Now that the Democrats have impeached Donald Trump, journalists seem to think the process is a form of defending democracy. But that wasn’t always so. It used to make you something akin to the KKK. Eleven years ago this week, on January 9, 1999, The McLaughlin Group panelist Eleanor Clift began by deriding the idea of witnesses, saying of then-President Bill Clinton and the Senate impeachment trial: “I think there are real questions about separation of powers and I don’t think he [Clinton] should go up there [appear before the Senate].”

She then slimed, linking the impeachment managers to a domestic terror group like the Klan: “And second of all, that herd of managers from the House, I mean frankly all they were missing was white sheets. They’re like night riders going over.”

Obviously, journalists no longer feel this way now that Trump is the one being impeached. On December 19, 2019, Rachel Maddow hailed, “This is not a dream,” gushing of Democrat Adam Schiff’s “incredible time.”

Here’s the original quote in full:

“I think there are real questions about separation of powers and I don’t think he [Clinton] should go up there [appear before the Senate]. And second of all, that herd of managers from the House, I mean frankly all they were missing was white sheets. They’re like night riders going over.”

— Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift, January 9, 1999 McLaughlin Group.

For more examples from our flashback series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.