Editorial: Mea Culpa
My inaction may be the result of the alternating blasts of hilarity and despair that have enveloped me in recent months as I’ve watched the shenanigans in Congress reach all-time highs of humor and lows of honor.
Last week, we had a TV channel-surfer’s dream scenario: One could watch bombs bursting in air over Baghdad, and when boredom set in, with a flick of the switch one could view pompous, self-important people furrow their brows in the House of Representatives and tell us why the Constitution required them to vote to throw the Big Philanderer out of the White House.
I think I’ve never been more distressed about our nation’s future than when I listened to some of those in leadership positions in Congress baldly state that President Clinton was making war on Iraq to stave off impeachment.
t was a sad sight to see Republican after Republican voice those suspicions. Only after the first wave of public outrage reached the banks of the Potomac did the GOP mend its ways, with many voicing strong support the next day for “our boys” (and girls) over there.
The public spoke, and pretty clearly I thought, in November when voters handed the Republican party what my father used to call an old-fashioned licking.
Here, one month later, the GOP hasn’t learned the lesson. The Republicans orchestrate the first impeachment of an elected president in the history of the republic, and Clinton’s popularity ratings reach new highs days later.
Don’t they get it? As one of my 12-year-old son’s cartoon heroes would say: “D’oh!”
If the Grand Old Party keeps beating up on this guy, the nation may well face a wave of public sentiment for the repeal of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution limiting presidents to two four-year terms in office.
And I’m sure I couldn’t stand another six years of this. Ho, ho, ho.
