from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- US Politics Don't Count Out a Third Clinton Term by Mark Steyn Three items culled from the National Briefs -- that's not Bill Clinton's underwear, but the column of small, insignificant news stories you can find on page 37 or thereabouts of most major papers. Cumulatively, though, they tend to hover at least in the general vicinity of the President's distinguishing characteristics: 1. Federal Judge Royce Lamberth has ruled that Mr. Clinton violated the Privacy Act by releasing personal letters from Kathleen Willey after she alleged that he'd grabbed her breasts and thrust her hand down his pants and on to the old Executive Branch. 2. An investigation has been called for into the disappearance of White House e-mails relating to illegal Clinton-Gore fundraising. 3. Robert Ray, Ken Starr's successor as independent counsel, is threatening to indict the President after he leaves office. Mr. Clinton's position couldn't be clearer: "The rule of law's got to be upheld," he said last week. "If we don't do it here, where will we stop?" Unfortunately, that's his position on Elian Gonzalez. As to the matter of just where the rule of law stops, the answer would seem to be the White House gates. In theory, having been caught in a massive cover-up and found guilty of breaking the law to trash a penniless widow and being the first president to face the prospect of being led away from your successor's inauguration by Federal marshals ought to be bad news for your party. But, au contraire, Democrats are delighted. Those incriminating e-mails? "I hope they spend a lot of time and energy on them," says a gleeful Al Gore. Mr. Clinton and his women? Hey, the only Presidential woman who counts is Hillary and she's nine points up on Giuliani in New York. Robert Ray's new investigation? "52 million isn't enough?" scoffs James Carville. "They want to spend another $50 million?" In fact, the IRS tax take from the various Monica books, Monica T-shirts, Monica advertising revenue on cable news stations, etc. more than covers the cost of the investigation: In an admirable example of public/private partnership, the market's obsession with the president's sex life has been a windfall for the U.S. Treasury. Indeed, given the collapsing Nasdaq and Dow, it seems clear that there's only one surefire way to prevent the world's biggest economy rusting up: It's time for Mr. Clinton to start hitting on broads again. Alas, most of the citizenry are not trained economists, and the general feeling is that the investigations of Messrs. Starr and Ray have been a "waste" of money. As for Mr. Clinton, things are going so swimmingly he's downsized his lawyers and beefed up his gag writers. Last week, for example, he chided ABC over the network's inconsistent explanations of his interview with Leonardo DiCaprio. "Don't you news people ever learn?" chuckled Mr. Clinton. "It isn't the mistake that kills you, it's the cover-up." It never occurred to poor old Nixon, who laboured two decades to rehabilitate himself, that all he needed to do was impeachment shtick. But you gotta laugh. The more Hydra-headed scandals Clinton-Gore pile up, the worse news it is for Republicans. The more laws the White House breaks, the more the public takes it out on the GOP. During the primaries, Republican candidates mercilessly mocked Al Gore for never mentioning Bill Clinton's name. But, aside from mentioning that Al never mentioned Bill, Republicans never mentioned him either. And, although the Bush team has been promising to hang every White House scandal on Gore and make this election a referendum on Clinton sleaze, I suspect they're just going through the motions. Democratic strategist Bob Beckel likes to tell the story of the little boy who prayed to God to make him into a stud. He woke up as a 2x4 in a condominium in New Mexico. "Moral: Be careful what you wish for," says Bob. I'd assumed this was some sort of coded advice to Al Gore: You think you're making yourself more sexy, but it turns out you're just making yourself more wooden. But apparently it was a warning to the GOP: Try to nail Clinton on his scandals and, like that 2x4, you'll wind up propping up the marbled atrium of the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library. Bob may be right. So-called "Clinton fatigue" is the bus that never shows up. The public's repudiation of President Sleazeball was supposed to arrive in the 1998 Congressional elections -- "a shot that will be heard around the world," as William F. Buckley predicted. Instead, the GOP blew its foot off: Republicans lost seats. Attempting to make the best of things, some of us figured that voters were reluctant to admit they'd been wrong about Bill Clinton, but that come 2000, quietly and without fuss, they'd repudiate his vice-president: After eight years, America would be ready to take a shower, said commentator George F. Will. But it's mighty lonely down at the communal bathhouse. Far from repudiating the Clinton era, it's not inconceivable that November will be a massive vindication of it: If Dubya wins, if the Republicans hold the House, if Giuliani is the next Senator from New York, the Clinton era will be deemed to be over and he'll be spending his remaining days selling his successor on the benefits of ending America's long national nightmare with a presidential pardon. But, if next January he's walking out of the White House kibbitzing with his buddy Al, if he's congratulating the Democrats on taking back the people's chamber, if he's dancing with the radiant Senator Rodham at the inaugural ball, and -- as a bonus -- if at least one of the Republican impeachment prosecutors (California Congressman Jim Rogan) is turfed out -- the President will have won his biggest victory of all: the Clinton third term. And, if he pulls that off, the biographical entry will bury impeachment halfway down the third page as a regrettable social faux pas committed by out-of-touch sex-obsessed Republicans. Or as New Hampshire Senator Bob Smith put it after the impeachment trial, "He's won. He always wins. Let's move on." Senator Smith's right: He always wins. It's moving on that's proving problematic. The National Post, April 17, 2000 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. 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