America, Quo Vadis?
by Thomas DeFreitas

I've been invited to ruminate on this topic. Can I do so dispassionately? Can I say anything more intelligent than "How I wish this mendacious entity would go away"?

Whether he stays, goes willingly, or is ousted by two-thirds of the Senate, the President has succeeded in reinforcing my Republicanism to a point of hyperpartisan intransigence.

Is it too early to make an endorsement in the Republican presidential primaries? I'm looking at Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire, a man so conservative in his principles he was one of only three senators to vote against the confirmation to the Supreme Court of pro-Roe Judge (now Justice) Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (If we're interested, Senators Helms of North Carolina and Nickles of Oklahoma were the other two.)

Why bring up abortion and the 2000 primaries? Because Republicans would be wise not to nominate someone who is, in the words of the late Paul Tsongas, a "pander bear."

And, boy, didn't Tsongas warn us about the character we've got now?

Getting back to Bob Smith: You can't look at someone who is so consistently pro-life as to be proudly on the losing end of a 96 to 3 vote and say, "He's a weather vane" or "He has no core" or "What does this man stand for?"

We're sick of the President's lies -- about everything from taxes to inhaling to China to Whitewater to partial-birth total-death infanticide to Monica S. Lewinsky. His war on veracity does not endear him to us.

A few years back, this President declared Alger Hiss, the communist spy, "innocent." This is like saying slavery never happened. Evidence suggests otherwise!

Clinton's combative mea culpa indicates that we're dealing with a man who believes he can do no wrong.

For heaven's sake, the President once claimed he could force the spring. I thought it was a standard-issue prettiness, a bit of poetry to liven up the First Inaugural Address. I'm convinced now that he thinks he can do it.

The journal Commonweal, nominally Catholic, self-adoringly liberal, balks at condemning the President. Their habit of praising Clinton with faint damnation irked one correspondent, Mr. Manny Roxas of Las Vegas. Might I quote from his letter which appeared in the October 9th issue of Commonweal?

"William Jefferson Clinton is the problem . . . You (the editors) hint that this president is indispensable because of his economic accomplishments. Do we now live by bread alone?" Roxas suggests, "Let's cease pretense and have the first American monarch."

I can't say it any better than that. The Clintonistas think their guy's infallible, the guy who promised that his administration wouldn't even bear the slightest taint of a hint of a suggestion of ethical impropriety.

L'etat, c'est lui? Je crois que non.

Bill Clinton ain't the state. And the state ain't him.

What of those who say we shouldn't have to endure a President being driven out of office for the second time in a quarter-century?

A correction. In the last thirty-five years, every President but one has been "driven" out of office. Kennedy by an assassin's bullet. LBJ by anguish in the face of the country's divisions over Vietnam and civil rights. Nixon by Watergate. Ford (narrowly!) by association with Nixon. Carter by inflation and the Iranian hostage crisis (and the metric system, and long gas lines, and general sub-competence). Bush by the recession and by Fleetwood Mac.

There are some who defend the President by saying that his "inappropriate" behavior with Monica Lewinsky "doesn't affect his ability to govern."

I hesitate to proffer this analogy: A priest could commit murder and it wouldn't affect his ability to consecrate the Eucharistic species, to baptize infants and catechumens, to witness marriages, to absolve penitents, to anoint the sick. But there is the expectation that a priest should provide something more than sacramental efficacy.

Likewise, a bishop. God forgive the thought and forbid the occurrence, but if a bishop were to transgress as the President has done, no one would be patient with anyone who said, "Well, if it doesn't affect his ability to ordain priests or confirm confirmands or keep the diocese in good spiritual and financial shape, then he should stay."

A final thought about the President. Someone I know says that it would be infinitely more politic for Republicans if Bill Clinton were to complete his term. We'd be so sick of him, his sins, his evasions, his defenders, and his party, that 2000 would be a banner GOP year.

More politic, more partisan? Perhaps. But more patriotic?

Al Gore's not perfect. As pro-choice as his boss. Alarmist on the environment. Fatuous statements of public support to homosexual activists. But he'd be a considerable improvement over "the smiling bureaucrat who says 'I feel your pain."'

I've always loved Tipper. No Lady MacBeth, she.

I want to see the President go. As soon as possible.

© 1998, All rights reserved. Tom DeFreitas,