[PEN-L:261] Re: Re: Saving public Clinton

[Gar Lipow <lipowg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yeah, but the question is will the puritans impeach him anyway? The
standard story is they don't want to impeach him, just draw out the
suffering to elect republicans and give the press a new excuse for
keeping real issues off the front page. But if they impeach can him,
and maybe Gore besides (there is still backroom muttering about Gore)
Newt ends up as President. Can we really write off that kind of
ambition? How real is this threat? Do we need to defend this hateful
man whose evil has very little to do with his choice of shagging
partners? I'm afraid if we don't, the neo-puritans in the congress and
press may conduct a modern day witch hanging in spite of public
opinion.

You have the perspective distance gives: what are your thoughts? How
real does the danger look? Is the threat merely being raised by clever
Clinton supporters to con people who would otherwise never go near him
a a million years into defendin him? Or is the danger of an
impeachment of real?

After all, ignoring 60%+ of the American people is not exactly new
when the cause is supported by the elite and the press. To give just
three examples: Vietnam went on for years after public opinion turned
against it; overwhelming support the nuclear freeze was ignored; NAFTA
passed against the wishes of the nations majority (though thanks to
among other things Internet activism, we may well stop it's million
big brothers).

Rob Schaap wrote:
>
> G'day Valis,
>
> Just crawled back from a flu that's hanging on like a granny's tooth.  You
> write:
>
> >The First Penis has already won this culture war, anyway, thanks to
> >the law of unintended consequences.  These GOP crazies are able to focus
> >on only one (1) obsession at a time, which somehow serves to expose
> >their scariest profile to public gaze.  Do you know _anyone_ who could
> >fail to imagine him/herself twisting in Clinton's hot seat after beholding
> >that inquisitorial tape with the headless prosecutorial voice?
> >They have a "mirror image" problem: they assume that the average naked ape
> >on this planet perceives and reacts as they do.
>
> He may yet lose the system war, of course, but, yeah, the culture war is his.
>
> I did identify when I watched him confront the headless one, and I did try
> to come up with the best damage-control answers I could as the questions
> came - only it transpired I wasn't half the man slick Willy was ('course,
> he digs himself into far more holes than most, so he's had more experience
> at digging himself out - but the bloke is very clever, no doubt about
> that).  I also get the impression His Semenship actually likes the people
> he shags - and I suspect that impression does him a lot of good we're it's
> most needed, among those 'soccer-moms' American pollsters are always on
> about.  Frank Sinatra and our own Bob Hawke seemed to benefit from just
> such a perception.  Y'know, the sort who hang around for the afterglow
> cuddle ...
>
> There's a few known skirt merchants about who definitely don't give this
> impression - and mebbe one or two salient ones are perceived to be on the
> GOP side ...
>
> The new morality (ie. that of the ascendant baby-boomer, as opposed to the
> one that hung around long enough to destroy the relatively moderate Gary
> Hart only a decade ago) is softer on adultery, and even tolerant of serial
> adultery.  Perhaps the new crime is how your attitude to the woman (and,
> tenuously, implicitly - womankind) comes across.  The boojey 'lip-stick
> feminism' of latter day women's magazines glorifies sex, and exhorts its
> readers to appear as sexy and be as sexual as possible.  Mebbe that's had
> its effects, eh?  Men may shag lots of women because lots of 'new women'
> may (or is it 'must'?) shag.
>
> But she must enjoy the (problematic) status that befits the 'new woman',
> ie. not that of the sperm spittoon of yore.
>
> Which, but for the fact politicians are professionally skilled at faking
> respect and affection, constitutes some small silver lining around the
> black cloud that is American civilisation du juour, I s'pose.
>
> Cheers,
> Rob.

--
Gar W. Lipow
815 Dundee RD NW
Olympia, WA 98502
http://www.freetrain.org/