Don't know if this was already posted but Jacoby goes to the crux of this whole issue.
A presidency of lies
Jeff Jacoby
August 20, 1998
LIKE HIS MARRIAGE, Bill Clinton's career is built on lies. For as long as
he has been a political figure, he has trafficked in falsehood. He has lied
about things that really mattered and about things that really didn't.
There was the lie about not raising taxes. The lie about not having
inhaled. The lie about China's most favored nation status. The lie -- the
lies -- about Gennifer Flowers.
He lied about filling out his term as governor, he lied about partial-birth
abortion, he lied about being drafted, he lied about nonexistent church
burnings in Arkansas. Those missiles that weren't pointed at America's
children were a lie, and so were the White House Travel Office staffers he
fired "to save money." He was the only president to come to office knowing
something about agriculture, he said. "The Lincoln Bedroom was never 'sold'
" for political contributions, he said. Raw FBI files on hundreds of
Republicans ended up in the White House because of "an honest bureaucratic
snafu," he said. All lies.
As some insects instinctively avoid the light, Bill Clinton instinctively
avoids the truth. Not because he can't control himself -- anyone who can
propel himself from Hope, Ark., to the White House possesses self control
in spades -- but because he has learned that lying pays. He has learned
that he will be rewarded for telling the right lies at the right time, and
that while many will recognize his dishonesty, few will hold him
accountable for it.
Americans know this president is false. On the day he was reelected in
1996, exit pollsters reported that 60 percent of those voting did not
consider Clinton "honest and trustworthy." They reelected him anyway.
Which
is why he treats them with the same contempt he treats his marriage? In a
democracy, the people are entitled to knowingly return a liar to the
highest office in the land. They are not entitled to then demand his
respect.
In the days leading up to Monday's grand jury testimony and late-night
speech, it was predicted that the president was finally going to come clean
about his squalid affair with Monica Lewinsky -- that he would apologize
for having lied so insistently and having gone to such lengths to cover it
up.
But to do that, Clinton would have had to change the habits of a lifetime.
"There is a countervailing instinct in Clinton not to apologize unless he
sees no other choice," one of his biographers, David Maraniss, has written,
"and then to do it reluctantly or halfheartedly. His historic tendency is
to think that his problems are someone else's fault."
So of course he didn't come clean on Monday. He refused to answer some
questions during the grand jury session, he answered others with vague
nonresponses, and he took long breaks to consult with his lawyers. That is
not the behavior of a witness "anxious" to testify "completely and
truthfully," as Clinton described himself on July 31. It is the behavior of
a deceiver struggling to keep up his deceit.
He hasn't apologized. The words "I'm sorry" were not in his speech on
Monday, nor the words "forgive me," nor the words "I'm ashamed." His brief
admission of wrongdoing came across as little more than a prelude to
attacking Kenneth Starr and insisting that "even presidents have private
lives."
And even in the course of belatedly, begrudgingly confessing his seven
months of lies, he lied some more. "My answers," he said of his January
deposition, "were legally accurate."
That was the deposition in which he was asked, "At any time were you and
Monica alone together in the Oval Office?" and he answered, "I don't
recall."
It was the deposition in which he was asked, "Did you have an extramarital
sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky?" and he answered, "No." Those answers
weren't legally accurate. They were legally perjury.
The toadies, the kneejerks, and the Clinton-right-or-wrongers instruct us
to drop the subject now that the president has spoken. For them, nothing
has changed. Starr is still the villain. Clinton's troubles are still the
work of a vast right-wing conspiracy. And it is still an outrage that the
president is being hounded about what is, after all, just sex.
But it isn't just sex.
Bill Clinton lives in the White House, the most awe-inspiring mansion in
America. He flies on Air Force One. He is guarded by the Secret Service.
The Marine Band plays "Hail to the Chief" when he approaches. For six
years, he has been addressed as "Mr. President." Audiences stand when he
enters the room. Radio and TV networks turn over the microphone when he
wants to speak.
And when he wants to go on vacation, Martha's Vineyard millionaires turn
over their homes.
He is lavished with honors, deferred to, fawned over. Not because he is a
man who deserves honor and deference, but because he is the president. He
has the job he sought all his life, and all the glory and privileges that
go with it.
Presidents, even mediocre ones, are indulged and flattered. They are
forgiven much. But at the end of the day, they are expected to behave like
presidents. They are expected not to befoul their office, not to act
dishonorably, not to be jerks or buffoons or lechers. Not even in private.
Not even in their sex lives.
Our long national nightmare is of Clinton's making. He abused his position
shamefully, then jabbed his finger at us and denied everything. Now he has
the gall to say, "Even presidents have private lives."
If he really believed that that was a defense, he would be a fool. But this
president is no fool. He is a liar. And a disgrace.
Jewish World Review contributor Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for the Boston
Globe. |
