Impeach?
I don't know how to say this. I didn't give a hang about politics in any real way when Clinton was elected. I voted for him; 'thought it the right thing to do was all. Then the whole fiery impeachement battle started in and I tried to get my mind around it best I could.
To my mind, Clinton should have never been deposed in the Paula Jones case. It stank. It was like knocking on the door and asking the pilot of your commercial flight to hurry up and get you a beer. During the whole bit in the Lewinsky imbroglio when he said, "It depends on what your definition of is is", I suddenly woke up. From then on I had his back. I became a stone cold partisan in that instance, I suppose. I couldn't wait to unleash on anyone and everyone about how this was more than a vendetta of some crazy sort; this was a coup d'état and, well, fuck that in my democracy (I had suddenly become very possessive of that sort of thing). Let those that swell their chests and speak of moral degradation to the lot of us about this sort of thing eat their own filth. I was opposed to the very nature of letting a government fall, that was working perfectly swell for me, to punish the very sin that I knew full well that Clinton was capable of when I voted for him the first time. That whole Gennifer Flowers bit had proven to me that he was an adulterer, and I had cast my vote clear eyed and with not a dot of self conciousness. But I only had a passing care for the whole political realm up to then.
We are a more calloused and willful lot now, I suppose. An impeachment would bring the expected number of arrows from both sides and so be it. There is in fact a principal that must be worked out--perhaps even Constitutionally--whatever. When Clinton was doing his crazy pantomime that everyone took for a clamoring, scrabbling effort to save his own skin, I saw it different: he was trying with all his lawyerly might to preserve something of a republic while dragging the hideous mess he had made all the way through the village square. I felt for him. Shoot me.
Since then, I have witnessed such naked and willful aggression from the right to seize on whatever territory they think they may have gained, and I have seen such nauseating displays of statecraft as will serve to furrow the brows of any thinking political scholar in whatever time remains.
We've come a long way, baby. We now may be assured by our senses of logic that, in all likelyhood, Mr. George W. Bush is not at this moment receiving oral pleasure. We may rest ourselves of the notion of what kind of disgrace and blemish this would leave on our imaginings of high office. We simply know that he is not doing such a thing--even by his betrothed. What Bush has done with the office, however, must also find resonance somehow in our minds eye. We must see the deceit, the contrivance of facts, the demagoguery, the betrayal...and finally the treasonous acts of a wartime President who did not need to be one. We chose war on his counsel and advice and his words to us were littered with falsehood. We have not broken the bread of peace with any of the world's people since, and We have the blood of innocents on our hands as a result.
Yes, I was "there" when the terrorists attacked. We all felt that violent first volley. Then, it ceased. We have been fighting the disparate bands of guerillas mixed into a tribal, multi-generational civilian population since. The opposing factions, however vile to our senses they may be, are not cohered under a single banner by any means. In Iraq, we started off fighting an enemy way past its prime and neglected to begin with. In terms of true fighting capability, it has only become more desparate and diffuse in the face of all of our might. Beyond Afghanistan, we have attacked with increasingly indirect purpose. We are flailing wildly now. This man Bush does not know what he is doing. Yet such bravura.
While a focusing circle of rightist ideologues enjoy the antics of this administration in their pursuit of war for profit, the stomachs of decent people are sickening. It isn't fear--it never was, really; it is revulsion. We can cure this, but it takes bad medicine. Do we want it?
To my mind, Clinton should have never been deposed in the Paula Jones case. It stank. It was like knocking on the door and asking the pilot of your commercial flight to hurry up and get you a beer. During the whole bit in the Lewinsky imbroglio when he said, "It depends on what your definition of is is", I suddenly woke up. From then on I had his back. I became a stone cold partisan in that instance, I suppose. I couldn't wait to unleash on anyone and everyone about how this was more than a vendetta of some crazy sort; this was a coup d'état and, well, fuck that in my democracy (I had suddenly become very possessive of that sort of thing). Let those that swell their chests and speak of moral degradation to the lot of us about this sort of thing eat their own filth. I was opposed to the very nature of letting a government fall, that was working perfectly swell for me, to punish the very sin that I knew full well that Clinton was capable of when I voted for him the first time. That whole Gennifer Flowers bit had proven to me that he was an adulterer, and I had cast my vote clear eyed and with not a dot of self conciousness. But I only had a passing care for the whole political realm up to then.
We are a more calloused and willful lot now, I suppose. An impeachment would bring the expected number of arrows from both sides and so be it. There is in fact a principal that must be worked out--perhaps even Constitutionally--whatever. When Clinton was doing his crazy pantomime that everyone took for a clamoring, scrabbling effort to save his own skin, I saw it different: he was trying with all his lawyerly might to preserve something of a republic while dragging the hideous mess he had made all the way through the village square. I felt for him. Shoot me.
Since then, I have witnessed such naked and willful aggression from the right to seize on whatever territory they think they may have gained, and I have seen such nauseating displays of statecraft as will serve to furrow the brows of any thinking political scholar in whatever time remains.
We've come a long way, baby. We now may be assured by our senses of logic that, in all likelyhood, Mr. George W. Bush is not at this moment receiving oral pleasure. We may rest ourselves of the notion of what kind of disgrace and blemish this would leave on our imaginings of high office. We simply know that he is not doing such a thing--even by his betrothed. What Bush has done with the office, however, must also find resonance somehow in our minds eye. We must see the deceit, the contrivance of facts, the demagoguery, the betrayal...and finally the treasonous acts of a wartime President who did not need to be one. We chose war on his counsel and advice and his words to us were littered with falsehood. We have not broken the bread of peace with any of the world's people since, and We have the blood of innocents on our hands as a result.
Yes, I was "there" when the terrorists attacked. We all felt that violent first volley. Then, it ceased. We have been fighting the disparate bands of guerillas mixed into a tribal, multi-generational civilian population since. The opposing factions, however vile to our senses they may be, are not cohered under a single banner by any means. In Iraq, we started off fighting an enemy way past its prime and neglected to begin with. In terms of true fighting capability, it has only become more desparate and diffuse in the face of all of our might. Beyond Afghanistan, we have attacked with increasingly indirect purpose. We are flailing wildly now. This man Bush does not know what he is doing. Yet such bravura.
While a focusing circle of rightist ideologues enjoy the antics of this administration in their pursuit of war for profit, the stomachs of decent people are sickening. It isn't fear--it never was, really; it is revulsion. We can cure this, but it takes bad medicine. Do we want it?
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posted by obelus at 6/19/2005 09:45:00 PM
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