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Jewish World Review /Feb. 4, 1999 / 18 Shevat, 5759
Tony Snow
The languid sigh of waves
lapping ashore
(JWR) --- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com) MEMBERS OF THE U.S. SENATE have expressed great consternation
over the prospect of Monica Lewinsky's appearing in their historic chamber
and describing the banal mechanics of her affair with the president's
distinguishing characteristic.
Curiously, however, their speech patterns betray them. Listen: The
adjectives of disgust roll luxuriously from their tongues: "graphic,"
"salacious," "prurient," "lascivious." (Lolita! Light of my life! Fire of my
loins! My sin! My soul!)
One hears not the crisp chiming of outrage, but the languid sigh of waves
lapping ashore. The senators linger over the censorious syllables as if
hovering over damsels of their dreams.
One senses the palpable thunder of thrumming hearts; the roar of violet,
violent passions. While the young pols redden and wag their fingers, the old
guys fumble through fobbed pockets for vials of nitroglycerin.
It seems that these honorables, with their demands for fresh revelation,
secretly hope for talk of riding crops and nannies' bibs. Yet, whatever
Monica's testimony brings, it won't teach us anything new about sex.
When Bill Clinton was a teen, George Steiner observed: "Despite all the
lyric or obsessed cant about the endless varieties and dynamics of sex, the
actual sum of possible gestures, consummations and imaginings is drastically
limited. There are probably more foods, more undiscovered eventualities of
gastronomic enjoyment or revulsion than there have been sexual inventions
since the Empress Theodora resolved 'to satisfy all amorous orifices of the
human body to the full and at the same time.' There just aren't that many
orifices."
Even senators know this. Each has experienced the bursting joys and quiet
aftermath of carnal congress. So has the majority of the human race. When
Americans beg deliverance from the naughty gossip, then, they do so not out
of prudishness, but compassion.
Many of us think of Bill Clinton as a man achingly eager to attain
sainthood. Time and again, he has stood at the pulpit of public life,
pressing his palms to his chest, gazing beseechingingy toward the heavens
and devouring his fleshy lower lip. His thespian displays can appear
contrived and cheap, but so what? Who hasn't looked like a marionette when
trying to convey condolences or strike an empathically appropriate pose in
public?
Yet just when we think we have him figured, along comes the cavortship with
Monica and poof! The image evaporates like burnt-off fog. The acolyte morphs
into a lounge lizard.
Picture this: Miss Lewinsky shares her inner wish that they might become
friends. She asks to exchange not just thoughtful tokens but thoughts.
Suddenly the president stops, kisses her full in the mouth and regally drops
his pants. She wants pillow talk, but he will give only DNA.
What strikes us about this scene is the president's appalling directness.
Behold, the most powerful and admired man on earth, standing in the
sanctuary of democracy with his pants around his ankles! This episode
exposes more about the president than we really want to know. Cravings for
intimacy can lead anybody to behave in comical, even pitiful ways, but when
we see somebody else caught in the act, we look for ways to remove ourselves
graciously.
Of course, there's irony. The Children of the Sixties tried to elevate sex
to the level of religion and exhibitionism to the status of confession. But
the orgiastic dream died swiftly. After Woodstock came herpes. After herpes
came AIDS. After AIDS came government advice -- from the surgeon general, no
less -- that young men should vent their hormonal steam not by bedding local
lasses, but through vigorous and regular onanism. And now this.
In recent years, we have burdened our leaders with expectations of
exceptionalism. We persuaded ourselves that the best, brightest and noblest
of our race could liberate us from privation and need. We forgot that we
could not free statesmen from the gravitational impulses of human nature.
A politician who deems himself holy eventually will interpret his desires
as matters of cosmic necessity. He will issue ukases based more on whim than
fact. He will fabricate crises to display his might. And he will advise the
intern to say she was delivering pizza. Hold the cheese.
It seems fitting that an administration which has tried so manfully to
harness our baser instincts -- this is the White House of the V-chip,
television ratings and anti-smoking jihad, after all -- could not harness
the president's most publicized weaknesses. This tells us as much about the
folly of the nanny state as it does about Bill Clinton.
Still, senators are right about an important detail of the president's
trial. The sins involved are stunningly trashy and common. It is impossible
to make the details interesting to anyone but youngsters and perverts.
So let no one pretend that testimony from Monica would disturb democracy or
send Americanos into a shock-induced swoon. At best, the girl can remind us
of two things -- the ghastly emptiness of illicit yearnings and the high
price one pays for confusing power with
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01/28/99: To be a ‘sell-out’ or an unelectable pol --- that is the question
01/25/99: The apogee of a trend
01/21/99:What my 3-year-old taught me
01/17/99:Don't be fooled, folks
01/14/99: Must a pol be ‘baaaad’ in order to get elected?
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01/08/99 : Hot air in the Windy City