One of the more hilarious sub-texts of
this election season is what I call Monica’s Revenge.
As in
Lewinsky.
Ms. Lewinsky herself is 32 now, old enough
(maybe) to have a chuckle herself about it. She blew the President, and with
it the Presidency. I still can’t forgive Bill for that. But most
Americans eventually concluded that getting a hummer from a 22-year
old intern was not an impeachable offense, even if he lied about it.
And the parade of sanctimony that
followed! "You can’t lie in the jury,” is the way one Florida
Congressman put it.
The Senate has "been able to take the partisanship out of this
issue, and I think that frightens the White House” intoned a
Senator from Idaho.
Voting for impeachment would be "one of the saddest moments in
our nation’s history” said the gentleman from Arizona, just before
voting aye. The gentleman from Illinois solemnly voted for
impeachment despite the fact his district had voted for Clinton.
Those weren’t the highlights then. But
they are now.
Flash forward 8 short years. It seems
that La Cage Aux Foley has coincided with the opening of a whole
bunch of Republican closets. Let’s see what we have here:
-
There’s the guy who not only hid
his affair, but was accused of choking his mistress.
This is, if anything, mild stuff. (Barely worth mentioning in fact.)
-
How about the conservative,
gay-bashing Senator outed as gay a few weeks before the election? -
How about the Arizona Congressman
found to have taken male pages on “camping trips” a few years
before coming out of the closet himself? -
Or the guy who married into a
dictator’s family and then “did” a 16-year old page?
I’m not counting here the Republican candidate for
Florida governor getting outed,
or the whole “velvet mafia”
that was secretly running the Republican House of Representatives.
And remember there are still over two weeks to go.
Almost makes a schadenfreude fan want to open a newspaper.
Where this gets funny is when the same
conservatives who damned Clinton to political hell come out in
defense of these pervs. They do it too!
What is the justification for this, other than to embarrass someone? What we need now is a bipartisan government of national unity.
Puh-leeze.
Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it? It was said during
the Lewinsky mess that tragedy often repeats as satire, relating the
Clinton impeachment to Watergate. I never dreamt then that it could
be topped. But it seems that some of the same Congressmen who
condemned that President’s behavior, and his hiding of it, were
secretly doing much worse things themselves.
If that doesn’t make you laugh out loud
this November 7 nothing will.
Dana, President Clinton was impeached and tried for lying in a deposition, not for getting a hummer. Whether or not a sitting President should be suable while President is a worthy question. Perhaps on reflection, and especially how that all played with Al Queda and President Clinton’s credibility to deal with them, we should decide that certain elected members of government should not be suable while in office, and perhaps background checks of appointed officials need to tease these problems out.
But once a court decides the President can be the target of a civil suit while in office, the President can’t lie in a deposition. That’s criminal. The metaphysical “impeachable” part of it was that his administration was going overboard with workplace enforcement of sexual harassment rules, and there he was, the Harasser in Chief (allegedly) lying about it when he got sued.
Impeachment may have been an overreaction, BUT, it is intellectually dishonest to claim that it went down because Monica did. Absent Paula Jones (and perceived bureaucratic retribution against Linda Tripp), Monica Lewinsky would never have escaped the tabloids.
Dana, President Clinton was impeached and tried for lying in a deposition, not for getting a hummer. Whether or not a sitting President should be suable while President is a worthy question. Perhaps on reflection, and especially how that all played with Al Queda and President Clinton’s credibility to deal with them, we should decide that certain elected members of government should not be suable while in office, and perhaps background checks of appointed officials need to tease these problems out.
But once a court decides the President can be the target of a civil suit while in office, the President can’t lie in a deposition. That’s criminal. The metaphysical “impeachable” part of it was that his administration was going overboard with workplace enforcement of sexual harassment rules, and there he was, the Harasser in Chief (allegedly) lying about it when he got sued.
Impeachment may have been an overreaction, BUT, it is intellectually dishonest to claim that it went down because Monica did. Absent Paula Jones (and perceived bureaucratic retribution against Linda Tripp), Monica Lewinsky would never have escaped the tabloids.
Friday Mini Blogroll!!
Friends are in town for Homecoming, and I’m going to work late…probably not late enough to pull off the regular huge blogroll, but hey…something’s better than nothing (which is what you’ve been getting from me lately), right?
Is it your position that gayness per se is a moral blot? Because I think I’d have a really hard time with that position, as I do with those who appear to be trying to blur the line between sexual predation by older adults on teenagers (in whatever gender combination), and being gay or lesbian.
Is it your position that gayness per se is a moral blot? Because I think I’d have a really hard time with that position, as I do with those who appear to be trying to blur the line between sexual predation by older adults on teenagers (in whatever gender combination), and being gay or lesbian.
