On The Third Day Of Christmas

In comparison to Holy Week–Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter–the commercialization of Christmas is easy to understand. It is a season filled with palatable symbols: a star in the darkness, a baby, a manger, a chorus of angels. It is a time of romance, of fireplaces and gifts, of dinner and wine and wassail and roasting chestnuts. It is a time of hope and even nostalgia, where peace on earth and good will toward men is most keenly felt in blessed assurances and gentle salutations. It is a season of beginnings, of birth and rebirth, of flocks of sheep and how a little child shall lead them.

It is easy to celebrate giving, sharing, getting. It is easy to pour forth money in celebration of the earth's rounding the corner of solstice, of humanity's hope for a better and brighter world, of the portents of spring. For the winter solstice, at least for much of the living earth, is in truth the first harbinger of spring, even of summer. Who doesn't want to celebrate the grand abundance the universe so generally offers her children? Who doesn't love the gifts of life symbolized in evergreen and lengthening days; in the stars mirrored in every drifting snowflake?

To Christendom, these glorious Twelve Days are a blessed, hallowed time, culminating, as they do, in the great Epiphany of Christ to the gentiles, those who heretofore had moved about in darkness. But to Christians attentive to the Faith, all this hoopla and pageantry, all this decking of halls is so much futility; it is just mere paganism and fertility cults wrapped in ribbon and mistletoe, if Christ is not Christ, if Easter is not Easter, if death is not overcome.

That is why Holy Week is so much more difficult to commercialize: It is too difficult to package the bloodied Christ heaving through the streets of sorrow; the scorned and rejected baby in the manger, his swaddling clothes shredded by thorns and whips, his ravaged body gulping bloody air, the sand of Jerusalem abrading his every wound. It is too difficult to sell toys around an arrest and a scourging; it is too difficult to herald like so many angels the coming of that Death which must come for life to be granted in abundance. No angels gather, no carollers either, on the trash heap upon which Christ's blood drains outside the most desirable neighborhoods. There is no star over the cross, no nebula over the tomb. There is just the quiet cry of a God forsaken before mocking crowds, with the message splashing from a pierced Savior that each of us must finally die alone.

Indeed it is too much to commercialize the mortality of God; and it is too morbid to remind ourselves of the mortality of men. A God whose goodness is honored with brutality penetrates too deep beneath the deceptions we tell ourselves that if we are just "good enough" no bad "shall ever on us befall." Christmas songs and sundry other charms tell us that we will be rewarded by a rotund saint who "knows whether [we've] been bad or good, so be good for goodness' sake." We better not pout, better not cry. For pouting and crying are too much like Good Friday.

But just as it is too much to remind ourselves about the death of that Christmas baby, it is too much for even the greediest capitalist to exploit Easter's scandalous empty tomb. For the Easter story is all too rational, for Christ is either alive or he is dead. It is too if-then, lacking all the poetic imagery of Christmas angels and Advent wreaths. It is too clinical, with rigor mortis warmed and gravecloths emptied by the power of Hope. It is too scientific, with physics defied as stones roll about seemingly of their own accord (or they do not). Where is the little baby and the little lamb and the sweet little star of Christmas that we so adore? Alas, they are but quaint knick-knacks compared to the one awful act of God: He refused to stay dead to our schemes.

It is easy to be a Christmas person, even a Christmas Christian, enamored of beginnings and the pageant encircling the opening of a great drama. But it is hard to be an Easter Christian, reminded of the ending, the falling and rending of the curtain, the ending which we do not, and cannot, control. Christmas might indeed be the news that "God is with us", but Easter is the story of God without us, and of our own deprivation; and of the triumphant news that He cannot be destroyed. In short, Easter is about us pushing against that stone, digging in our heels, straining to keep God dead.

But His message remains: "I am still here, looking for you. Now what?"

Peace on Earth to Men of Good Will,

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Reason #3: Lazy Faire

Picking up where I left off last week, I continue my meager attempts at answering the question posed to me by a Boston radio-personality: "Why do you think this country is so divided today? Why is it that your neighbor–if you said you support the war in Iraq–why is it that your neighbor will call you a fascist or a warmongering pig?" I have already posited two reasons for consideration, the first being revenge for an alleged injustice against President Clinton; the second being the inherently fallacious and consequently divisive ideals of democracy. Today, I turn to the notion of laissez-fairism, that "policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering." (Oxford American Dictionary)

Typically, when people think or speak of laissez-faire, they usually do so in the context of economics. It is in the marketplace, in the economic engines of commerce, where the laissez-faire attitude is oft-assumed with an optimistic trust in natural market forces and a deep mistrust in human intrusion and control of those forces. "Do not meddle" might be the motto of many an economist.

