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Jewish World Review /Jan. 17, 1999 /25 Teves, 5759
Tony Snow
Don't be fooled, folks
(JWR) --- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com) AMERICANS LIKELY WILL PERCEIVE two messages during this
year's State of the Union Address. First, they will hear that things are
going swimmingly in our great Republic.
You don't have to think long or hard to come up with success stories: The
economy continues to boom, despite a stock market with the hiccups. America
dominates the global stage, much to the chagrin of enemies abroad.
At home, we have tamed problems we considered intractable just a decade
ago. Pick any vexing social ill -- crime, teen-age crime, out-of-wedlock
births, drug abuse, infant mortality, divorce, etc. -- and you'll find the
rates heading downward.
Positive indicators, on the other hand, have zoomed toward the heavens:
Academic achievement scores, up. Worker productivity, up. Home ownership,
up. Employment, up. Wages, up. Benefits, up.
Bill Clinton will do what any president would do under the circumstances.
He will crow about good times and insinuate that Congress ought to do his
will. This is how all State of the Union addresses work, and it explains why
they are such colossal bores.
The speech attempts to transform the dull statistical columns of the
federal budget into a symphonic score -- a feat that is as impossible as
alchemy. Not one is memorable for politics or oratory. This would include
the one I helped write.
But beneath the dreary recitation of programs and promises one will be able
to detect a second message this year -- one that politicians will transmit
with body language and outward behavior; with their cheers, huzzahs and
pointed silences.
Washington, you see, is a town on edge -- rife with tension, cleaved by
pandemic distrust and exhausted by the carnal peregrinations of the
commander in chief. To liven the drama, an accused man will offer goodies to
his jury, the Senate. According to historian/Capitol Hill denizen Al
Felzenberg, Andrew Johnson successfully bribed his way out of impeachment,
using the powers and emoluments at his disposal.
The combination of battle fatigue and potential conflicts could give
television viewers an opportunity to see something almost never witnessed at
these fetes: empty seats.
Politicos are weary, drained and confused. Never in American annals has
political viciousness danced cheek-to-cheek with good times. In the Age of
Clinton, the nation's capital has become a den of vipers, and he has
mastered the art of rousing the asps to fits of blind fury.
Often, outsiders play the role of provocateurs. James Carville has become
wealthy by conducting personal hits on his political foes. Larry Flynt,
abetted by investigative reporter Dan Moldea, has attempted to blackmail
Republicans into cutting Clinton free.
These wildings have produced tragic and comic results. Some Republicans are
on the verge of nervous breakdowns for fear of what Flynt might reveal. A
lot of other GOP pols suddenly have crawled to their wives, making
confessions and begging forgiveness.
The paralyzed pornographer has brought home to many the high price of
hypocrisy -- but in threatening his ideological enemies, he has ventured
beyond tin-pot moralizing and into extortion.
The president has spent several years decrying the politics of personal
destruction, but the contagion has spread almost in concert with his
sermonizing. Just look back: When the House Government Reform and Oversight
Committee probed Clinton, committee chairman Dan Burton suddenly found
himself the object of derision. First came baseless charges of meddling in
international politics; then came a truthful revelation that he fathered a
child during an adulterous affair years ago and has paid child support
since.
Henry Hyde, upon assuming control of the impeachment process, got thumped
by stories revealing a 30-year-old extramarital affair. Bob Livingston
became speaker, then a victim. Bob Barr, the bete noir of the liberal
establishment, was nicked by revelations concerning his first wife. Bill
Clinger and Jim Leach, two of the most pleasant men to serve on the Hill in
recent years, also suffered hit and run encounters from Minions of Bill.
The skein of shattered lives stretches way beyond Capitol Hill, however.
Paula Jones, Billy Dale, Elizabeth Ward Gracen and virtually every
conservative think tank or advocacy group have gotten IRS audits. The press
received unflattering information about Linda Tripp, Monica Lewinsky,
Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones.
The most harshly partisan pols in Washington have come to regard the
present affair as a holy war, in which victory matters more than propriety.
This gang-war tableau provides the backdrop for the president's speech. The
Union is sound; its people remain good, strong, industrious and optimistic.
But Washington? That's a different picture. The capital is a town that needs
a good hosing
01/14/99: Must a pol be ‘baaaad’ in order to get elected?
01/12/99: Jumpin’ Jack (Kemp)
01/08/99 : Hot air in the Windy City