I don't have any awe for the truth, per se -- there were far more important things at stake here. That is why I was willing to believe Clinton. In matters of sex, I would rather that Clinton lied, and lied brazenly at that. Of course, it would have been better if he didn't have affairs with women half his age. Nevertheless, having had such an affair, I would have been happier if he'd simply denied it. If O.J.Simpson can maintain brazen denials in the face of DNA evidence in a double-murder, I am sure Clinton can easily bypass charges of sexual infidelity. Such shame-faced lies would have been better than the situation that now exists.
Instead, we saw a tawdry president grimfacedly admitting to something that wasn't quite legally another thing altogether. And, quite by coincidence, America brings back a 90s version of Teddy Roosevelt's foreign policy. Although most people agree that terrorism requires such unilateral action, the country hasn't quite rallied to the president. Consider how different the reaction is from what it was during Desert Storm. Then, as now, American security interests were not readily apparent but in 1990, the country was in the mood for war. Saddam Hussein quickly became the antichrist while bin Laden seems to be the mildly exotic creature Clinton chose to lob missiles at. Bush may have attacked when his polls were low, but there was no question about whether his being in office was legitimate. America (and the world) doesn't need a defanged president -- Clinton should have resigned at the end of that four-minute speech.
Another thing that gets me is how Hillary Clinton's stock seems to have risen with the unwashed masses. One of my friends, herself in a messy domestic dispute, said she felt sorry for Hillary. Me? I doubt if we have to feel sorry for her. She is an intelligent woman who (I believe) made a deliberate choice years and years ago. In a world where she could have gone (almost) wherever she wanted to, she chose to marry Bill. It was her decision, and I find it hard to believe that she could failed to notice any philandering tendencies on his part. Things like this happen to people who make Faustian bargains. I have no sympathy for her.
So where's the hope? I think it is in a blue-blooded, teetotalling, ex-philanderer. George Bush. Hope he runs.
