Reportage of an anti-intellectual hate rally:
December 16, 1998
. . . While His Supporters
Blame 'Swiny People'
By Bret Louis Stephens, the Journal's assistant editorial features
editor.
NEW YORK--Pay heed. The U.S. is about to experience a "coup d'etat,"
sponsored by tobacco and insurance companies, for the purposes of
avenging George Bush's 1992 defeat. It will be carried out by the
"sociopaths who run Congress" and their lackeys. The assault is scheduled
for tomorrow or the day after.
I learned of these facts on Monday night from the actor Alec Baldwin at a
well-attended rally/teach-in held at New York University by an ad hoc
group calling itself Americans Against Impeachment. The group, organized
last weekend by NYU law professor Stephen Holmes and social critic Paul
Berman, assembled an impressive cast: Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel
spoke first, novelist Toni Morrison last, and in between the audience heard
from novelist E.L. Doctorow, Sen. Bob Toricelli (D., N.J.), feminist Gloria
Steinem, JFK daughter Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and historian Arthur
Schlesinger Jr., among other notables.
The tone these leading intellectuals adopted
was not as high-minded as one might have
hoped. The moderator, journalist Michael
Tomasky, praised "right-thinking Americans:
all of you, all of us." Where did that leave
wrong-thinking Americans? They were,
according to Eleanor Roosevelt biographer
Blanche Wiesen Cook, "filthy mean-minded
swiny people." Or, as Ms. Morrison put it
with admirable fluency, "an arrogant
theocracy genuflecting at the knees of a
minority. . . as sinister as [they are] toxic."
The meeting provides a glimpse at the unalloyed rage among the president's
defenders as the unthinkable--his impeachment--draws nigh. But in fairness,
I should point out that the evening's remarks weren't all negative. The
assembled literati lavished praise on Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, who has come
out against impeachment. Princeton historian Sean Wilentz, last seen before
the Judiciary Committee castigating House Republicans for "cravenness,"
placed Mr. D'Amato in the GOP pantheon alongside Abe Lincoln, Teddy
Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. Mr. D'Amato, who lost his re-election
bid to Judiciary Committee Democrat Charles Schumer, no doubt wonders
where all these supporters were on Election Day.
Like the White House itself, the NYU assembly was puzzled by one aspect
of the impeachment drive: With facts, logic, justice, the Constitution, the
past, the future and 63% of the country on their side, why aren't they
carrying the day? "Why hasn't the majority spoken up?" demanded Mr.
Berman. Ms. Morrison blamed Christmas shopping, but other speakers
were more or less at a loss. At any rate, they resolved to hold more
meetings, where, as the legal scholar Ronald Dworkin of Oxford and NYU
put it, "we can stand up and yell."
The speakers did not give Mr. Clinton a complete pass. Not for a minute.
Mr. Baldwin, who probably will not get called as an expert witness in the
Microsoft trial, could not forgive Mr. Clinton for "rolling back anti-trust
regulation."
Mr. Wiesel didn't voice a view on antitrust policy but he did volunteer that
the Jewish tradition forbids public humiliation, and that the U.S. Constitution
forbids cruel and unusual punishment. Thus, was not the whole
impeachment process unconstitutional on that account alone, and immoral to
boot?
One can't fault these intellectual giants for lacking imagination. Mr.
Doctorow foresaw "the president of the United States being dragged
through the town by a pickup. . . . Not only Mr. Clinton, but all of us, are
being dragged with him." Mr. Toricelli gave a rousing speech on how the
nation's stability was at risk and big tobacco is behind it all. Ms.
Schlossberg despaired that the impeachment process was turning her kids
off from politics (what will the nation do if Kennedy offspring aren't in
politics?). Former Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore trembled for the
"thousands, perhaps millions, of people whose lives will be in jeopardy" if
Mr. Clinton is not on the job.
Yet the speakers suggested Republicans were the crazy ones. "A sexual
madness is at the root of this otherwise incomprehensible opposition to Bill
Clinton," declared novelist Mary Gordon. And whereas Ms. Morrison had
previously opined in The New Yorker that Bill Clinton is our first black
president, Ms. Gordon had a different explanation: She argued that Mr.
Clinton was in fact our first female president, and that his "libidinal" nature
inspired right-wing "phobia." What next--Mr. Clinton as our first gay
president?
The evening did have its bright spots. Mr. Schlesinger (a member of this
page's Board of Contributors) wondered, reasonably enough, if Mr.
Clinton's impeachment would inaugurate an era of congressional
governance, as Andrew Johnson's impeachment and Richard Nixon's
resignation had. Mr. Wilentz, backpedaling from his vituperative earlier
congressional testimony, allowed that "the men and women of the majority
are principled, deeply principled." But these were lonely outbursts of sanity
in a sea of snarls, raised fists, self-congratulation and demonization of those
who dared to disagree.
After I had left the raised voices of the meeting far behind, I wondered: Is
there some deeper meaning in the fact that even Mr. Clinton's most
intellectual defenders are not able to construct a persuasive defense of his
conduct? Perhaps if they toned down their passion, whatever logic there is
to their position might come to light.
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