Back when the press was smart enough to take the governing of a nation more seriously than the sexual adventures of an elected representative, the public would have really cared had it been informed of some of those adventures. Now the public is smarter and the press dumber, only the public can’t seem to grab the microphone away.
So we diverted millions of dollars and all kinds of political energy to the analysis of a few blowjobs. The blowjobee was condemned for lying about the blowjobs even though he’d revealed in his first week in office that he’d lied to Haitian would-be immigrants, and even though he’d proceeded to lie about significant matters every week of his presidency. Here’s a man entirely sold out to financial interests, a destroyer of the environment, of social and financial and judicial equity, of welfare, and of the odd pharmaceutical factory or South American country. I mean, here’s a guy that NOBODY would trust as far as they could throw him, and all of a sudden we’re supposed to be shocked that he’s a liar?
Meanwhile, the people condemning him for his blowjobs (oops, I mean lies) were forced to back down because a professional pornographer started talking about THEIR blowjobs.
Yet, years later, when it’s time to elect a successor to this guy, his second-in-command picks as a running mate one of the top blowjob inquisitors, for the express purpose of distancing himself from the scumbag who – horror of horrors – felt a moment of pleasure.
Don’t get me wrong. Pleasure CAN be bad. For example, Bush Jr. feels pleasure in executing Texans. That I do not approve of. But this fear-of-sex has gone way too far. Lieberman can believe in whatever flavor of magical denial of death and responsibility as strikes his fancy. I’m still not going to vote for him and Gush or, for that matter, Bore and Mussolini (oops, I mean Cheney).
Notice that Bush Jr. picked the furthest right-wing fascist he could get in his party, and so did Gore Jr.. B. Junior took a step away from the “center” of Republicratocracy, while G. Junior stuck his foot plop right into its stink.
It’s true that the man I am going to vote for, Ralph Nader, has wasted a little breath condemning Clinton for allegedly dragging us through a year of the nonsense that everyone knows Clinton would have ended immediately if he could have – short of telling the truth about it. Clinton didn’t drag us through the Year of Monica any more than Bush Jr.’s innocent victims have dragged us through death-penalty debates. But this is a slight slip for Nader and pales beside his dead-on serious attack against the corporate agenda pushed by Clinton and his two other would-be successors.
If Nader is elected – and that is a distinct possibility – too much serious work will be going on for anyone to have time to care about presidential sex. The funded interests in unearthing “dirt” (what a name we have for love, huh?) on Nader will be much greater than they were for Clinton, but the press will be driven away from such lunacy by the flood of serious action.
A vote for Nader will be a vote in favor of requiring an intelligent press. Even if Nader doesn’t win, and even if you live in one of the states where Tweedledum and Tweedledee are neck and neck, a vote for Nader will be a bucket of cold water on the heads of the idiots who didn’t see him coming.
Run, Ralph, run!