America pays its Bill

It is therefore ordered and adjudged that William Jefferson Clinton be and hereby is acquitted of the charges in the said articles.8221; The verdict was delivered, and the Chief Justice of the United States, William Rehnquist, with a golden gavel presented to him by the Senate, was ushered out of the solemn hall of history. He went back 8220;wiser8221;. Certainly, it was wisdom that prevailed on that day of Republican bloodlust and constitutional grandeur as President Clin-ton survived both low crimes and low politics. Every leaden 8220;guilty8221; that came from the Republican benches as an answer to the question about the Presidential crimes on perjury and obstruction of justice was, in retrospect, a self-appraisal. For, every Republican who voted for the impeachment of the President was guilty not only of legitimising the prosecutor-written pornography but of partisan manipulation of the constitution. And how partisan was the whole process was further vindicated by the conscience vote cast by the dissenting Republicansenators. History apart, most Americans, long suffering victims of Monica-fatigue, are unlikely to forgive the Republican guilt. They have elevated the Presidential crime, worthy of divorce or a House-rap on the knee, to the magisterial altar of impeachment. Their disgrace is lower than Clinton8217;s crimes.

It8217;s all over, the rest of the script being preserved for memoirs and biographies. But from the remains of this exaggerated trivia which has consumed so much national time and money, not to speak of its colonisation of the news columns and air waves, emerge some all-American motifs. Firstly, the office of the truth-seeking prosecutor versus the office of the truth-defying ruler. If Ken Starr overstepped his original Whitewater brief to become the vengeful voyeur, Clinton lied with slick semantic facility about something which was so embarrassing to admit in public. Clinton had embarrassed both himself and the institution of the presidency; the independent counsel had damaged the office of the president bymethods that would have shamed even the witch-hunters of Salem. The prospect of another Starr would be dreaded by every politician who is human. Secondly, the politics of morality, which in America has become a subject to be sorted out in the marketplace of argument, where a thong-flashing intern with a knee-pad ready for presidential service is the most symbolic mascot of The End of Value. The end of Clinton8217;s ordeal does not mark the end of the myth-making energy of America.

It does indeed mark the lowest point in the Republican descent. The GOP has long ago lost its sociology as well slogans to this usurper from Arkansas. When your best ideas are pickpocketed by a wannabe JFK, you have nothing to be obsessed with except the thief8217;s scalp. This obsession has a cultural subtext: the Conserv-atives have not yet come to terms with the draft-dodging, dope-driven baby boomer, and their distrust goes back to the sixties. After losing the grand ideas of America First, after being politically belittled by thesmartest of politicians, the Republican world has shrunk to the size of Clinton8217;s head. As President Clinton moves on, the Republican has nowhere to retreat except his private chamber of follies. 8220;A frivolous society can acquire dramatic significance only through what its frivolity destroys,8221; wrote a novelist. There is only dramatic insignificance as the GOP has destroyed not Clinton but its own values.