Moreover, it is typical to associate laissez-faire economic policies with conservatism, with capitalists indignant of any state-controlled economies and sounding the alarms whenever socialists or some such opponents of private ownership approach a market's treasuries. For it is usually the leftists who want to control economies, redistributing property rights or ownership or production or income to the less fortunate; the proletariat. Liberals tend to oppose "multinatinonals"; they tend to oppose what appear to be monopolies of production. In short, liberals tend to distrust the laissez-faire market, convinced that money breeds greed, and a lust for power, which eventually trickles down to the lower classes, not as shared wealth, but as exploitation and alienation.

No doubt markets do need some controls placed upon them: monopolies do form and are perhaps harmful; and not all goods should be marketable, subject to mere market forces of supply, demand and competition; as there is a demand (for example) for child pornography and prostitution, though such "demand" hardly justifies the acceptability of that market.

But what is curious is that while conservatives are deemed too lenient on economic forces, and liberals too stringent, the opposite is true when it comes to, let's say, most sexual behaviors. Liberals tend to be very "hands off" when the topic of decency in art and speech and sexual mores is raised, while conservatives tend toward a fairly legalistic response to apparent licentiousness. Liberal pro-choice women shout out "Keep your hands off my body!" to any state suggestion that perhaps abortion rights have run amok; while conservatives would like to see the great monoliths of American permissiveness, from Howard Stern to Hugh Hefner, from Hollywood to Manhattan art galleries, be restrained by laws and regulations (or by cuts in federal grants) from producing alleged filth. Liberals want to control wealth, guns and conservative speech (the whole PC agenda); conservatives want to control certain sexual practices, the death penalty, and the definition of marriage. In other words, one group is no more or less laissez-faire than another. The sole difference between the liberal and conservative is over the proper objects of control.

Similarly, it is not really the case that liberals are relativists and conservatives are absolutists (though I think this is arguably true in many cases). For it is readily apparent that liberals do in fact believe in absolutes absolutely, with a tenacious dogmatism that smacks of the Inquisition. Considering homosexuality, for example, liberals are pellucid in their vision: homosexuality has always been intrinsically OK, it's just been absolutely misunderstood. Furthermore, what is absolutely and eternally wrong to a liberal is homophobia, which has never been either right or acceptable; and is anathema to a free and healthy human family. Abortion is also an absolute right of a woman's intrinsic freedom, composing the very fabric of what it means to be a mother, autonomous and independent.

In short, liberals and conservatives battle over what is inherently sinful in humanity. For both want to control behaviors. Liberals, it seems, aware of the good and bad in each person, nonetheless seem to believe that economic sins and temptations are the worst of evils; that "money is the root of all evil"; that greed and power always corrupt absolutely and are a threat to democracy. As for the good in humanity, liberals believe that self-expression, once unfettered from economic anxieties and lusts, is inherently wonderful, the guarantor of each person's glory. Conversely, it is conservatives who appear to deem self-expression, particularly that which expresses itself through carnality, as the bane of humanity; and that the production of wealth, unfettered by the state, creates "incentive" and "opportunity" for all, lifting humanity up from the state-controlled gutters and ghettoes of Stalinism and Maoism that destroy hopes and dreams. And it is the conservatives who recognize that St. Paul did not say that "money is the root of all evil," but that the"love of money" is evil's tenacious root. That is why conservatives tend to accept some market controls, combined with a healthy personal religious faith, knowing that greed is corrupt and corrupting, and an empty and deadly idol. But to the conservative, St. Paul's warnings are less dire than Jesus Christ's, who said that "It is not what goes into a man that defiles a man, but what comes out of him." In other words, unmitigated self-expression is not a good thing.

