Joel Hefley: “as I walked from my office yesterday morning to this chamber, I was almost overcome by the weight of the responsibility…”

“as I walked from my office yesterday morning to this chamber, I was almost overcome by the weight of the responsibility thrust upon us. The idea of having to make a decision on the impeachment of a President is sobering and no one should approach it casually. Mr. Hyde and Mr. Gephardt both did an excellent job of framing the issues, but from that point it was mostly downhill. The debate degenerated into small sound bytes of partisan demigogery interspersed with infrequent moments of lucidity. Many talked of the inappropriateness of proceeding while our troops are in combat, as if we were somehow doing something to impede their efforts. Nonsense! Others, argued that the President's behavior was 'reprehensible', but that censure was the appropriate punishment. No, we are not here to contrive novel types of punishment for the President, or even to decide whether he should be removed from office. We, in this House, are to determine whether enough evidence has been presented to convince us there is substantial cause to believe that the President has committed offenses for which he should stand trial in the Senate. This is our responsibility! No more! No less! One of the themes put forth by a number of speakers yesterday was, 'He who is without sin, cast the first stone' or 'vote' as it were. If this is the criteria, there will be no impeachments, or grand jurys, or trial jurys, for that matter.…”