Notes

In its modern meaning, impeachment means charging a public official before a competent tribunal with misconduct in office. However, as practice shows, many people misunderstand this term; they presume that impeachment means an official’s, particularly, the President’s removal from their office. Impeachment could be defined as a procedure of accusing an official of a certain misconduct and, in relation with this, claiming distrust in them, but without a necessary removal of this official from his or her respective office. According to Article II of the Constitution of the United States, among such misconducts are treason, bribery, and other high crimes.

At the same time, for the U.S. President to be removed from office, a majority of the House of Representatives must vote on the Articles of Impeachment, which is almost the same as a prosecution for a crime. The actual removal from the office can occur only when two-thirds of the Senate vote for it. The history of the U.S. has cases when Presidents have been impeached, but were still not removed from their cabinets. Impeachment today is a contentious topic for America. Several officials the former governor of Alaska and the current Lieutenant Governor of Texas have called for an impeachment of the U.S. President Barack Obama. However, impeachment does not necessarily mean removal of an official from office. Impeachment is a procedure of accusing an official of a certain misconduct and, in relation with this, claiming distrust in them.

The removal from the office, however, can occur only when two-thirds of the Senate vote for it on the initiative of the House of Representatives. "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." This is the oath that Bill Clinton took before he entered the office of President of the United States. And yet he perjured himself in a court of law. In Article 2 Section 4 of the Constitution explains an impeachable offense as treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. Perjury is a felony. So why is it that people feel the president shouldn't be impeached, does he stand higher than the Constitution? That would be my impression if I was a foreigner, that the leader of this country is above the law. Some people say that perjury is not enough to impeach the president. Yet any normal U.S. citizens would be sent to jail for a few years for lying in a court of law. How is it that a regular citizen would be sent to jail and the president

The Senate is required to decide whether changes are brought by the HOR to merit removing from office and to disqualifying him or her from holding other offices or titles. The process opens in various ways through the House. In one process, the House votes on an inquiry of impeachment which would direct the Judiciary Committee to investigate the charges against the president. If a member of Congress takes the more serious step of introducing a resolution of impeachment, all other work must stop until a decision is reached.

Either the president is cleared of the charges through an investigation, or the committee votes to send articles of impeachment to the full House. If the House approves articles of impeachment, a trial is conducted in the Senate, presided over by the chief justice of the Supreme Court. At the conclusion, the Senate may vote to simply remove the official from office, or to remove him or her from office and bar from holding any other federal office. Removal requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate.


Perhaps the biggest presidential scandal since the Nixon administration came to light in January 1998. This is when the now infamous Monica Lewinsky first appeared on our television sets. The American population did not know Ms. Lewinsky until the scandal broke. After the media was informed of the activities between President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky the little known woman was instantaneously the topic of conversation all over the world. The intention of this paper is not to figure out who was right or wrong in the scandal, the reasoning behind it is to show how the mass media shapes and implements our own ideas and opinions about people. Every opinion we have is somehow related to who and what we see around us.

The way that these things are portrayed on television or in magazines influences our overall attitude towards them. In many situations we have only the media to rely on when learning about certain events. Sometimes you can check more than one source to get a different opinion, but more times than not the overall image generated by all media platforms of a person or event is very similar. In this sense it is very hard sometimes to get a fair perspective of the occurrences. The views that the American public has towards Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky have been directly affected by how the mass media portrayed each individual.