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by Aongus Burke |
Bill Clinton is a scumbag. Why people on this campus continue to defend this selfish pig of a man is beyond me. I've given up. There was a time when I was really behind Clinton. That was back when he was a candidate running for president. He seemed to be committed to all the issues that I cared about: education, the environment, reducing military spending, child care, job training and real welfare reform. Hell, he was even committed to issues that I never even knew I cared about. Remember health care reform? But since his election, Clinton has fought for nothing that might cost him a few points in the polls. And what he did with Monica Lewinsky is, in my book, almost inexcusable.
Not long after he was elected into office, Clinton began to alienate a lot of the people who helped get him into the White House. He had been president one month when he began the waffling for which he has now become notorious. The initial issue was the gays-in-the-military controversy. Clinton, whose campaign platform promised to end the armed forces' ban on gay men and lesbians, compromised his stand the second a minority of Republicans in Congress began giving him heat. His ultimate "don't ask, don't tell" policy placated no one. But it was early in his presidency, and this struck me as a minor issue at the time.
From day one, Clinton seemed eager to pursue legislation that would win him the favor of congressional Republicans. The North American Free Trade Agreement was no doubt the best example of this. It was a complete anathema to those on the left who thought the Democrats would never betray the interests of labor. But I was willing to suspended my reservations because I still believed in Clinton. I even professed to my more liberal friends all the arguments for free trade they brainwash you with in Econ 111.
I suppose my real doubts began when Clinton signed the 1994 crime bill into law with the draconian revisions made by Congressional Republicans. The funding allocations of the bill represented a complete betrayal of the progressive principle that the government should attack social problems like crime at the root, not by building more jails. Still, my rationalization that Clinton was the only force keeping the country from completely tipping over to the right, coupled-as I see in retrospect-with a callous indifference for the well-being of those who might be incarcerated, kept me from losing my faith entirely.
Indeed, the Republican Revolution of November 1994 seemed to justify some of those rationalizations. But it wasn't long before I began wondering whether Clinton had completely sold the left out. I mean, even if all you can do is hold the line, you at least put up a fight. You get the other side to grant a couple of concessions. But Clinton was all too willing to sign whatever revolting piece of legislation the Republicans put in front of him. Personally, I decided I could never vote for him or Al Gore after they announced their unqualified support for the Defense of Marriage Act. Clinton alienated most of his remaining supporters on the left when he signed a welfare reform bill that Ronald Reagan would have produced an unusually large mass of drool over.
So I can't understand why so many people on this campus have been so quick to defend this prick in the light of these "allegations" that Monica Lewinsky gave him all those blowjobs. It's not like we all don't know that he did it. But most of us seem to be taking a sort of laissez-faire approach. We liberals are a little ashamed that a Democratic president got caught with his pants down, but we try to laugh it off. As a friend of mine said, "as long as he keeps his doing his job, I don't care where he puts his dick."
erhaps that's fair enough. But even though its not part of the job description, and even though it's hardly the most important function of the office, the president is a moral leader of the nation no matter how you look at it. And Clinton has failed on this one-in a way much bigger than you might initially think.
There are a lot of reasons married people cheat on their spouses. Some situations offer easier grounds for excusal than others. Some infidelty occurs within the context of one-time encounters that might be attributed to the heat of the moment. Longer affairs, especially when men are the cheaters, are often explained with reference to proverbial midlife crisis. Think what you want of these theories or, if you prefer, rationalizations. In any event, it's pretty clear that neither of them can account for what Clinton did.
It would be just about impossible to argue that Clinton was going through a mid-life crisis. He is, after all, the President of the United States-the most powerful man on the planet. And his affair with Lewinsky was not a one-time deal. White House records show that she visited the building over thirty times in the months following the termination of her internship.
Clinton knew exactly what he was doing. It must have occurred to him that what he was doing would be incredibly hurtful to his wife and daughter if they ever found out. Did he really think that, in a setting as closely guarded as the White House, he could be confident that they wouldn't ever find out? But Clinton did it anyway.
Why? My guess is that this comes down to, in one way or another, male entitlement. Clinton feels that, as a man, especially as a successful one, he cannot be expected to restrict the expression of his libido to just a single object-no matter how attractive, intelligent, and worthy his wife might be. This, of course, would seem to be at odds with the Christian beliefs that Clinton has always been so quick to tell us he passionately holds. Word is, though, that back in his Arkansas days Clinton used to say that according to the Bible a man who has oral sex performed on him by a woman other than his wife isn't committing adultery. Interestingly enough, Clinton has been quoted in the press saying that no "improper" sexual relations occured between him and Monica Lewinsky, suggesting that the possibility that he thinks certain kinds of sexual relationships between them could be considered acceptable.
Through what contorted exegesis Clinton arrived at his understanding of oral sex I'll never know. To me, it just goes to show how far some people will go to safeguard their own image in the eyes of the Lord (usually the same people who use the Bible to condemn others -something Clinton isn't above). Now I know that marital infidelity isn't itself grounds for impeachment, and that's probably a good thing. But get with it, Wesleyan, and stop caring about what happens to Clinton in this mess. Stop defending this prick who every day continues to show us how little he's committed to the things most of us care deeply about.