>>Wow! Reading that makes me detest him, too. No wonder you Clinton-haters talk about him the way you do.
Not "haters", just realists.
Here's how Orlando greeted Slick:
Dear Mr. Clinton:
Published in The Orlando Sentinel, September 9, 1998
September 9, 1998
Welcome to Orlando, a community known worldwide
for its emphasis on family activities. Your visit today
presents a needed opportunity to discuss some activities
of yours that have caused families -- both in Orlando
and throughout the country -- some very uncomfortable
moments lately.
Everyone knows that a president has responsibility for
carrying out the laws Congress passes, for commanding
the armed forces and for dealing with foreign nations.
But he has what is perhaps an even more important
responsibility -- standing as the most visible example of
the best that America has to offer.
That, of course, is why children -- like those you will
meet today at Hillcrest Elementary School -- look up to
the president, just as you idolized a president when you
were a young man.
Lately, though, your behavior has not lived up to a
standard that most families would like their children to
emulate. In fact, it has been cause for a great deal of
embarrassment. Young people have been pressing their
parents to explain private, adult matters that have
become an issue only because of the indiscretions you
now have acknowledged.
There's something more basic to the character of a
president, though, that you have forsaken. And, in some
ways, that is even more difficult for parents to explain to
their children: Why would the president lie?
Your defenders respond that everyone lies about sex
and that your sexual activities are a private matter, about
which you shouldn't have been asked in the first place.
And you have lashed out at your inquisitor, suggesting
that he has pursued your indiscretions too aggressively.
But the man asking the questions was appointed by your
attorney general to do just that. And, more important,
because of his questions, you now acknowledge that for
seven months you were lying -- to the American people,
to your advisers and friends, even to your own family. In
addition to the anguish and humiliation that caused, it
also cost taxpayers millions of dollars and ran up huge
legal bills for the close associates you deceived.
So the public is left to wonder: If you would subject all
those people to such humiliation and expense just to
avoid personal embarrassment over what you seem to
regard as a minor matter, what would you be willing to
sacrifice in a crunch? And why should anyone believe
that this won't happen again?
In fact, Mr. Clinton, why should anyone -- including
those children you'll meet today -- believe you, at all?
And, if it's OK for the president to lie, should they have
to tell the truth?
Surely, you see where this leads. And, with an upcoming
report on your activities likely to lead to even more
embarrassing questions for parents to answer, things are
not getting any better.
Spare them that pain. This newspaper called on you
earlier to step down.
Please, Mr. Clinton, do the honorable thing.
orlandosentinel.com
Clinton's slime leaves its
mark
His fabrications are as well-known as his choice of
neckties.
By A.E.P. Wall
Special to The Sentinel
Published in The Orlando Sentinel, September 8, 1998
Florida will welcome more than 40 million visitors this
year, but none will be watched more closely than
President Clinton when he arrives today. Political radar
will zero in on Air Force One, but the black box at the
center of speculation doesn't belong to the plane. It is
the president's personal flight recorder that everyone
wants to examine for free falls, evasive maneuvers and
turbulence.
Not all Central Floridians agree with Buddy MacKay
that Clinton should be allowed to turn his back on the
scandals in order to ''move forward.'' Clinton is flying
here to support MacKay, the Democratic candidate for
governor, but some voters think the trip really benefits
Jeb Bush, the Republican candidate.
Just as Clinton has described his affair with a young
White House intern as ''inappropriate,'' some Central
Floridians will wonder how appropriate it is for this man
to present himself as a role model to children at Hillcrest
Elementary School in Orlando. Will a visit by a president
who rewrote the George Washington fable, telling
everybody he did not cut down the cherry tree, become
a lesson in the cynicism of adults?
The people who live in this part of Florida are a
generally tolerant lot, able to embrace losers in arenas
and stadiums, navigate through anarchy on Interstate 4
and drink water that tastes as though it is piped straight
from the laundry.
But this goes beyond giving the benefit of the doubt
because there is not much doubt that Clinton is a victim
of his own dictionary. An apt paraphrase might be,
''What a tangled Webster we weave when first we
practice to deceive.'' Clinton's definition of sex has not
always corresponded with this from Merriam-Webster's
Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition: ''sexually motivated
phenomena or behavior.''
His fabrications are as well-known as his choice of
neckties. They are under scrutiny to find out whether
they go beyond white lies to damned lies, from classic
denial to perjury.
It is no fun to watch a president coming apart, his
truthfulness in doubt, his personal burden weighing down
the apparatus of government. The preoccupation of the
country with Clinton's afflictions, understood by enemies
everywhere, recalls the blighted last weeks of Richard
Nixon's presidency. There's an eerie hint in Attorney
General Janet Reno's examination of Vice President Al
Gore of the dark side of Nixon's vice president, Spiro
Agnew, although Gore proclaims his innocence and
remains innocent before the law.
Clinton is better-liked than Nixon was during his
melancholy days, perhaps because more Americans
have committed adultery than have busted into a
Watergate office.
Bill Clinton needs help. His famous addiction to fast
food and any other addiction are different because he's
famous. It was after her husband left the White House
that Betty Ford opened up on her personal-addiction
battle by founding the Betty Ford Center in Rancho
Mirage, Calif.
Members of the clergy have been arrested for drunken
driving or hauled in for indulging forbidden fantasies
before turning to Alcoholics Anonymous or other
12-step groups for help. Their prominence makes them
fear that disclosure will lead to exposure.
Why would a cardinal in Vienna resign amid charges of
molesting seminarians? Why would a world-famous
televangelist come unzipped, as it were? Why would a
president known for high intelligence-quotient tests and
Gallup Poll numbers jeopardize his reputation and
maybe his country's safety?
Why all the denial?
One reason is that nobody ever heard of a president or
cardinal spending a few weeks in an addiction clinic and
then returning to work. Anonymity is so basic in
addressing drug, alcohol, food and sexual abuse that it is
part of the name of Alcoholics Anonymous and the
myriad addiction groups it has switched on.
One man might be able to slip away to a 12-step
meeting and declare to the group, ''Hi, my name is Bill,
and I'm an addict.'' But the anonymity would go down
the drain if the Secret Service agents, speechwriters and
White House correspondents in the group all responded,
''Here's mud in your eye, Mr. President.''
A president with pneumonia is better off than a president
with a life-threatening addiction. Pneumonia is
respectable.
The governor of Maryland, Parris Glendening, has
canceled a fund-raiser with Clinton. Some New York
Democrats are hoping the president will put off a party
fund-raiser set for Sept. 14, the night before the New
York primary election.
Nobody knows how many of the Democrats switching
to Jeb Bush for governor are nudged by the president's
character flaws, a feeling that the ship of state is taking
on water. Florida Sen. Bob Graham, saying last Friday
that the president ''does not have a strictly private
dimension to his life,'' seems to agree with other
Democratic leaders that the slime is leaving its mark, like
a slug's trail on a sunny sidewalk.
In the Sunshine State, that's not good.
A.E.P. Wall, long-time journalist, is a member of the
National Press Club and the Overseas Press Club. He
wrote this commentary for The Orlando Sentinel.
orlandosentinel.com |
