The Curtain Is Falling on a Bad Actor

Conspicuously missing from the wailing by President Clinton’s last-ditchers about the “ordeal of impeachment” is an honest acknowledgment of the ineluctably obvious causation of the “ordeal.” The omission is not accidental. Passing a lawbreaker’s blame onto someone else comes naturally to liberals.

As regards Clinton’s handling of this wrenching marathon, he has never been shrewder in his manipulation of the American psyche. The hunched shoulders and practiced lip-biting to feel our national pain have been well-honed pretenses used to obscure that his was the virus which first infected the body politic.

Nevertheless, the carnage that is now the presidency of William Jefferson Clinton is the tragic, but predictable, denouement of his own reckless squandering of opportunity.

Marking this past year--and truly his entire tenure--has been the enormity of Clinton’s energy to fight for the cause of . . . himself. Wriggling to escape the reach of justice, no political artifice has been overlooked; no privilege too bizarre to invoke; no slander against opponents too obscene. And when cornered, the gut-fighter emerged as Clinton brought on private investigative forces to protect his underbelly through the ugly exposure of others’--confirming that he’s surely as proficient in applying pain as in feeling it.

It became routine for the White House to wheel out its attackers and haters to deny the emperor’s nakedness. White House staffers, Cabinet members, political thugs and the president’s lawyers themselves have been single-minded in defending Clinton’s deceit even though they were among its first victims. This incongruity did not faze them.

One senses there is a perverse pleasure among those who comprise the Clinton pile-driver as they pound senseless the reputations of honorable lawyers and officeholders. These character assassins serve to preserve in power he who has no character.

If this past year Clinton had committed the same ruthless determination to thwarting Saddam Hussein as he did to Ken Starr, last week’s “Wag the Dog” action wouldn’t have been needed.

Baldly in contempt of us and coldly exploitative of those histrionic loyalists who, in denial, haul the freight of his lies, Clinton has proved a formidable opponent even if he is unworthy of his opposition. Thus, it’s more the pity that the gift of his talent and the obvious skills of his statecraft have been applied so masterfully to self-indulgence and political conquest instead of the commonweal.

Remarkably, none of this national explosion has caused his defenders to flinch. Over the months and throughout the debate over impeachment, Clinton’s protectors--in their very own words--have denounced him and his conduct as “reprehensible,” “despicable,” “disgusting” and “indefensible.” Some admit he lied to the judiciary; others charge he abused his trust, disregarded his obligations as a law-abiding American and cynically lied to the American people.

And still they’re eager to proclaim the man described above fit to lead the greatest nation on Earth and to defend the document whose majesty and principles were shattered by his perfidy.

But to paraphrase Winston Churchill: We Americans did not come across the centuries of struggle, carve out wildernesses, conquer rugged prairies and triumph over dictators and civil division because we are made of cotton candy.

Whatever the final impeachment outcome, the patriots whose names America barely knew until these last months rose to the occasion. Americans always do.

In the face of unremitting attack and ridicule and the spewing of partisan contempt, they brought forth the bill of particulars: a damning document of this president’s betrayal of high honor. Not all did their duty; but those who saw it did. Henry Hyde would endure much--but never the intentional and premeditated assault on the rule of law which demarcates us from banana republics.

And despite conventional wisdom that the U.S. Senate would never find this president guilty, my guess is that Clinton’s sensitive political radar detects his worst fear--that in the clutch of history, politicians become statesmen.

When the president dedicated the FDR Memorial a few months back, I wonder if he noticed Roosevelt’s words carved into one of the massive stone walls there: “I never forget that I live in a house that is owned by all the American people and that I have been given their trust.”

It probably wouldn’t have made a difference.