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by J. Jeff Hays "Only God knows how high the ratings will go
if Clinton is convicted in the Senate."
Oh say can you see another Francis Scott Key lurking somewhere along the ramparts of the Potomac watching this assault on the president and the capitol? Someone who, after all the pornography, stink bombs, smut and slime have been flung, will look up some murky dawn to find that "our flag is still there."
Maybe this modern day Potomac poet will also describe the astounding irony unfolding daily in the Lewinsky-Tripp--Starr scandal. Clinton should have been gone long ago, the pundits preach. Conventional wisdom has held for months that the president can’t withstand this unrelenting barrage of humiliation. By now, long-time Clinton haters should be reveling in victory.
But, something happened on the way to the forum. Clinton, though bloodied, is still standing. Newt Gingrich is the one who has fallen and his heir apparent, Bob Livingston, has quit because he admitted to a string of sexual affairs. Yet Republican prosecutors still arrogantly insist that this scandal is about "high crimes and misdemeanors" not about sex. These right wing zealots hurled their verbal brickbats but they missed the president and hit the speaker and the speaker- to- be right between the eyes.
Ordinary citizens may be confused about all this hullabaloo but they have gotten the story right. They know unfairness when they see it. The pundits, on the other hand, are the ones who just don’t get it. These talking heads, who have been wallowing in their Monica stories all day every day for months, just can’t understand why those of us outside the beltway don’t want Clinton removed from office over this.
Clinton has kept a favorable rating of 60 percent from the beginning. Then comes the X-rated Starr Report and the polls climb to 70 percent. Next comes the salacious committee hearings and the polls climb to 75 percent. Impeachment…80 percent. He and Hillary have just been voted the most admired man and woman in the world. Only God knows how high the ratings will go if Clinton is convicted in the Senate.
The message is coming through clearly. Clinton is not being rewarded because he is so good. No, the opposite is true. The righteous right is being shellacked because they are so bad. The president has been lucky to have the likes of Gingrich, Starr, Tripp, Goldberg and the overweening press as his enemies. No fictional writer could have dreamed up such a cast of villains.
In maybe six months when all the garbage is swept out and the halls in the capitol and the White House have been thoroughly disinfected; when the pundits find another scandal to drone on about; when the year 2000 campaigns begin-- the ultimate irony of this bizarre episode will begin to unfold.
When Gingrich led his band of revolutionaries into Congress in 1994 he ended 40 years of Democratic control. Then along came Monica, who looked like manna from heaven guaranteeing Republican majorities far into the future. Now, Gingrich is gone and, after the elections of 2000, his exuberant revolutionaries will be sent home or banned to the back benches. Al Gore, as the president-elect, will usher in another 40 years of Democratic control of Congress.
Even the most startling of O Henry’s tales can not match this irony.
