I’d like to highlight two stunning flip-flops between the Clinton and Trump impeachments. One is from a political figure: Senator Lindsey Graham, and the second is from a religious figure, Dr. James Dobson, former chair of Focus on the Family. I’m calling a spade a spade, and sometimes I get some interesting blowback on social media for doing so, but we must be able to handle the truth and get out of our damned echo chambers.
Let’s start with Lindsey Graham. During President Clinton’s impeachment, he said the following on a recently surfaced video clip from CSPAN. “Why do you need a witness? The only point we’re trying to make is that, in every trial that there has ever been in the Senate regarding impeachment, witnesses were called…if you take them off the table, the next Judiciary committee, the next Independent Counsel, ought to do everything because they may lose the chance to present their case.” I agree. Let’s hear from the witnesses to follow the established precedents from Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and now Donald Trump.
Dr. James Dobson said of the Clinton Impeachment: “What has alarmed me throughout this episode has been the willingness of my fellow citizens to rationalize the President’s behavior even after they suspected, and later knew, that he was lying. Because the economy is strong, millions of people have said infidelity in the Oval Office is just a private affair–something between himself and Hillary. We heard it time and again during those months: As long as Mr. Clinton is doing a good job, it’s nobody’s business what he does with his personal life.” In other quotes, Dobson didn’t mention the actual charges against Clinton—perjury and obstruction—just his moral turpitude, and that was enough to impeach him. Trump has turpitude in spades, if we hadn’t noticed.
Now Focus on the Family (in the words of Chairman Jim Daly) says the opposite of Dobson. They reject the recent call by Christianity Today that called for Trump’s impeachment, again, mostly for moral turpitude. Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr., Jack Graham, and others echo Focus, and said the same as Dobson in the 1990s, but are saying the opposite (opposing impeachment) now.
How did our mores and standards change so much in twenty years? Does the Bible read differently than it did then? This hypocrisy alarms me more than any other issue among Evangelicals. It speaks of situational ethics and the ends justifying the means, which is something I thought we didn’t do, if it still is a “we” within the Christian church.
All Things Adam 