But what tie was he wearing? by columnist Rob Morse, San Francisco Examiner, Dec 17, 1998 Madness. Complete madness. It was schizophrenic, split-brain, manic-depressive cognitive dissonance in the streets. San Francisco lives in its own world, but on Wednesday the town's insanity was just a locked-ward version of the national nervous breakdown. Three hours after President Clinton bombed Iraq, previously scheduled pro- and anti-impeachment demonstrations turned into a duel between conservative doves and liberal hawks. They were birds of strange feathers, anyway. On one side of the police fence were hundreds of conservative demonstrators chanting for the impeachment of Bill Clinton and arguing against the bombing of a Third World country. On the other side of the fence were somewhat dispirited liberal demonstrators chanting against impeachment and defending our attack on the Third World country. Some of them, anyway. Cindy Jacobson, who came from Palo Alto to be on the pro-Clinton side of the fence, had to laugh after hearing conservatives condemn Clinton's bombing of Iraq and liberals defend it. "It was like a complete flip-flop from the '60s years," she said. On his way to the anti-Clinton side of the fence, James Topscott of San Francisco said he ran into a large anti-war demonstration at Fifth and Market. "At least they're consistent," he said. "They don't care who the president is." Those demonstrators carried signs like "Impeach the system that kills Iraqi children," and as always they marched on the San Francisco newspapers, the West Coast branch of the Pentagon, with secret cruise missile launchers on the roof. Just kidding, folks. Just kidding. It's paranoid enough around here. Another '60s flip-flop: Many of the people on the pro-Clinton side of the fence accused the anti-Clinton conservatives of being outside agitators, of having been bused in. "Go back to Hooterville," yelled Clinton supporter Mark McClendon of San Francisco. KSFO talk show host Melanie Morgan, who had a bullhorn and was leading the chants (including "Pray for Chelsea" ) said she managed to call out the demonstrators on 24 hours notice, using her talk show and the Internet. "We've brought out 5,000 demonstrators to other demonstrations," she said, "but the media never noticed." Well, it took a Christmas bombing by Clinton. Nixon once gave us a Christmas like that, too. Across the fence, a fence with no fence-sitters, the Glide Church choir sang "Love Train," and the Rev. Cecil Williams and the Rev. Amos Brown gave anti-impeachment speeches. Mayor Brown and his arch-enemy, talk-show host Bernie Ward, even sat on the same dais. Is that "dais," or "daze," which is what I'm in? Other '60s flip-flops: The conservatives had better signs, even one saying "Give impeachment a chance," held by a guy who said, "Hey, make love, not war." I don't know what his definition of making love was, but presumably it was within sanctified marriages. More '60s flip-flops: The anti-Clinton conservatives had better and stronger chants, borrowing the left-wing's "Hey, hey, ho, ho" model. "Hey, hey, ho, ho, the dirty liar's got to go." It took a while for the liberals to respond with their own lame hey-hey chants, and metrically clumsy ones like "Hey, hey, ho, ho, the Republican Congress has got to go." The best hey-hey-ers probably were back at Fifth and Market protesting both Clinton and his attack on Iraq. Whatever happened to "Hidey, hidey, hidey ho" anyway? All this was a fitting end to one of the wildest days in American history. The day before Congress was scheduled to begin impeachment hearings, Clinton launched an attack against Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and his Republican Guard. He scored a direct hit on the American Republican Guard, gaining high poll ratings, making Sen. Trent Lott foam at the mouth, and perhaps delaying the impeachment hearings until the next Congress is sworn in. The timing was exquisite, with the first cruise missiles arriving just as people on the East Coast sat down in front of the national news. An hour later, the president went on TV, and then left Secretary of Defense William Cohen the task of accusing Hussein of "denial, delay and obstruction." Sound familiar? But Hussein is completely evil. Think Linda Tripp with anthrax bombs. A couple of minutes after Clinton's speech, the ack-ack started again and CNN cut back to Christiane Amanpour in Baghdad, just as a bomb went off in a street right in front of the camera. "It looks produced," said an employee of Nordstrom's Pub, where I was watching the action with a dozen stupefied waiters and shoppers. I didn't even want to think it. Is the Pentagon using CNN to aim its missiles? I hate to be paranoid here, but everyone's paranoid here.
