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Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zoltan! who wrote (4366)	2/3/1998 11:27:00 AM
From: BlueCrab	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20981

Duncan -- <<America is great because Americans are good. When Americans cease to be good, America will cease to be great>> As you well know, de Tocqueville was speaking of Americans in the aggregate. Presidents and most other public figures are not "the aggregate", nor would we want them to be. And George Will's postulation is hilarious not for its truth, but for its lack thereof. Imagine having the temerity to say "America's leadership does well because Americans are good", rather than "American leadership does well because America is strong". Will's reach often exceeds his grasp, and in this case he fell off the ladder.

To: Zoltan! who wrote (4366)	2/3/1998 3:15:00 PM
From: Janice Shell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20981

In de Toqueville's time America wasn't "great". It was a promising, but very young, nation. And what, exactly, did he mean by "good"? Are we still "good" in that sense? Was J. Edgar Hoover, for a long time a symbol of, uh, probity, "good"? Was Nixon "good"? Was Kennedy (let alone his father) "good"? And I don't mean sexually, though two of 'em, and maybe all three, had their own little adventures. But Will isn't following de Toqueville; he's whining superciliously about "vulgarians" and saying, quite absurdly, that tolerance of politicians' sexual peccadillos leads inevitably to totalitarianism. How stupid does he think people are? Let's consider radical Muslims, shall we? Their rule is invariably benevolently democratic and just, no?, sexual puritans that they are? Gee, I really, really wish I lived in Afghanistan or Iran! Toqueville woulda loved the Taleban, I bet! How 'bout Nabokov? His Lolita was a parable of European decadence debauching American innocence and virtue. This seems to me a rather simplistic interpretation of an extremely complex novel. Humbert Humbert wasn't all bad, and Lolita wasn't all good. For starters. One of my favorite books.

To: Zoltan! who wrote (4366)	2/3/1998 3:27:00 PM
From: Janice Shell	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20981

And a further point: Mitterand, as we all know now, had a mistress by whom he had a daughter. There were other women in his life as well. This is "decadence"? You want decadent, I give you Toto Riina, the Mafia boss who genuinely considers himself to be more Catholic than the Pope. He refused to respond to the pentito Buschetta (also a major creep) because B had divorced and remarried. This was convenient for Toto, in a way, but it was also absolutely sincere. So he's "good": religious and uxorious. Never mind that he's ordered the murders of hundreds of people.