So, it appears that we can conclude that both liberals and conservatives believe humans are originally sinful; they just disagree over what are the most deadly sins, and what are the best solutions to alleviating the sufferings caused by those sins. But it would seem to me that if we could just come together and agree that both sides are right, that greed and sexual promiscuity are dangerous idols no one, apparently, wants to surrender to the fires; that economic and sexual prosperity are not anyone's salvation (more is rarely better, after all) in the cults of market and self-worship; if we could agree that we are all fallen, that all our ideas are imperfect; if we could begin to be more sentient of language and its abuse, assiduously fighting for linguistic clarity rather than derisively fighting through linguistic haziness; if we could, in short, be kind and patient one to another, guided by the power of love and reason, we might find a middle way, a via media, from whence we can move forward. Yes, perhaps the dialectic is good, where conflicts breed resolutions. But we would all have to agree that dialectic is in fact good. Sadly, we can't even agree to that.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

In Memoriam

In a Maine online newspaper I found this lovely obituary/tribute to my friend M., a 43-year-old neurologist and osteopathic doctor, who died on Thursday:

Because of his compassionate nature he often treated patients regardless of their ability to pay. M. was a sensitive and kind soul who took nothing at face value. He was intensely emotional and found deeper meaning in everything, expressing himself creatively through poetry. He boldly spoke of his Christian faith and God's "awesome" love. M. approached life fearlessly, didn't take no for an answer, and to his credit, he rarely had to. He was never intimidated or embarrassed to make waves or stand up for what he believed in. He embraced nature and all its elements. He loved to sleep under the stars, especially in Maine where he said the stars shine the brightest. Breathing in the fresh air of morning was a simple pleasure to him.

Odd where life leads us. Even odder is where we lead life.

Yesterday morning, while reading Oscar Wilde's De Profundis, a lengthy letter he drafted from prison, I found the following passage amid Wilde's struggles over Christ, suffering, and the consequences of being imprisoned:

"If ... a friend of mine gave a feast, and did not invite me to it, I shouldn't mind a bit. I can be perfectly happy by myself. With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy? Besides, feasts are not for me any more. I have given too many to care about them. That side of life is over for me, very fortunately I dare say. But if ... a friend of mine had a sorrow, and refused to allow me to share it, I should feel it most bitterly. If he shut the doors of the house of mourning against me I would come back again and again and beg to be admitted, so that I might share in what I was entitled to share in. If he thought me unworthy, unfit to weep with him, I should feel it as the most poignant humiliation, as the most terrible mode in which disgrace could be inflicted on me. But that could not be. I have a right to share in Sorrow, and he who can look at the loveliness of the world, and share its sorrow, and realize something of the wonder of both, is in immediate contact with divine things, and has got as near to God's secret as anyone can get."

I want to know that secret. I know it stands at the crux of paradox. Perhaps a cheap adage, borne of M.'s favorite sport of body-building, speaks to Wilde's larger point: No pain, no gain. No doubt it might be better said as "Know pain, know gain." Forgive the diminution of a powerful paradox, but even small things can speak to the deep mysteries.

The flag flies half-staff here at Contratimes.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

When The Phone Rings Late At Night

It is rare that a ringing phone late at night, interrupting slumber, is a harbinger of glad tidings. Midday the sound of a ringing phone is more like laughter than the ominous alarm it becomes around midnight.

Last night, as I dangled over the abyss of deep sleep, I got such a phone call, which was intercepted by the answering machine. I could hear a muffled voice, shrouded by distance, time and my own fatigue. There was anxiety in the tone. Things were uttered hastily. Then, silence.

I can't remember how long I waited. I discerned that it was not a call made for fun; nor was it a wrong number or a call from a tipsy friend too many time zones away to know the difference between AM and PM. I took a deep breath. Finally, I slid downstairs so I could have my heart fall through my feet. I pushed the button, my heart fell.

The voice was a weaker version of an old friend, a college buddy, a tower of a man who was clearly reeling. He is now a family man, and the principal bassoonist for one of the grandest symphony orchestras in the world. We had not spoken in years. "Call me, please. Soon." There was no hiding the urgency, no doubting the anxiety.

Reluctantly, with a deep sigh and an even deeper prayer, I called him back. It was about M., another college buddy who was a neurologist and osteopath, a man of humble origins who had achieved great things, a former wrestling star in his home state, a handsome gem of a man. M. had killed himself.

I am no stranger to suicide. I am no stranger to death. Tragedy, for most of us, is found in our marrow. As Oscar Wilde wrote, life's lesson is that we each must come to terms with living in the Kingdom of Sorrow. But this news came as a shock; for much of M.'s life made associating suicide with his own fate impossible. He was out-going, personable, handsome, attractive, kind, sincere, sweet, brilliant, successful, and deep. He was self-reflective like few men are; he seemed to know himself and thus would seek help when needed. He was wise, and full of vigor. He had the soul of a counselor; the heart of a priest.

