Betrayal, lies, covering your butt and other American sports

James Miller Miller on Tap

The great unpleasantness continues. I purposefully avoid topics that have been covered over and over again by other columnists, from the good ones like Jonathan Alter of Newsweek to the irritating and petulant Maureen Dowd. But we are obsessed with Clinton and his affairs. So this must be, I guess.

First and foremost, the biggest issue here doesn't have anything to do with the president. And that is, the abuse of the special prosecutor laws.

Kenneth Starr was only supposed to look into the Whitewater "affair," which seems kind of quaint now. That is to say, accounting improprieties, tax mistakes and slight influence peddling. He found nothing on the Clintons, just their associates.

From there, he managed to work himself into the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit, and from then on it was a short flight to Monica Lewinsky, conflicting grand jury depositions and such stuff as gives George Will a woody under the "Meet the Press" desk.

Simple fact, kids. He had no business investigating any of those other things. The entire "sex-themed" investigation (for lack of a better term) is completely beyond the scope of his office. These guys are supposed to be one-trick ponies. One issue and out. He's a prosecutor, not an inquisitor.

Sadder, no one said anything about the fact that little Kenny wasn't playing in his own sandbox because all the Republicans were too busy thanking God for their incredible good fortune and the Democrats were too chicken shit, thinking (correctly) that they'd get burned in the polls if they stuck up for the Constitution, the Justice Department and Clinton tangentially.

And would you like to know why the two parties behaved this way? Because we want them too. Procedural matters and checks and balances don't interest us. Presidential spooge, that interests us. Anyone who wanted to stop the whole thing would have been lambasted by us, the electorate, as being "soft on Clinton" or whatever, because we can't stand for a minute to have our CNBCNNBCBS speculation feed taken away from us. It's not our prurient fascination. Heavens no. We disapprove of all of this stuff. It's horrible. More. Please. Now. Mmm. Thank you.

This having been said, it's done. No matter how foolish and partisan and idiotic everything was that led up to the unearthing of this information, and the resulting (possibly) perjured testimony, it was all achieved in a legal, albeit stretched manner.

So what does that leave us with?

It doesn't look good, folks.

He lied. He said that he didn't have an improper sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. In a later deposition he said that he had, for a lack of a more descriptive terminology, gotten to third base (and I think he was getting the wave-in from the catcher) with a twenty-something intern. Not only is he married with a daughter, but he is twice her age and the president.

The president, of all people, should realize that the ability of the courts to get the truth from sworn witnesses is one of the keystones of a civil, ordered society. A man who values saving himself and family from public embarrassment above basic civics can't be the president. He committed perjury and has to be brought up before an impeachment hearing. He has to, as decreed by the Constitution.

There is, however, an argument that says in effect, "I didn't elect a husband, I elected a president. And since he's done what I elected him to do, I have no concern for his infidelity. Besides, dozens of presidents had mistresses."

The first part of that statement just isn't true. If you elected him as president, then you must think that means obeying the laws, even the adorable little ones like perjury. In the light of this new and shovel-headed moralism, Nixon was just a patriot sternly earning his reelection.

Besides, are we all so decadent and jaded that we don't think it's possible to find a competent president that can be faithful to his wife?

Does anyone remember when marital fidelity was not considered a superhuman act? Call your grandparents.

The second part of the statement is meaningless. Yes, I know F.D.R., L.B.J., J.F.K. and other great ones were ordering side salads. But nobody asked them about it, at least in an official capacity, under oath before a federal court.

If J.F.K. had lied about giving Marilyn Monroe the "Seven Year Itch," he would have gotten hit and deserved it.

Adultery isn't the "high crime" at issue here. It's perjury. And there is strong evidence that he did it.

We deserve better than this. And we deserve to have people who violate the public trust beaten and driven before our eyes. Call out the judiciary committee and settle this like we still have a body of laws and government that follows them.

- James Miller can be reached over e-mail at jamespm@umich.edu

09-16-98