearings, was interviewed by ABC News political reporter Andy Shaw. The ABC headline is entitled, "Clinton Impeachment was Retaliation for Nixon, Says Retiring Congressman." This is completely bogus.

When listening to the clip, I noticed a couple things. First, Andy Shaw said that the impeachment of Clinton embarrassed Henry Hyde because it brought attention to his "hypocrisy" many years earlier when he participated in an extramarital affair. (Unsurprisingly, Shaw did not mention anything about obstruction of justice.) Second, Shaw commented on Hyde's retirement, saying that some people on Capitol Hill will miss Hyde's gentlemanly style, but not his "rigid ideology." Why is it that only conservatives have "rigid ideologies?" I have never heard a Democrat disparaged for his rigid ideology - more likely, Democrats are praised for "sticking to their principles."

Finally and most importantly, if you haven't heard or read this headline already, the MSM has found its story for the next week. You will hear it over and over again.

Andy Shaw: Was this payback [for Democrats going after Richard Nixon]?

Henry Hyde: I can't say that it wasn't, but I also thought that the Republican Party should stand for something and if we walked away from this, no matter how difficult, we could be accused of shirking our duty, our responsibility.

Shaw concluded that Hyde's comments have vindicated Democrats for what they have been saying for years: that Clinton's impeachement was due to the "vast right wing conspiracy" and not for any of Clinton's actions. He sounded like a giddy schoolboy when he asked rhetorically about the forthcoming commentary from both sides once his story hit the airwaves.

Just another example of shameless MSM apologetics.