[PEN-L:265] Re: Re: Re: Saving public Clinton

[Rob Schaap <rws@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

G'day Gar,

>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)

My very speculative guess would be that they'll impeach Clinton only if
they have in reserve dirt capable of destroying Gore once he gets in.
Absent such ammo, it'd merely be a case of fanning the stench as and when
suits throughout the balance of Clinton's term.

>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.

Well, I couldn't care a whole lot less.  The Americans have always held the
presidency and the carnstetooshun in very high esteem (funny that, coz they
follow the skeptical Jefferson on the subject of gummint in general) and it
could conceivably benefit American (and, concomitantly, world) politics if
that spell were somewhat dissipated.  It all depends on which voices gurgle
to the top as the legitimacy crisis unfolds, I guess.

>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?

Distance affords at least as much ignorance as it does perspective.  But I
reckon they could do him if they really wanted to, yeah.  He did fib,
didn't he?

They'd be mad to make a martyr of Clinton if they don't have the ammo to
lay Gore waste in the relatively short time they have left before 2000
though.  I reckon they'd need in reserve taped deals, from a White House
number, preferably with known Chinese Carmunists or Indonesian tyrants, and
in Gore's inimitable monotone.  Might they have this?

>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).

You can only afford to ignore the people if the people don't have a
parliamentary option (let's put aside non-parliamentary options for a
while, everybody else has).  They either gotta know they can squash the
Dems for the medium term, or that they can talk enough Dems into going the
'astonished moral indignation' route.

It's hard for me to say - we have compulsory voting here, and the strategy
would play out very differently.  Here we express the legitimation crisis -
a world-wide phenomenon after two decades of orchestrated state-bashing by
the right and mass-desertion of principle by the parliamentary left - by
kicking out whoever's in (or so the trend appears to be); over there I
guess they could bank on a lot of bemused Dems just not bothering to make
it to the booths.  I dunno.

What's your call?

Cheers,
Rob.