Appeal to proportion in the Clinton impeachment trial: Reconciling judgment with disposition

n a press release during the impeachment proceedings against President William Jefferson Clinton, Senator Paul Wellstone paired the ideals of proportion and prudence, concluding that even before the final Senate vote was taken "so many opportunities for the exercise of more prudent and proportionate judgment fell by the wayside" (1999, p. 1). In the closing argument of the Senate trial, Dale Bumpers used the same topos: "[T]he charges brought and the punishment sought are totally out of sync. There is no balance; there is no proportionality" (1999, p. 7). Senator Joe Biden struggled for a name: "You can call this what you will-a sense of proportionality, a sense that the punishment should fit the crime," and he finally settled on the idea of "good sense" (1999, p. 3). Proportion was one of the dominant appeals by the opponents of impeachment and removal over the course of the affair, and almost absent from the rhetoric of the accusers.