Overview
Following up on the widely discussed book Judgment Day at the White House, this book looks back on the process surrounding the Clinton impeachment hearings and offers an important retrospective on an event that will long serve as a challenging case study for students of ethics, religion, sociology, and political science.Fackre shows that two often confused conversations went on during the White House controversy—one focused on theological questions of repentance, forgiveness, and accountability to God, the other focused on legal questions of public standards of conduct and accountability in governance. He also points out the many ironies that surfaced during the crisis, from charges of "McCarthyism" deployed by those who suffered from the same in an earlier era to insistence on the separation of private and public morality by those who sought a Congressional censure motion for "reprehensible" personal behavior. Finally, Fackre discusses the lessons learned from the crisis, including a deepened understanding of the meaning of repentance and public wariness regarding the use of religion for ideological ends.