The President has committed crimes and misdemeanors. While I respect this argumentation, I do not find it compelling. Perjury in this instance has been committed, not only to protect the President from embarrassment, but to deny an American citizen due process under the law. It must be considered a high crime, one against the state, one for which the President should be impeached. The fundamental issue is that no individual is above the law and that democratic governance depends on trust, which in turn depends on truth-saying.
Leadership is a conjunction of good ideas and good character.
One without the other is unsustainable. This is why lying under oath is so serious and why the President's refusal to acknowledge truthfully the factual circumstance that has been established so shatters the moral underpinnings of government. The fact that the President may face liabilities after he leaves office if he states the truth is no excuse for continued obfuscation. The Independent Counsel's probe has been too long, too expensive, and too intrusive. I have great qualms about the seemliness and precedent of some of the tactics of the Independent Counsel's office, particularly the use of and potential resort to further surreptitious tape recordings to gather additional evidence against the President.