Whenever I, or any other columnist, dares write anything that brings up the sordid, corrupt and morally bankrupt deeds of one William Jefferson Clinton, we can always count on an off-key Greek Chorus climbing out from under a rock somewhere and raising the same, tired, shrill outcry that this all stems from Republican hatred of their beloved ex-President.
Last week’s column comparing the sexual romps of disgraced Chicago columnist Bob Greene to the hyperactive libido of disgraced former President Bill Clinton brought the usual ear-splitting wails.
“You’re just defending your Republican buddies,” said one email. “You just can’t stand it when a Democrat wins.”
“Another hatchet job by a Republican assassin,” screamed another.
“Get over it,” cried another. “We Democrats won and you Republicans lost.”
On the other side of the fence came some kudos from those who assumed they were preaching to a brother.
“We Republicans have to stick together,” one email said. “We’re with you.”
As a real American, Tonto, once said to a transplanted American, the Lone Ranger: What’s this “we” shit white man?
In the name of journalistic disclosure, I’m going to let all of you in on a poorly-kept secret.
Ain’t a Republican. Never have been. Never will be.
Been an independent all of my life.
In 1974, when Richard Nixon resigned in the midst of the Watergate scandals, I wrote a column demanding he be tried as a traitor to the United States (the column was titled “Jail to the Chief”).
Voted libertarian in 1972 (couldn’t stand Richard Nixon), voted libertarian in 1976 (couldn’t stand Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter), voted for John Anderson in 1980, voted for Reagan four years later (Friz who?), voted libertarian in 1988, 1992, 96 and 2000. And I voted for Democrat Mark Warner in the Virginia governor’s election last year (his Republican opponent was a fruitcake). And I’ve voted for my Democratic Congressman, Rich Boucher, for nine straight terms.
Let’s see, that makes 10 votes for Democrats, five for Libertarians, two for Republicans and one for an independent. Kinda takes all the wind out of the “another Republican beats up on Bubba” theory.
So when I say Bill Clinton is a bottom-feeding, scum-sucking, lowlife son-of-a-bitch, I do so as an American who despises anyone who makes a mockery of the constitution he has sworn to uphold. I do so as someone who has voted for far more Democrats than Republicans.
Yet I don’t hate Bill Clinton. I hate what he did to the office of the Presidency of the United States. I hate the disgrace he brought upon himself and the nation by his sordid lifestyle, his lying to the American public and his perjury before a Federal grand jury.
I pity Bill Clinton the man. Such a waste of talent. Such a misuse of skills. Such a crime against America.
Yeah, I’ve heard the lame arguments that, after all, Americans elected him to two terms as President, but both elections were flukes, determined by a minority of those who voted in elections where less than half of those qualified to vote actually showed up at the polls. Fewer than one-quarter of the voting-age Americans put Bill Clinton into office the first time and even fewer voted to keep him there a second time. In both elections, third party candidates allowed the votes of a majority of Americans to go to waste, a majority who wanted anybody but Bill Clinton. I know. I was one of them.
Republicans didn’t help their cause in either election, giving us George Herbert Walker Bush, who broke his promise to not raise taxes, and Bob Dole, whose inept Presidential campaign will be required reading for future political science classes as an textbook example of how to lose an election.
No, Bill Clinton made it into office on the shoulders of an apathetic electorate and stayed there through the lavish gifts of a Republican party who couldn’t field a decent election against him in 1996 and then mounted an incompetent impeachment effort that couldn’t have convicted Adolph Hitler of exterminating Jews.
History will judge Clinton as a pathetic, flawed creature. The more recent view of him remains blurred through a lens smeared by a snake oil salesman who conned his wife, his party and his nation.
For the time being, we must be wary of the madness of Bill Clinton. We should never trust him, just as we shouldn’t trust the poor, ignorant fools who continue, to this day, to defend him as someone who should be considered as anything more than a soiled smudge on the pages of history.
A madman like Bill Clinton is dangerous. But even more dangerous are the mad men (and women) who continue to follow him.
