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I have been following politics since.... well, I guess since I was tear-gased at DuPont Circle in Washington, D.C. in the fall of 1970. I was there, of course, in my official capacity as a reporter for the campus radio station, WAMU. I had been reporting on the air about a disturbance down near Embassy Row, and warned listeners to stay away from the area. Immediately after signing off the air... I headed right down there to see for myself.
Yep, there was a disturbance; yep, there was tear gas; yep, I got an unhealthy taste of it, first-hand. You'd be amazed at how fast tear gas dispells one's desire to shout and protest. I guess that's the general idea.
Anyway, I have followed politics closely ever since... less the tear gas, thank you. I was able to escape the clutches of Washington, D.C. just before serious mental deterioration began to set in. After you have been in Washington for a couple years, you begin to get the notion that the purpose of all the people out there in "flyover country" is to support your activities in the nation's capital. That's a mighty scary thought.
Anyway, from a distance (down here in Florida) I have followed the careers of six presidents, and about a thousand wannabees. But never, in all my years, have I heard so much talk about a president's legacy... from a sitting president. Of course, all politicians have strong egos; they all want to be remembered.... favorably, if at all possible. In our effort to simplify things, we have usually reduced it to what we now call a sound bite. Abraham Lincoln: "With malice toward none, with charity toward all"; Franklin Roosevelt: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself"; John Kennedy: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." Marion Barry: "Damn bitch set me up." Well, you get the idea.
And in that spirit, it would be so easy to tie one on Bill Clinton. Naw, you can fill in your own here; this would be far too easy. Besides, I'm trying to be serious here. But of course, this president has loftier ideas. I hear so much talk about a legacy, but no specific ideas of what he would like it to be. Apparently with the public unwilling to accept 300 billion dollar deficits, a politican's creativity is considerably stifled.
Well, I have an idea... and it won't cost a penny. How about the creation of a national debate on "the truth"? About 20 years ago, ABC television aired a program about Americans' propensity to lie. As I recall, they concluded that we all lie, if only just a bit. "Honey, did you remember to mail the mortgage payment?" "Of course I did, sweetie." But their general conclusion was that we respected honesty, desired honesty, and generally were accorded honesty from those around us. We were a pretty honest society, aside from those little, "white lies." I don't recall if the television show dealt with the honesty (or lack thereof) of our politicans. With FCC license renewals at stake, perhaps that was too touchy a subject at the time.
But the current feeling seems to be that all politicans lie... perhaps more than just a little bit. Side-stepping the president's current difficulties (I am trying to make this page a "Monica-free zone") till all the "facts" come out, he said during one of his Saturday morning radio addresses, "I have vivid and painful memories of black churches burning in my own state when I was growing up in Arkansas." A quick check of the facts revealed that no black churches burned in Arkansas... never. Had the administration been pressed, I suppose the spin might have been that the president never said specifically that the churches were located in Arkansas, only that he was located in Arkansas at the time. And the memories were painful because he had to bite his lower lip when he thought about it, and after a while, it does begin to hurt the lower lip.
Acting as presidential as possible himself, Al Gore claims that he did not know that the event at the Buddhist Temple was a political fundraiser, even though it was listed as just that on his personal calendar. In at attempt to ingratiate herself to the famous Sir Edmond Hillary, the president's wife claimed that she was named after him. The problem with that is that Hillary was born (and we must assume, given her name) before Edmond Hillary climbed Mount Everest, and was thus virtually unknown. Last summer, New Jersey Senator Torracelli said that he remembered watching the Kefauver hearings "on a flickering television set" when he was a boy, a marvelous demonstration of memory, since the hearings ended when he was five days old.
And the press, while reporting these incidents, laughs them off. On Fox television, Brit Hume chuckles at what a precocious little boy Toracelli must have been. On ABC television, former presidential advisor George Stephanopolous smiled and said, "Oh, the problems with ad libs."
The best defense I have heard from a presidential apologist was a story about a man of the cloth:
"Sometimes total honesty is not what is needed. There was a preacher who was given a pie by one of his parishioners. He took the pie home to his family and they discovered that the pie was vile. It went right into the garbage can. The next Sunday the pie lady asked the preacher how his family liked the pie. He replied, "A pie like that doesn't last long in our house." Shades of gray. Sometimes a creative answer will do more to make the wheels of society move smoothly than total honesty. Each case is different and has to be viewed individually."
Now, exactly how this compares to "I never told anyone to lie... never once," even tough we have him on tape telling Gennifer Flowers to "deny, deny, deny" is a bit of a mystery to me. But that's my point. Maybe I inhaled a bit too much tear gas back at DuPont Circle. And yes, I confess, I did inhale.... tear gas. "But I didn't like it, and I never tried it again," I can honestly say.
I recommend that out of the ashes of this paritular curve in the president's term in office we debate just what constitutes a lie (never mind what constitutes sexual intercourse - that is more than I want to take on myself). And then let's determine how much lying we are willing to accept from our children, from our boss, from our parents, and from our leaders. We may not all agree, but at least we might get a better understanding in our own mind. The exclusive BBHQ Insta-Poll for February asks a couple of quick questions about honesty. That'll get things started. Of course, you can always reply to this essay with your own thoughts. I'll post any reasonable responses that come my way. And you can always use the BBHQ Peanut Gallery bulletin board to add your two cents' worth.
And if we can come away from all this with a better idea of what is and what is not a lie, and just how much of a lie we are willing to swallow, then we have made lemonade out of lemons... so to speak.
I believe we have a legacy for this baby boomer president!
Well, it's a whole lot better than "you make my knees knock."
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| The BBHQ Album of the Month is "Old Friends Live on Stage (Deluxe Edition) (2 CD/1 DVD)," by Simon & Garfunkel. If you were fortunate enough to see them in concert last year, I do not have to sell you. The concert was terrific! This album collection includes 55 songs, plus their new recording, "Citizen of the Planet," and one of the songs sung by the Everly Brothers during the concert. The DVD was recorded during their concert in Madison Square Garden in 2003. For any S&G fan, this is a must have! But then, you knew that already, didn't you? |
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The BBHQ Book of the Month is
"Vinyl Highway," by
Dee Dee Phelps. You remember her as Dee Dee, of Dick and Dee Dee.
Together, they took a decade long ride on the rock and roll roller
coaster. It was a heck of a ride! Dick Clark, Quincy Jones, the Beach
Boys, Glenn Campbell, Dionne Warwick, Bobby Vinton... Dick and Dee Dee
rubbed shoulders with all of them. This is her "behind the scenes" story.
It's pretty cool.
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Copyright © 1998-2008 Baby Boomer HeadQuarters (BBHQ) All rights reserved.
rev. 11/27/98