BYPETER BRONSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Things to do: Christmas shopping, put up the tree, string lights in the yard, hang stockings by the chimney with care, impeach the president . . .
Merry Christmas, America. For your holiday viewing pleasure, we have updated that beloved Christmas classic, It's a Wonderful Life - with a cynical, '90s twist. This time we get a preview of the sleazy, disgraced nation we will become if we don't push Bill Clinton off a bridge.
"Clintonville" is not the end of honesty - but you can see it from there. It's a place where the Constitution is just paper, where polls trump truth and professional liars are admired for their clever "spin." It's a place where America learns to love the biggest lie of all - that lying doesn't matter.
No wonder we feel dizzy and confused, like someone spiked the office eggnog.
It's not our fault we have to go through this in the Advent season of peace, hope and love. If the president had not lied for seven months, impeachment hearings would have been held in July, the traditional season for TV scandals.
But Mr. Clinton is the Wal-Mart of lies - he's sold one to almost every American. He even had most of the people fooled most of the time until the Starr Report told us that DNA collected from Monica Lewinsky's stained dress could be traced to one man out of 7.87 trillion. What a coincidence: 7.87 trillion is the same number of lies and alibis that President Clinton and his friends have shoveled onto the public to bury the truth. So far.
By the time the House votes on impeachment next week, the Clinton Dream Team of lawyercrats will have fed so many lies to the public that McDonald's will choke in envy on its modest claim of "Billions Served."
The White House is mass-producing lies like new Beanie Babies. Collectors can't keep up. And that's the strategy. The president has worn us down with so many trivial rubber-snake fibs that we are too numb to jump when we hear the rattle of a real poisonous lie.
He's the crooked insurance salesman who insists on reading all the fine-print loopholes until we will sign anything to make him go away.
This impeachment lacks the suspense of Watergate. In those days, minds could be changed by facts. Republicans looked at the evidence and voted with Democrats to impeach President Nixon. Suspense goes flat when we know in advance that no crime, abuse of power or proof of perjury can make Democrats stop protecting Bill Clinton. Hearings aren't the same when only one side listens. But there's still mystery, comedy and even occasional accidental truth:
"The Mystery of the Missing Clinton Defense." For two days and 30 hours, the president's hand-picked professors, lawyers and friends tortured the language with cattle prods and put naked truth on the rack until it screamed for mercy.
Watergate relics testified that Clinton is not Nixon. Good news, too, because from what I could tell, if Nixon were a Democrat he might still be president.
Lawyers rewrapped old denials and delays. But as Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., kept pointing out: "We've heard conclusions and legal opinions, but no new facts or evidence." When they finally cornered the missing Clinton defense, it turned out to be another indictment - for lying about lying.
"The Absent Minded President." President Clinton actually swore under oath that he could not recollect ever being alone with Monica Lewinsky. "Human memories can fail," Democrats said, clucking sadly. "Alone" must be "geographically defined," the lawyers said.
Now that's real comedy. A middle-aged married man like Bill Clinton would find it easier to forget being struck by lightning than to fail to "recollect" what Monica did to Bill alone in the Oval Office.
"True Lies." Lie: The president cannot be impeached because his motives were too sordid. It's true: Mr. Clinton thinks he is too immoral to be fired.
Lie: White House lawyer Chuck Ruff said Mr. Clinton was "evasive and misleading but truthful" when he lied to a grand jury. It's true: He swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth - and did one out of three. In his own mind.
That's why censure is a joke. Bill Clinton will never face the truth - in his own mind. Only impeachment by the House changes history and turns us back from anything-goes Clintonville.
Think of it as a Christmas present to ourselves and our children who would have to live there.
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.
Special coverage: CLINTON UNDER FIRE
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