UNCIVIL WAR IN COURTS, CONGRESS; PRECEDENTS SET FOR UNBALANCING OF POWERS COULD BECOME WEAPONS FOR PARTISAN VENDETTAS.

Byline: Steven Hill

WHAT a year 1998 was.

Historic. Dramatic. Precedent-setting. Those are a few of the adjectives that describe it. No, I'm not thinking about the Homeric feats of Mark Maguire or the New York Yankees. I'm talking about that other episode, the Y2K of national politics. It's been a real show-stopper even before the historic Senate trial of President Clinton.

A number of precedents have already been established that, arguably, could have a longer-lasting impact on our democracy than even a president's removal from office would.

Over the past two years, the courts or the Congress have established that:

A sitting president can be subject to a civil lawsuit.

A sitting president's Secret Service protectors can be subpoenaed and forced to divulge what they have witnessed the president say and do.

The president's own legal counsel can be subpoenaed and forced to divulge information, loosening the attorney-client privilege.

An independent counsel has the power not just to investigate, as was the original intent of the law, but also to pursue prosecution and take sides, prompting the current independent counsel's own ethics adviser to resign in protest.

The majority in various congressional committees can use its status to conduct a relentless series of hearings and investigations of political opponents.

No matter what side of the political aisle you sit on, these are disturbing precedents. Future presidents of the United States and others elected to office have been placed in a ``Truman Show''-like fish bowl where anyone with enough money, a team of lawyers, a bit of evidence and a partisan ax to grind may be able to sideswipe high-ranking public officials.

Granted, President Clinton provided his opponents with a lot more than just a bit of evidence. Tragically, his personal behavior has been the stuff of which the wrong kind of legends are made. Cleaner public officials may not provide opponents with so many smears or stains to investigate or file lawsuits against.

Yet these new precedents amount to nothing less than a subtle rewriting of the constitutional balance of powers between the executive and legislative branches. One can envision a future in which partisan politics degenerate into a campaign without end, composed of hearings, trials, subpoenas and headlines. The only moment of peace for the public will be while the partisans are reloading their weapons.

Americans aren't used to such bitter partisanship. We usually think of it as something that happens in other nations: between Irish Catholics and Protestants or Arabs and Israelis. One has the sense that this ``uncivil war'' is occurring more within the Congress than among the American people. Certainly opinion polls showing 70 percent of respondents rallying around their beleaguered president lead to that conclusion.

As President Clinton's trial begins in the U.S. Senate, he may by haunted by visions of past victims of bitter partisan Senate debate: Robert Bork, John Tower, Clarence Thomas, Lani Guinier, William Weld. The Senate is a virtual hit zone for partisan drive-bys and muggings.

Thus far, the Senate maneuverings have been more gentlemanly and less rancorous than those in the House. This demeanor is no doubt fed by the fact that, according to most calculations, the two-thirds majority required for conviction doesn't exist. So for the moment the Republican majority is bending toward the Democratic minority. But is there any doubt that, if some important new piece of evidence arises or the president somehow arouses ire in the Senate, as he did in the House, and momentum builds toward conviction, the collegial atmosphere will evaporate?

Once the case against the president is dispensed with, and Clinton is either gone or the lamest of ducks, is there any doubt that presidential candidate Al Gore and his campaign-finance troubles are next? Attorney General Janet Reno has rejected an independent counsel to investigate Vice President Gore, so no doubt CSPAN and CNN can look forward to a lot more congressional committee hearings designed to probe the vice president's past dealings.

If we were a European-style parliamentary democracy, the governing coalition would have collapsed by now and we would be holding early elections. Perhaps that would be a more graceful solution than the continual wrangling and campaigning, which masquerades as investigating, that we likely will encounter until the presidential election in 2000.

Revenge has always been part of politics, but the new precedents from the courts and Congress have sharpened the weapons of revenge and made them more deadly. Our winner-take-all system has become a take-no-prisoners system. The war drums are pounding. Who will call a cease-fire to this uncivil war?

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Drawing: (Color) no caption (Bill Clinton)

Jorge Irribarren/Daily News