Clinton's State Of The Union address - 26 January 1996

Two American institutions were on display this week, one of which is purely American, the other of which used to be English also, indeed it was invented in England but was abolished. For the first institution, the United States Constitution, debated on and composed in the summer of 1787, says: "He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."

Not all presidents have felt any obligation to muse on the state of the union, at least not in public. And for a century or more, the custom was to send to Congress a written message and have it read out by a clerk. But in our time, by which I mean the time of mass circulation newspapers radio and television, I mean in fact the 20th century, every incoming president knew that the annual state of the union address to Congress was going to be reported to the whole country, not as in the previous centuries, to the few people who could read the few newspapers that were printed.

Roosevelt the second, Franklin, was the first president to take to the radio and to revel in it, because he was a persuasive at times a hypnotic broadcaster. And with the coming of television of course since, everyone secretly fancies himself as an actor. Every president since the Second World War has hastened, so to speak, to expose himself to the largest possible audience as often as possible and the state of the union address is a gorgeous opportunity to have your say for as long as you like without protest or interruption. However, something new happened this time, a precaution that deserves to be called historic.

The 80 odd freshman Republicans who've been the most belligerent soldiers of the Gingrich "revolutionary army", the most unyielding supporters of a budget balanced their way and no one else's, these freshmen were called together on Tuesday morning and given a little warning lecture by a party leader, not about policy but about decorum, how to behave during the president's address. This is not only remarkable, it is unprecedented, but somehow the word got around to the Republican high command in both Houses that some of the Republican freshmen were in a mood to protest openly, maybe to groan at some of the presidents more partisan remarks, possibly to his, or make mocking sounds, which is absolutely against the protocol in either House.

In debates, there is no applause, no booing, very rarely any laughter, with, which is rare in any assembly, passes without a chuckle, but the president state of the union address is a very majestic occasion. A supreme court is there, all the cabinet, the diplomatic core and it has its own well understood protocol. At least, it's been well understood by both Houses for a century or more until the arrival last year of the Republican young Turk, the first time congressman, they have introduced into the House debates, notably disturbing signs of rudeness and temper, which have upset the old timers and for the first time in memory, the good behaviour of some congressmen was in doubt. To everybody's relief nothing happened.

On Tuesday evening as the Democrats and their families and the gallery rose mechanically and applauded mechanically 74 times, the young Republicans followed their elders, they either literally sat on their hands or glowered like puzzled owls at the hullabaloo going on around them. The address itself, the most striking note of it was the president's shoplifting of many of the slogans the Republicans have had on display since they took over both houses in 1992: an end to a big government, a tax break for the middle class, tough penalties on young criminals, a balanced budget.

Mr Clinton sounded for all the world like an old liberal Republican, talk about moving to the centre from which point most elections are won. Mr Clinton sounded most of the time like anything but an old or a new Democrat. When the whole glittering pack was assembled, and just before the president started to speak, many eyes were turned to the front row of the gallery where Mrs Clinton sat with her daughter Chelsea. Mrs Clinton is the subject, or object, of the second American institution that came into the spotlight this week. For the first time in history, a president's wife has been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury. Would the president ignore this strange some say humiliating precedent? Of course he did not, he didn't mention the cause but at one point he looked up to the gallery and paid tribute to the support he'd had from a wonderful wife, a magnificent mother and a great first lady.

We talked last time about the first ladies who down through the 200 years of the republic had been criticised for not staying in the background preferably in the kitchen, the sitting room and the nursery of the White House and behaving as a good president's wife should. And how is that?

Well I went into the very different ways that first ladies have defied the domestic stereotype, indeed there have been so many departures from what each succeeding generation thinks off as the norm, that the rebel first lady is really the norm, so many of them I didn't even have time to mention Florence Harding, the strong wife of a weak, poker playing, amiable ladies man, a first lady who rewrote the presidency inaugural address, who passed on cabinet appointments, who fed him – because she was more intelligent than he was – the policies he came to espouse. And how about Mrs Woodrow Wilson who for 18 months was positively in charge in the White House, who alone decided who should be allowed to see the president and who shouldn't, while the vast majority of the people didn't know it, the president sat paralysed in shaded rooms.

And what is Mrs Clinton's dereliction? Mainly, though it's almost forgotten now, that she was given the job at the beginning of creating the presidents program for a national health insurance system. Of course it should have been done by a cabinet officer or some other imminent public figure heading a presidential commission and the plan was enormous, over elaborate, impossible to simplify and likely to create more bureaus than it was intended to destroy. It fell apart with a heavy thud. It was a mistake. But Mrs Clinton's subpoena has nothing to do with her political interference, it is to try and find out how much work she did 10 years ago on a building society that went bust and on a real estate firm of questionable integrity.

The records, files, documents, bills, tax returns and so on, many many thousands of them have come out in driblets whereas the Senate committee looking into the chances of fraud say that they should have been turned over years ago. Two sets of documents that record Mrs Clinton's legal work on these dubious projects have only just been released, they showed up in the White House not in Arkansas or in the files of the accused company managers.

On Tuesday then came the news that Mrs Clinton had been summoned to appear not before the Senate committee but before a federal grand jury, which has been called to see if anyone in the White House obstructed justice in handling the records of Mrs Clinton's former law firm a grand jury. It's always a shock to Americans to have to explain the phrase and the function of an institution invented in England no later than the 15th century I think, but which was abolished there in 1933.

The original idea was a noble one. Before there were permanent regional courts in England, judges rode off from capital cities, on circuit as they said. A judge would arrive in Nottingham say, to listen to a charge of robbery with intent to murder against say, John Spook, and the judge of course didn't know John Spook, but the practice grew of inviting John Spook's neighbours 15 in some places, 23 here, to be questioned to say whether they thought John Spook was likely or not to commit such a crime. If the charge was ridiculous they said so and the man was let go. If it was credible then the grand jury voted to indict him for a probable cause, which meant that he ought now to be tried by a regular jury.

In England, I think the death nail of this system was sounded by the late brilliant waspish and long forgotten character F.E. Smith when he was Lord Chief Justice Birkenhead, he made a brilliant mocking speech, as was his wont, just before I think the First World War in which he pointed out, that to put a suspect through a preliminary hearing in the presence of his neighbours was a good idea when the neighbours numbered a few hundred, but that to choose a score or so residents of a city of seven millions, and pretending they knew him as neighbours, was ridiculous.

20 years later Britain abolished the grand jury system leaving the question of whether a suspect should go to trial, to a magistrate or a tribunal. But in the United States, the grand jury system flourishes. I ought to say now before you read lurid testimony at Mrs Clinton's hearing that the grand jury is absolutely the creature of the prosecutor, usually of the district attorney, a witness cannot have a lawyer present nor call witnesses in his or her defence, you hear only the prosecution side and if you were to be indicted then the headlines would flare – first lady indicted! And I've always been astonished to find how many Americans, educated Americans, think that indicted is an early form of conviction. All it says is, perhaps there's a case here, let's have a trial. It's worth remembering that when Mrs Clinton's testimony is reported. Oh incidentally, the grand jury's hearings are supposed to be secret and it's record un-publishable – that's just another courtesy that has gone by the board.

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