And yet, there was something else. I have scant details, but I know. I know the trials of life, what besets the soul, what pesters the heart and mind, what depresses the will to live. I am a friend with the cheerless face of futility; I know the haunting fear that things cannot and will not ever change. I know the demons, and they are legion.

The last time I saw M. was a few years ago at Acadia, the glorious national park on Maine's coast. We climbed a couple of mountains, swam in a mountaintop pond. We boiled lobster; we punched each other in the shoulders. We drank wine in Sorrento at the Gamble summer compound (of Proctor & Gamble fortunes) overlooking Frenchman's Bay and Mt. Desert Island, called to that cocktail party by Mrs. Gamble, a patient of M.'s osteopathy practice; and the sunset was beautiful.

It is hard for me to think of suicide against that backdrop. It's even harder to think of suicide and the Colorado Rockies, which is where M. was living when he divined that life was not worth living.

But it is even harder to conjure up the image of suicide as the end of M.'s life when I think of him, as a freshman, in his dorm room adjacent to mine in Byington Hall at Gordon College in 1980. It is hard to think of his playfulness, his intense interest in others; it is hard to think of his fervent, passionate prayers with me kneeling in our rooms, calling out to Christ for strength, guidance and, perhaps most of all, intervention; it is hard to think that for M. Christ's answers came and were unhelpful; or that Christ's answers never came at all; or that they came and none of us could hear them. It is hard to think that a man of such faith could become a man of such despair.

Yesterday, while riding the chairlift to the top of my local ski mountain, I shared with a friend that I was blessed to have been intimate with a crowd of college friends who were the brightest students in the school. All were over-achievers; all were brilliant and dynamic. And I, or so I said yesterday with all sincerity (and I will say it today), was the dumbest of the bunch. I remain the dumbest of the bunch, the underachiever par excellence. But somehow I am achieving something, in spite of myself, that M. could not. Perhaps it is that I am growing comfortable with my own lost dreams; and that I do not fear the inevitability of old age or that most of my pants no longer fit my waistline.

But I do know this: That I am comfortable with the silence of God, knowing that such silence is not proof of His voicelessness; rather it is proof of the din of my life, my interior life, the constant, deafening sounds of my demands, of my expectations ringing in my ears.

My dear M., you remain my brother. I have the broken, forever crooked nose to prove it, you having broken it for me, by accident, our freshman year. Each morning I look in the mirror I see my noseline turn a little more astray, my septum deviated to my right. You are part of me; last night my restless dreams saw how much of you is in me, and I am grateful. And, despite the naysayers who assert post-mortem futility, I know your baptism, and thus, I pray for you: Christ have mercy on us both. For my time will come when I too am a late-night phone call.

But I won't be dialing. My fate is in Someone else's hands.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Reason #2: We Are All Kings And Queens

Continuing yesterday's answer to the question posed to me by a Boston radio personality, I offer Reason #2. That question, in short, was why America is so thoroughly divided over the Bush presidency and the war in Iraq. Why the viciousness? Why the hate?

Part of me is tempted to reduce the issue solely to economics: never before have so many people had the means, power and opportunity to profit from political ax-grinding. Never before have there been so many pundits, so many critics, and so many customers willing to pay for punditry that tickles the ears. In the 1960s, during the Vietnam War, there were really only three sets of TV pundits, those on ABC, CBS, and NBC. Today we giggle at the old-fashioned thought of a few talking heads in pre-satellite quaintness; we've got instant news dished about the cosmos in instant fashion, with everyone serving as anchorman or anchorwoman. But with loads of markets and media through which those markets can be reached, money swirls around opinion, news and commentary like never before. There is a lot of action of which everyone wants a cut.

But it is about much more than money. It is about our being kings and queens.

Reason #2: Democracy is inherently divisive.

