MusePaper January 18th, 1999
Why We Needed Clinton to Lie
"You want the truth!? Well, you can’t handle the truth!" goes a famous line by Jack Nicholson in one of his starring roles.by Mickel Adzema
I’m tired, damn tired, of hearing that Clinton has no integrity. It is the American people who don’t have integrity!
When Clinton was first governor of Arkansas he advanced progressive policies and how did the electorate reward him? By denying him a third term. But he’s a quick learner; everyone acknowledges
that. And sure enough, he realized that if he was too far ahead of the electorate there was nothing he could accomplish, since he wouldn’t be in the office that would allow him that power.
So he astutely altered his message. He didn’t flip-flop, like George Wallace did to get elected. No, he just toned down his policies. He knew that half a loaf is better then none. And sure enough, in the fourth election, the electorate rewarded him with the office once again. You might say that this was the beginning of Clinton’s education that you cannot be completely straight or truthful with the electorate. You have to give them some of what they want, even if it is not quite what you would consider the best way to go about it, in order to be able to keep the power that will allow you to lead the people beyond where they currently are.
This is not a lack of integrity; it is pragmatism. It is understood by politicians like Jesse Jackson and by union leaders. They know that gains are made a little at a time and, coming from working class backgrounds, like Clinton, they know that it is foolish to opt for the luxury of high ideals when to do so means accomplishing nothing but self-aggrandizement.
Yes, I’m tired, damn tired, of listening to criticisms of Clinton from the Left -- the Jerry Brown type of liberals. Most of these people were born in upper middle class or upper class families. They don’t have the faintest idea of what it means to do without or to be truly oppressed and/or abused. So they go to their ivy league universities and proclaim from their ivy towers that they know what it is that the people need. And they won’t settle for anything less. Now who the hell gives them the right to decide for the vast majority of working class Americans what it is that they need?
Ask Jesse Jackson; ask the Blacks. They are Clinton’s staunchest supporters. They understand that the white-man’s game is fixed and so one can not play it completely honestly. How could Clinton, for
example, tell the American people that he had an affair, when the American people are such prudes he would have been drummed out of office for it!? And these hypocrites dare to say that if he had told the truth earlier he would not be impeached today.
Yeah, right. Tell that to Gary Hart.
Like Vince Foster said in his suicide note, Washington is a town where destroying people is considered sport. Come on, now. let’s be realistic. If Clinton had admitted to his affair with Lewinsky, do you really think the media would have had any less of a frenzy than it does now?
We just have to look back at Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas; and then there was the O. J. trial. America is just begging for a scandal . . . some kind of psychodrama to fill their empty lives.
Clinton had to lie because it was the only chance he had for avoiding the media frenzy that has become our national pastime. OK, so it didn’t work. But he didn’t know that at the time. For all he knew, he was avoiding the distraction from the issues of the Presidency that he had been elected to perform.
So it was a calculated risk. He knew that if he had admitted it, the country would certainly have suffered. By lying, he was trying to save the country the distraction and thus allowing him to do the job we elected him to do. If he had not tried to avoid this media frenzy, he would have not been doing the job we elected him to do.
So Clinton had to lie. He had to lie because he is a sincere man who truly wants to do a good job for his country. And if he had not lied, he would have failed us in at least not trying to avoid, what has eventually come to pass anyway.
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Comments? E-mail me by clicking on: mickel@primalspirit.com Mickel Adzema
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