Word: gephardt
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...across the country. Every imaginable motive was still at work in "the process," every kind of ugly reckoning is probably still to come, but for once all the players seemed truly struck by the seriousness of the game. In a passionate floor speech before the vote, minority leader Richard Gephardt cried, "May God have mercy on this Congress." It was maybe the one sentiment that could have got a bipartisan vote of approval...
...Washington, meanwhile, baffled and depressed Democrats were making a last struggle to keep Clinton out of the House impeachment trap. Minority leader Gephardt and his staff were trying to persuade other G.O.P. moderates to join Representative Christopher Shays on a visit to Clinton in person, hear him say something like "I lied"--just not those exact words--then emerge from the White House and tell the press he had said it. But there were no moderates moderate enough for that...
That wasn't a promise he could make. At once Livingston came under pressure from G.O.P. hard-liners not to postpone the vote for longer than one day. DeLay and majority leader Dick Armey were especially angry to learn that Livingston had already told Dick Gephardt he would postpone the vote. As a G.O.P. leadership source said, "The new Speaker has to learn that he can't make deals with the Democrats without consulting the elected leadership first." But even some G.O.P. moderates who had come out against Clinton wanted a quick vote before opponents in their districts had time...
...Gephardt who made the Democrats' pre-Christmas offer of peace ring across the capital. "We need to start healing; we need to start binding up our wounds; we need to end this downward spiral that will end with the death of our representative democracy," Gephardt said as he urged in vain for the chance to vote on censure. Linking Livingston with Clinton, Gephardt said, "Our Founding Fathers created a system of government of men, not of angels. We are on the brink of the abyss. The only way we stop this insanity is through the force of our own will...
...vote came, Clinton was closeted with the Rev. Tony Campolo, one of the pastors who have been offering him spiritual guidance this year. And when he emerged from the Oval Office, Hillary had her arm around her husband's as the two of them, along with the Vice President, Gephardt and chief of staff John Podesta, made their way to the Rose Garden, a bare magnolia tree behind them, a darkening gray sky above. Not a single speaker there, not even the President, uttered the word impeachment. Instead, Clinton vowed, with steel in his jaw, to serve until "the last...