textfiles-politics/politicalTextFiles/part-sex.txt

Shadow Government - By John Jackson (c) 1990-1994

Partisan sex
by John A. Jackson

   When I was a child, I heard hints that a certain sexual activity caused
blindness.
   Now, in the light of Paula Jones's lawsuit against President Clinton, I
understand that the rumor was correct, but the activity wrong. It's other
people's sexual acts that make us go blind.
   Indeed, the ugliest thing about the controversy over Jones's suit is not the
pathetic assault allegedly performed by the President, but the disgusting
hypocrisy and self-interestedness shown by both his critics andhis defenders.
   On Clinton's side, feminists who lionized Anita Hill when she took on
Clarence Thomas have fallen all over themselves to label Jones a "kook" and a
"slut" and a mercenary out for a quick profit.
   Even Hill herself has gone on TV to deny there is any comparison between
herself and Jones, as if the comparison did not occur at once and to everyone.
   Among Clinton's critics, however, a legion of male politicians who had never
shown the slightest interest in stopping the abuse of women in this society
have equally been quick to jump to Jones's defense. In Jones, they are saying,
Bill Clinton has victimized every woman--and he must pay.
   Missing in all this fervor has been the slightest trace of intellectual
independence. In every instance of which I am aware, from Rush Limbaugh and Pat
Buchanan on the right to Susan Estrich or Eleanor Clift on the left, the past
political allegiance of the commentator predetermined what he or she has to
say.
   People who see Clinton as advancing themselves or their pet policies
universally acquit him of this offense, as if no liberal could molest a woman,
while those who oppose Clinton for partisan reasons incline with few exceptions
to convict.
   (Fans of the imperial presidency, who are usually Republicans, havetaken to
asserting that a common worm like Jones lacks the status to sue an exalted
being like the President, while John McLaughlin, himself the target of sexual
harassment suits, has bemoaned the accusation's damage to the office and
predicted Clinton's exoneration.)
   For myself, I found both Hill and Jones eminently worth hearing. Jones has a
serious case. The conduct she is alleging was offensive enough to be criminal,
and she asserts she has
corroboration.
   I would like to see Jones's charges tested in court and in public,
preferably without the already initiated assassination of her character by
Clinton's hired guns.
   I would not like to see the suit dismissed on some flimsy technicality or
because of judicial cowardice. The public interest demands that the case be
heard.
   But that solution does not meet all the requirements of the case.
   The nation must have a president who is not generally believed to be a sex
fiend and an assaulter of unwilling women.
   But it needs even more the unbought and unbiased reflections of its
political intellects, and those it clearly does not now have.
   Clinton may and probably should resign, so that the government will still
have an effective head while he spends his time and energy--and otherpeople's
money--defending the remnants of his sorry private character.
   But what can be done about the molders of opinion, the members of what I
will call the commentariat? They will not resign. They are permanent. And, as
the Jones case shows, they are endlessly
corrupt. No honest person need consult most of them, and the nation cannot rely
upon their honesty, their disinterest or their intelligence.
   The problem is not new, of course. Power always attracts its sycophants.
Even shadow governments have shadow patronage to bestow. Even the GOP has its
think tanks and its foundation
grants.
   But a prescription is available.
   Back in 1945, in his essay, "Notes on Nationalism," George Orwell observed
that "if one looks back over the past quarter of a century, one finds that
there was hardly a single year when atrocity stories were not being reported
from some quarter of the world; and yet...whether such deeds were
reprehensible, or even whether they happened, was always decided (by the
"intelligentsia") according to political predilection."
   Orwell concluded: "It can be argued that no unbiased outlook is possible,
that all creeds and causes involve the same lies, follies and barbarities; and
this is often advanced as a reason for keeping out ofpolitics altogether.
   "I do not accept this argument, if only because in the modern world no one
describable as an intellectual can keep out of politics in the sense of not
caring about them....
   "Whether it is possible to get rid of (partisan loves and hatreds), I do not
know, but I do believe that it is possible to struggle against them, and that
this is essentially a moral effort." (Emphases in the original.)
   A moral effort? Are we capable of it? Oh, Orwell, you grim man. And the real
sin, as he sees it: "indifference to objective truth."
   What I will be looking for as the Jones case unfolds is some sign that
somewhere such an effort is being made. And those who make that moral effort to
see beyond their own political benefit,
whether they are right or left in orientation, I will look to as honest men and
women for advice about other things.
   I recommend that you do that, too. You and history are the audience.
   And commentators you find venal or corrupt in this instance? Well, write
them off ruthlessly.
   Because the Jones case, along with the Whitewater scandal, subsumes so much
that is known or suspected to be defective in the character of the president,
it will stand for today's opinion makers as a kind of latter-day Watergate: a
litmus of their and the nation's integrity.   We who write about politics may
imagine that in writing about these things we are subjecting the president to
our judgment. But in setting forth our views we are inviting judgment, not only
upon him, but upon ourselves as well.
   Whatever the public's questions about Clinton's character, there should be
little doubt about what they think of us commentators.
   And what the commentary so far shows is that their disdain for us is well
deserved.