Monday, July 27, 1998
Cheap tricks won’t garner Clinton-haters public support
POLITICS: Gutter scandal exposes partisan attempt to destroy
administration
By Solomon Matsas
I do not get the feeling that many people take the current
Washington mess very seriously; most of us want the whole matter to
disappear. But with many critical aspects of this sordid business
hopelessly mired in a murky hole of distorted reporting,
unsubstantiated accusations, self-propelled rumors and richly
financed, openly political bludgeoning, one lone characteristic now
emerges without contradiction. One repeating theme lurches out from
the demeaning vacuum with sharp clarity.
This is a case of loathsomely salacious, prurient obsession, not
on the part of the president, but on the part of the driven
partisan prosecutor Kenneth Starr. After more than $40 million in
taxpayer money and nearly five years, his legalistic zealotry,
devoid of any measure or notion of balanced proportion (which are
defining, qualifying criteria in all criminal inquiries), now
borders on the ominously bizarre.
Starr’s personal, political, and religious financiers are sorely
expecting certain specific results from this so-called
investigation, or, at the very least, they have game-planned for
the longest possible period of embarrassment and harassment of Bill
Clinton. Starr has so far served his ham-handed but fervently
focused backers very well.
Meanwhile, Republican leaders, taking turns from week to week,
are simply doing what they can to oil their scandal machine. They
cannot challenge this president on major social issues. The topics
the voters rank as most important – the economy, crime, health care
and education – are not arenas where the religiously-dominated
Republican leadership can challenge the country with new ideas.
On these issues, and a host of others as well, this president is
more knowledgeable, sensible and persuasively capable. They know
very well that they cannot compete with Clinton on his level, nor
can they present convincing alternative proposals in the
marketplace of policy debate.
Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott and their constantly jockeying
wannabes, still have their old, elite-protecting status quo plans,
now tinged with a ’90s-style dose of veiled and not-so-veiled
bigotry – the same self-serving, openly disingenuous ideas that the
public has heard many times before and either rejected outright or
seriously modified. Therefore, the Republicans shamelessly trot out
character scandal as their only weapon, no matter how tawdry and
pathetic a tactic that inevitably becomes.
The Republican leadership is obviously going nuts tracking the
current national polls. They consistently record how a majority of
Americans in both parties think this president is doing a very good
job, in spite of every conceivable obstacle. However, these
high-ranking conservative true believers and their miserable
minions of morality mongers, indifferent to the facts, have been
determined to discredit Clinton from the very start. They also want
very badly for the public to care about their divine and moral
mission. So far, the public does not care because the public sees
clearly the cheap political tricks that form the nucleus of the
on-going controversies.
Nevertheless, the Clinton-haters are so crazed with frustration,
so bent on destroying the administration that beat them where it
counts most – in the voting booths – that they will apparently do
anything and everything to reach their avowed goal.
So far, all they have done is parade their desperation before
the world.Matsas can be reached at smatsas
@saonet.ucla.edu.