You hear it at least once a week: The plaintive moan of a fellow American befuddled by our nation’s odd sense of priorities. It comes out this way: “I can’t believe they tried to impeach Clinton for Monica and yet this gets nothing!”
“This” being, among other things, the WMDs, the Iraq invasion, 25,000 Iraqi civilians dead, Halliburton’s theft of American tax dollars, Bush family connections to Saudis or cartels, the plundering of the environment, armor and supplies for fighting troops, Bush’s military service records, connections to the Swift Boat monkeys — I’ll stop here to save space.
Now, of course, it’s Karl Rove. With the heat (“Hello, Kyoto…?”) causing more people to sit in the shade and dwell on things, folks are asking “How did they whip up impeachment proceedings against Clinton on an act of oral gratification, and now there’s no pressure on Rove or the White House that protects him?”
I don’t have the answer, exactly… but it might be worthwhile to compare the events side by side, and see why Clinton and Monica brought on impeachment hearings while the Bush White House enjoys an unlimited supply of “Get Out of Everything FREE” cards.
National Security
This first one’s a no-brainer. Rove blowing the cover of a CIA operative only means possible death to that agent, death to other agents around that agent, and compromised missions that might include more death. However, a nation that allows its President to enjoy extramarital oral sex without punishment would be saying to its youth “Your parents and their parents before them were sexually repressed, but you don’t have to be.” And that message would destroy us from the inside out. So you had to at least try to impeach Clinton.
Breaking the Law
So far, Rove and Bush have made it clear they’re only interested in arguments pertaining to a crime. The press is helping them by repeating over and over again, “While Rove may not have committed a crime…”. But Bill Clinton did commit a crime: He had consensual sex outside of marriage and enjoyed it. Even in his book, there’s next to nothing about guilt over Monica. You must have guilt about extramarital sex. That’s a law that I’m sure is written down somewhere.
Stopping Government
Rove’s lying and his boss protecting Rove’s lying and the both of them being right out in front of the world doing it on videotape merely reinforces the existing image the world has of the current administration and their regard for the acuity of the citizens they serve. But Clinton earnestly tried to keep his sexual activities a secret. He pounded his fist and said, “I never did this, I never did that…” and brought government to a halt. Instead, he should have done what the current administration does: Caught in a lie, you carry on with your invasions and proceed as though nothing is wrong. The media will help you by setting the whole thing to dramatic music and graphics, literally drowning out any hew or cry regarding phony intelligence.
Heat and Other Thermal Properties
Karl Rove is a weasel, and weasels aren’t sexy. In popular vernacular, they’re not “hot,” Clinton was hot, but he broke the threshold of thermal pain for us when it turned out he was, in fact, as sexually active as we all dreamed he was. He was a fireball, and that’s powerful. So naturally, he was hosed down to a cooler temperature by the Republicans. Let me rephrase that: We all know he was hosed by the Republicans.
This Week’s “Know Your News” Quiz
1) The Governator continues to have ties with
(a) the muscle supplements industry.
(b) large talking cheeses.
(c) mutants from planet Clunko 7.
2) Rocker Courtney Love may have had
(a) a fainting spell.
(b) a drug overdose.
(c) a hard look at her resume.
3) Hot weather caused
(a) several power emergencies.
(b) Huell Howser to stay home.
(c) no change in car radio volumes.
Answer Key
1) (a) “Have a glass of Bicep Bomb…”
2) (a) or (b) “I drank some Bicep Bomb…”3) (a) “No ice. Want a warm Bicep Bomb?”
