BY PETER BRONSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Making sense of this whole Clinton meltdown is like trying to evacuate a burning building in alphabetical order. We don't really care where we're going -- we just want to get the heck out before we choke on the fumes or get incinerated.
Then, just as we finally scramble to what looks like an exit, there's some turnip-head with a microphone trying to tell us how we ought to proceed. "I'm sorry, Mr. Zucchini, you have to return to the flames until Mr. and Mrs. Aardvark are ready to go."
Resign? Impeach? Dip him in tar and roll him in feathers? Who cares? Just get bubba outta there before the country starts playing with matches while he's off stumbling around the world looking for some foreign leader who is loony enough to make Bill Clinton look almost rational.
But no. We're told we have to wait for an official report to officially verify that a certified liar who denies going to McDonald's with Big Macs on his breath has not been telling us the absolute truth about much of anything for six years. And while we wait, ordinary folks in flyover country -- known on TV as "real Americans" -- are being forced to join a bucket brigade to smother the fire with opinions.
That's as futile as trying to extinguish California with the contents of one swimming pool. But I pitched in to sling my "real American" share of buckets anyway on Wednesday night, when Cincinnati was visited for a "Town Meeting on American Leadership" by MSNBC (I think that stands for Marathon Speculation, Nothing But Clinton).
It was . . . interesting.
About 50 invited members of Cincinnati's chattering class marched in to their assigned seats like preschoolers. When the TV crew said "quiet," the room became as silent as an empty tomb in an undiscovered pyramid on a deserted island. They could have passed out purple Kool Aid and invited us to leave our human containers, and all of us would have cheerfully obeyed in a daze, hypnotized by the unblinking cameras.
Instead, they told us: "Don't say anything you've been thinking about. Say whatever you feel at the moment. Don't throw chairs, but don't be afraid to take someone on."
In other words: Don't be thoughtful. Be emotional. Pick a fight. That's good TV.
We tried, but Cincinnati is more Jim Lehrer than Jerry Springer.
Liberals made a valiant attempt to change the subject from Clinton's zipper disorder to health care and soup lines. It didn't work. So they resorted to Plan B -- beat up on dead presidents to make President Clinton look almost normal. An out-of-town expert on Russian history actually said, "All of the presidents have done it." If he was referring to what President Clinton has done, he should stick to Russian history.
Meanwhile, the conservatives were typically polite and quiet -- which made Cincinnati look grotesquely balanced to the rest of the nation. "Where the hell did they get all those liberals?" I was asked several times the next day. My theory: They must have been smuggled in from The People's Republic of Hyannis Port, because Cincinnati doesn't have enough to fill a freight elevator.
A typical exchange went something like this:
MSNBC moderator Kelly O'Donnell: "Do you think the president's tawdry sex scandal with a 21-year-old intern, seven months of lying to the American people about it, his angry refusal to apologize, and widespread speculation that he bombed Sudan and Afghanistan to change the subject has had any affect on his credibility?"
Real American: "I'd say -- "
K.O.: "Hold that thought, and we'll get back to someone else after another of our eleventy-zillion commercial breaks."
Finally, I worked up my nerve and raised a sweaty palm to say that America is getting a bad case of buyer's remorse. It's sinking in slowly, but bone deep. And when American public opinion finally gels and hardens like epoxy, President Clinton will get the bum's rush in a real American hurry.
Maybe we should stop looking at it as an "agony," or a "crisis" and think of it as an "opportunity" that comes along once in a generation, to do something as a nation that will leave the country stronger and better for our children. By dumping Bill Clinton, Baby Boomers who helped elect him can redeem themselves, and make it clear that our standards for national leadership do not tolerate lying to the people, obstructing justice, idiotic juvenile denials, lechery -- and other high crimes and misdemeanors to be named later.
We should welcome this chance to reset the national morality meter and disinfect our White House.
At least that's what I started to say, before Kelly O'Donnell said exactly what someone needs to say to Mr. Clinton:
"Sorry, but it's time to move on now."
Don't we wish.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
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