Long-standing American values and those that held them have been systematically trashed by the President and the people he surrounds himself with.
Really? Which values are those (seriously)?
I ask because you seem to assume that Clinton is much worse than other current and recent politicians of both parties, and I don't see it. Is it the sexual hanky-panky that's bothering you? That's hardly new. Is it the constant political spin? Surely not; Reagan was at least as good at it as Clinton. Is it lying to the American people? Well, I don't like that either, but Carter is the only president in my lifetime (back through Kennedy) that I can not recall lying, and he was hardly the most effective President we've had.
I'm really serious. Note that I'm not asking you to explain how Clinton is not a moral paragon; that would be easy. I'm asking you to explain how he's much worse than his predecessors -- or how his political actions (not the personal ones) are worse than some of the cynical posturing we're currently seeing from the Republicans in Congress. It doesn't count to explain that you have policy differences with Clinton; we have a mechanism (elections) for resolving policy differences.
If I'm personally at all representative of an American center -- and I just might be -- then the Republicans are badly overplaying their hand. I really don't like some of Clinton's obvious character flaws; but I don't think they've hurt the country that much (or wouldn't have, if determined political opponents hadn't gone after his personal life). On the contrary, he's steered the ship of state fairly competently these past six years. Granted, the waters have been pretty calm, but he's basically done all right. Whoever it was on this list who said that in Clinton's six years, the United States has gone from being a great nation to being the laughingstock of the world ... well, just sees the world pretty differently from most of us.
On the other hand, I really get turned off by the zealotry coming from the right. There is an extremism of tone, and a mania for prosecution and inquisition, that really disturb me. I'm for family values; I have two young sons, and I'm doing everything I can to raise them right and be a good father. I look at the Clintons, who at least have kept their family together and seem genuinely close to each other, despite Bill's serious marital failings; then I look at Dan Burton, who calls Clinton a "scumbag", and then acknowledges that he has fathered a child out of wedlock, whom he doesn't see, and whom he refers to repeatedly in his press conference as "the child" (not "my son" or "my daughter"). I know who comes closer to my notion of family values.
Ditto the unseemly haste to publish the Starr report, and now the grand jury videotape. These guys are on a crusade; and crusades are bad for democracy. I liked them a lot better when they had ideas. If they ever get some again, I'd consider voting for them; but not until then. |
