Not ‘Slick Willie,’ it’s ‘Sick Willie’
It is awful tempting to bash Bill Clinton: because he’s a
despicable draft-dodger, a crude and lascivious womanizer, the king of double
talk and (after not inhaling and Gennifer Flowers) a confirmed habitual liar.
One helluva role model for the children of America. It’s just as tempting to
blame the American people for electing a soap-opera president ... albeit under
50 percent both times.
The fact is, we tend to vote for and then defend those who think like us.
The
commander-in-chief’s latest romance-novel escapade may lead to proceedings of
impeachment. Here we have the president of the United States of America, after
a reported affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, allegedly
encouraging her to lie about their relationship under oath during a deposition
involving sexual harassment charges against him by Paula Jones, who claims that
Clinton exposed himself in an Arkansas hotel room.
Nonetheless,
a majority of the American people — until now at least — have admired Clinton,
rationalizing his faults. It’s common to hear that “his personal life is a
private matter.” Well, his private life if not the main point. William
Jefferson Clinton is the leader of the free world, commander-in-chief of the
nation’s Armed Forces (which has had its share of sex scandals recently), and
above all: he’s a role model for the youth of America.
One of the
most powerful forces in the whole animal kingdom is emulation. Mankind is no
exception. It is said that the nightingale cannot perform unless it first hears
a few notes from another nightingale. Bill Clinton sings the nightingale’s song
of America, and it’s not pretty. He’s one sick bird.
The message
this president sends, by example, to the children of America is: lying to
people can be an alternative way to get through life; deceit and double-talk
are manipulative skills to be nurtured; both moral and man-made laws are for
timid souls; and Abe Lincoln was a stooge — honesty isn’t the best policy.
Sometimes
it takes awhile for vindication to work; it took more than five years for
Gennifer Flowers; it may take another year or two for those of us who served in
Vietnam. But I still have faith — however tested at times — that deep down the
early American values that made this nation great will endure. I’m betting on
the iron laws of nature; that truth in the long-term prevails. Always. This
nation was founded on truth, not lies; on duty, not draft-dodging; and on
honesty; not double-speak. Let the proceedings begin. — Lowell Reese, publisher