There are quotes we read every day that go in one eye and out the other. And then there are quotes that go in both eyes and clang around our heads for the rest of our lives. Here is one such mind-changing quote of Professor Raphael Demos' of Harvard University. Demos was describing Plato’s conflicts with his culture:

The Sophists gave rise to the prevailing tone of cynical disillusionment. They preached the relativity of all values. Private interpretation is the sole guide to conduct; right is nothing but power. What is good here or now, is bad elsewhere or at some other time. Man is the measure of all things - not collective man but the individual. Truth depends on one’s point of view; both virtue and belief are conventions; they have no basis in the nature of things. Plato took a determined stand against the Sophists... According to Plato there is a true right and wrong, which is a universal principle for all times. ... He objected to democracy, because a democratic society has no standards; the test is merely self-expression. The democratic life is one without a pattern, in which every desire is gratified because it is there, not because it is right. [emphasis added]

You need to read the quote again, then tape it to your bedroom ceiling. It is one of the most astute and prophetic statements ever made, astute in its trenchant insights, prophetic in what it says about today's culture wars (though Demos wrote this in 1937 about Plato's cultural battles 2,000 years earlier). What it suggests is that democracy is inherently divisive, where each voice is valid and each impulse is recognized by the chair. What it suggests is exactly what we each see in our workplaces everyday, where everyone knows more than the boss; it is what we hear on every op-ed page, where everyone is a better president or general; it is what we hear in our churches and synagogues, where everyone is a better pastor, priest, rabbi. We live in a culture where everyone could, in theory, run for president, or even be president. We live in a culture wherein we teach our children that there is no dream they should not dream; that they can be anything they want to be, even the CEO of America; or that they, as mere amateurs, can nonetheless critique with pride the performances of the best athletes, writers, philosophers, or religious leaders in the world.

Oscar Wilde wrote that even if his pursuit of Art was thwarted, he would nonetheless write on the lintel, if he could, scribbling there the word "Whim." If Art is Whim, democracy is whimsical. For it is inherently schizophrenic and moody, adapting to each powerful majority or protected minority with nary a thought. Its tastes are capricious; its thirst for change unslakeable. Everyone is right, even when they are wrong yesterday and perhaps wrong tomorrow. For even error is celebrated as "participation," or "openness," or as a vital part of "dialogue," provided, of course, that the object being discussed is not the anathema du jour. For to be wrong the wrong way is unforgivable.

There is a rarely mentioned fallacy called the fallacy consensus gentium. It is a relative (among others) of the fallacy argumentum ad populum. The latter is committed when one asserts that a thing must be true because it is popular; the former is committed when one asserts that a thing must be true (or false) because most people deem it so. The fallacy consensus gentium is the most democratic of all fallacies: voting and polling, the modus operandi of democracies, are used to determine the laws of the land. But to some of us, moral issues are not to be determined by a show of hands; we don't care what most people think about behaviors X and Y. We believe that unencumbered reason can determine truth, falsehood, and moral decency. But to submit moral and even political issues to a vote, at least to the logically minded, is to celebrate fallaciousness. Democratic rule is inherently irrational, built entirely on fallacy.

And democratic rule is hardly what most of us want when crisis hits the fan. I do not want a democratic fire department putting out a fire in my home; I do not want a democracy removing my gall bladder. I do not want a democracy running FEMA in the face of a Category 5 hurricane; and I do not want a democracy shaping the ecclesiastical and religious teachings necessary for the salvation of my soul. Democracy may be what is necessary for the governance of a country, but it need not permeate every aspect of life, particularly when we tout our society as based on reason. Democracy's inherent fallaciousness proves it to be full of wishful thinking. Forming committees may indeed build fraternity and community, but a committee is the last thing one wants protecting that fraternity and community from terrorism.

Granted, not every democratic decision is about morality. Historically, democratic decisions in this country addressed policy, how the body corporate should enforce laws, or recover taxes, or fund a military. But increasingly, or so I believe, we are voting on moral issues; we are polling on right and wrong, up and down. To extend democratic processes beyond their scope, to depend on them for guidance through moral and social issues, is to court disaster; for unreason is the fount of such dependence.

Thus, we can conclude two things. First, the divisiveness of American culture is native to democracy; democracy is built on the illogic of fallacy. Second, democracy is purposefully indifferent to any absolute that is not the absolute of majority opinion, particularly that majority which is won in the United States Supreme Court. For the attentive, that fact cannot be more ironic.

Tomorrow, reason #3.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Bill Clinton, Bushbashing And Impeccable Privacy

I was asked, "Why do you think this country is so divided today? Why is it that your neighbor–if you said you support the war in Iraq–why is it that your neighbor will call you a fascist or a warmongering pig? Why the over-the-top animosity, an almost visceral, irrational hatred like I've never seen before in this country?"

