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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (24317)	12/23/1998 4:28:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

Send Out the Clowns nytimes.com Would that we could, but that would leave DC a ghost town. The more particular reference is to the White House press Christmas party, which apparently wasn't the lavish affair this year that it normally is. I waited in still another line, trying to snag an eggnog while a singer on stage warbled badly about putting on "your bright red jammies." I couldn't help but dream of the giant buffet tables of White House Christmases past, those platters heaped with shrimp and succulent lamb chops, and agree with my friends that this party was the Clintons' revenge on us. Feet aching and deprived of sustenance, I thought about all the other things that have gone crazy this year. Feminism is ruined. That was clear once again when that self-styled feminist iconette, Geraldine Ferraro, pitched in to help the President on the impeachment vote by lobbying Republican women in the House. Calling Tillie Fowler of Florida, Ms. Ferraro made her pitch: "Tillie, a man is a man is a man." And when the matriarch of feminism, Betty Friedan, lobbied for the President by saying, "Even if he did what he is alleged to have done, what's the big deal?" Journalism is ruined. Now Larry Flynt, Matt Drudge and Salon are running the show, dishing the dirt, while the rest of us try to figure out where that slippery little line between private and public is. Sex scandals are ruined. Like "The Blue Room," the Oval Office was all about sex without being sexy. If only David Hare could be impeached, and Bill Clinton could get bad reviews. Socializing is ruined. Nobody can go to dinner here anymore without getting into a screaming match over Bill Clinton's sex life. Contrition is ruined. The Clinton confessions lose in authenticity as they gain in frequency. The only thing he's really sorry about is that he got caught. And then, the minute things start to go well for him, he becomes overconfident and slips up. At a White House party for supporters on Sunday, he once again compared himself to Nelson Mandela, telling an L.A. Times reporter that the South African hero had advised him not to give his heart and mind to his adversaries. If he means that he should not become vindictive, then the lesson is the right one. If he means that he can paint himself as a political martyr, then here we go again. I fled the stuffy tent without laying eyes on the President to see if he looked "friendless and forsaken." But I still felt sorry for the guy. He must drive himself crazy too. Maybe some people will get out alive but crazy, I think that happens in Shakespeare too. Merry Christmas to all, I say. I think that's what Ms. Dowd's saying too, as best someone stuck in the middle of the morality play can.

To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (24317)	12/23/1998 6:04:00 PM
From: sea_biscuit	Respond to of 67261

This part of the article is worth repeating yet another time : By never promising us Boy Scouts in the Rose Garden or Rotunda, the Democrats have little to lose in this ugly game. If what we know about Bill Clinton's sex life by now hasn't leveled him, what further revelation could? The Republicans, meanwhile, have handed Larry Flynt the ammunition to mow them down. The only way disarmament will come is if the G.O.P. now takes that ammunition away -- if someone within the Republican Party has the guts to stand up to its powerful religious wing and say that private sexual behavior (whether that of heterosexual Congressman or a gay ambassadorial nominee) is really, truly not a criterion for public office.