It's the moooost wonderful tiiime of the yeeeear!

Why is that? Not because it's almost Thanksgiving or Christmas, but because its always around this time of year that I begin teaching my 8th graders about the Constitution, and that usually means having to gingerly explain the circumstances of Bill Clinton's impeachment without getting myself in trouble.

Today, I began teaching my 8th graders about Article I of the Constitution, which lists the qualifications, responsibilities, and powers of Congress. Included in that list is the power of impeachment. The natural thing to do as a teacher is to give examples of impeachments that have happened in our country's history, and since there are only two presidential examples, its a little hard to ignore 50% of the occurrences. That, and since Clinton is such a recent (and still popular with my students) president, his name invariably comes up in the class conversation, where students want to know what he did to get impeached.

Remember, I am talking to 8th graders here, but to truly get them to understand the gravity of Clinton's offenses, I refuse to fully sugar coat what he did. What I tell them is that when he was governor of Arkansas, he had some of his underlings bring to his hotel room a woman who had caught his eye. That woman was Arkansas state employee Paula Jones. I tell the students that Clinton exposed himself to her, but I don't have the stones to add that he told her to "kiss it."

I then tell my students that because of this incident, Paula Jones sued Bill Clinton for sexual harrassment, and the suit was still going forward when he became president. Then I go into the perjury charges where he lied under oath in an effort to conceal his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and how his lies led to the case being dismissed.

Then things get really fun when I tell my students how the case was reinstated when evidence was introduced that proved there really was a relationship between Clinton and Lewinsky, thus proving that Clinton was committing perjury.

"What was the evidence, Mr. Chanman? What was the evidence?" Well kids, there was this blue dress...."

Damn you, Bill Clinton.

Good Day to You, Sir