My answer was that I had no answer (which was shameful, since I was on talk-radio and had a large audience).

Does anybody else have an answer? I'd love to hear it. I have a few ideas of my own, particularly for the en vogue Bush hatred that permeates "blue state" life. But I'd love to know what you think: Why the animus toward Bush; and why the vitriol sputtered between liberal and conservative? Of course, as I've already noted in this blog, this sort of divisiveness and venom is not new; in 1968, Nathan Glazer wrote (as a liberal) that his cohorts were damaging their cause by calling Lyndon Baines Johnson "Hitler" and America the "Third Reich." Hate is old news.

I will however toss my 2 cents into the tin kettle, adding, for a moment, to the din that dulls the ears. And since 2 cents is pretty much all I have (it's true), some of you shall gleefully conclude that it is clear I no longer have any cents at all.

Reason #1: A person's private life is private, and is no one else's business at all.

This old argument should be at the tip of everyone's tongue, for it is the essential ingredient in the culture wars in America given to defend Bill Clinton during his first presidential campaign for office in 1991. Hampered by allegations that his personal peccadilloes might be cause for, well, pause, Mr. Clinton, his handlers, and the Democrats who endorsed him jammed in the American face the defense that "a person's private life need not affect that person's public role." Americans heard that "what goes on in a person's bedroom should be no concern of ours," especially if the person is competent and attentive in the duties assigned to him (or her). Quick thinkers immediately realized the fallaciousness and recklessness of this argument. For example, no American, I would think, would want to elect for president any man (for argument's sake) who was alleged to be going through marital troubles, particularly troubles incited by his roguish behavior. The consequences could be deadly. Could a president lead a country effectively if he were to be slapped with a declaration of divorce? Could a president attend to the country's needs while mired in a child-custody battle with an angry spouse? Could a president fulfill his duties to his nation while sued for sexual harassment; for abusing his powerful position to solicit sexual favors; for abusing executive privileges for procuring a mistress?

Alas, we all know what happened, at least, we all think we know. But there are some, many really, who believe that Bill Clinton was impeached for a trifle, for merely "lying about sex," which hardly matters in the grand scheme, or so it is alleged. Clinton's only offense was for lying about his private life before the prurient (and paradoxically puritan), probing eye of an overzealous right-wing conspiracy intent on dragging an impeccable (well, slightly peccable) president down.

But before we toss this aside as so much overwrought support of a tragic figure in some Greek play, it should be noted that the Clinton affair as defended from the start of his presidential career was utterly and dangerously packaged. You see, when the U.S. President assumes office, he is no longer his own. He is the incarnation of the body politic; the incarnation of the constitution. He is the electorate in the flesh; he is the uncommonly Common Man, the very body of every American. He is not his own even in his own rooms, surrounded as those rooms are by Secret Service agents intent on keeping the Incarnate Word (of the state) safe. He is surely least his own when he steps into the Oval Office (the office of sexual infamy in the Clinton years). Thus, the presidential member (so to speak) is also not his own to treat willy-nilly (forgive me). And it is worth pointing out (and no one else has done so, as far as I know) that the Secret Service is obsessively concerned about the details of any president's life, right down to the minute and the calorie (is the food poisoned?). One wonders then how it was that the Secret Service permitted Mr. Clinton to be so cavalier with the presidential phallus, placed as it was (many times?) between the jaws of a woman who, for all we know, could have been a particularly vicious biter. Had Ms. Lewinsky been the sort of assassin who enjoyed sabotaging presidential piece initiatives, perhaps we'd all now be reading the best-selling biography, "Re-membering Clinton."

No doubt, and here's the point, Mr. Clinton abused his power to ward off the protections of the Secret Service, telling them to turn a blind eye to his security, placing them in a position NO PRESIDENT has a right to demand. Mr. Clinton abused not merely his wife and Monica Lewinsky, he abused the Secret Service, and us.

In short, Mr. Clinton hardly lied merely about sex. He lied about his abuses which were not private at all, as he was not, as president, a private citizen. And of course he lied to protect the legacy of his notable political actions from wag-the-dog criticisms (but to no avail).

Hence, the Bush-bashing is all payback for the alleged mistreatment of Mr. Clinton. No, that's not it. It's really anger for having been wrong about privacy and its effect on national life. A man's private morality really does affect his public morality, which is a truth no one wants to hear.

Reason #2 tomorrow.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.