[CNSnews] Seventeen years ago, as a Republican-controlled Senate concluded its impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., expressed her concerns about how future generations would perceive what had happened.Feinstein -- along with every other Senate Democrat and five Republicans -- voted on Feb. 12, 1999 that Clinton was "not guilty" of either of the two Articles of Impeachment the House brought against him.
"Clinton acquitted but tarnished forever by impeachment," said an Associated Press headline the next day.
"[T]he Senate, with Democrats solidly in his camp, acquitted him on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice," said the AP story.
But Feinstein had recruited 37 other senators, including some Republicans, to co-sponsor a resolution she hoped the Senate would pass to "censure" Clinton.
"[D]uring these trying days," Feinstein said, according to the Congressional Record, "the question has been asked of many of us: 'What will we tell our children about this sordid period in our Nation's history?'"