John, I think Dana’s “thesis” is that gayness while not being a liberal is a moral blot. “Self-hating” and all that. Kinda like being black or Hispanic while not being a liberal. If Dana and his political allies could find a way to out these non-liberal minorities as minorities, I’m sure they would. Hey, did you know that Michael Steele guy running for Senate in Maryland is, um, shhhhh, black?
Republicans though, have turned their Foley problem into an asset. The new slogan that’s rallying the base:
We may be a bunch of middle aged closet homo perverts, but our staffers aren’t leaking sensitive intelligence documents.
John, I think Dana’s “thesis” is that gayness while not being a liberal is a moral blot. “Self-hating” and all that. Kinda like being black or Hispanic while not being a liberal. If Dana and his political allies could find a way to out these non-liberal minorities as minorities, I’m sure they would. Hey, did you know that Michael Steele guy running for Senate in Maryland is, um, shhhhh, black?
Republicans though, have turned their Foley problem into an asset. The new slogan that’s rallying the base:
We may be a bunch of middle aged closet homo perverts, but our staffers aren’t leaking sensitive intelligence documents.
Or is it the Clinton defenders who are hypocrites? Aren’t these the same people who went after Clarence Thomas (even if all of Anita Hill’s allegations were true that wasn’t sexual harassment)yet Paula Jones’s (who passed a polygraph)allegations were definetly harassment? Or perhaps lying is the offense but not what they are lying about? Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation in the Plame matter was unnecessary. He and just about everyone knew who disclosed Valerie Plame to Robert Novack yet Scooter Libby was convicted for obstruction in the matter. I could go into a lengthy rant and cite many instances of hypocricy by Democrats in this area. Ask yourself could any Republican, take George W. Bush for example, have gotten away with all of the Clinton scandals? When you have answered that you will know who the biggest hypocrites are.
Or is it the Clinton defenders who are hypocrites? Aren’t these the same people who went after Clarence Thomas (even if all of Anita Hill’s allegations were true that wasn’t sexual harassment)yet Paula Jones’s (who passed a polygraph)allegations were definetly harassment? Or perhaps lying is the offense but not what they are lying about? Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation in the Plame matter was unnecessary. He and just about everyone knew who disclosed Valerie Plame to Robert Novack yet Scooter Libby was convicted for obstruction in the matter. I could go into a lengthy rant and cite many instances of hypocricy by Democrats in this area. Ask yourself could any Republican, take George W. Bush for example, have gotten away with all of the Clinton scandals? When you have answered that you will know who the biggest hypocrites are.
After 40 years of being told by your political leaders that "Republicans can do no wrong and Democrats can do no good" I'm not surprised to read your assumptions.
They just happen to be wrong. Every one of them.
The Clintons were hated because they represented a successful anti-thesis to the Nixon Thesis, which Reaganism validated. They challenge your assumptions, so the response is to project on them your fears and dehumanize them. Guess where you learned that? From politicians you respected.
Regardless of how Bush Jr. was selected, it was a near-historical inevitability. Excess always follows the anti-thesis. We go back to the old assumptions until they make no sense at all in terms of the problems being confronted. Lyndon Johnson had no answer to the 1960s, Hoover none for the Great Depression. Reagan-era assumptions got us into Iraq, and his assumptions that "government is always bad" turned Katrina into the disaster it became.
In the end, all principles evolve into ideologies. That's when they become useless as guides to policy.
All this forced many Americans — maybe 10% — to question their own assumptions and seek new ones. That's enough to turn your majority into a fairly permanent minority.
The assumptions of Nixon, of Reaganism, and of Bush are dead. Completely, permanently, irretrievably dead. Until the Republican Party gets that fact through its head it's going nowhere.
You're never going to achieve political dominance again. Ever. And for this I am very thankful.
Dana
After 40 years of being told by your political leaders that "Republicans can do no wrong and Democrats can do no good" I'm not surprised to read your assumptions.
They just happen to be wrong. Every one of them.
The Clintons were hated because they represented a successful anti-thesis to the Nixon Thesis, which Reaganism validated. They challenge your assumptions, so the response is to project on them your fears and dehumanize them. Guess where you learned that? From politicians you respected.
Regardless of how Bush Jr. was selected, it was a near-historical inevitability. Excess always follows the anti-thesis. We go back to the old assumptions until they make no sense at all in terms of the problems being confronted. Lyndon Johnson had no answer to the 1960s, Hoover none for the Great Depression. Reagan-era assumptions got us into Iraq, and his assumptions that "government is always bad" turned Katrina into the disaster it became.
In the end, all principles evolve into ideologies. That's when they become useless as guides to policy.
All this forced many Americans — maybe 10% — to question their own assumptions and seek new ones. That's enough to turn your majority into a fairly permanent minority.
The assumptions of Nixon, of Reaganism, and of Bush are dead. Completely, permanently, irretrievably dead. Until the Republican Party gets that fact through its head it's going nowhere.
You're never going to achieve political dominance again. Ever. And for this I am very thankful.
Dana