A funhouse painted white

By Julia Gorin

So it looks like the president is still trying to get himself impeached. The poor guy's been trying so hard for so long, the American people should just let him do it already.

One of the first questionable things we all heard about him was the 12-year Gennifer Flowers affair. But no, we said.

"It wasn't really an affair," we shrugged. "Well, it wasn't 12 years. It was 11-and-a-half. It's not the same thing."

Soon came the Whitewater scandal. But no, we said. "It wasn't so white. It was more like a pinkish-beige--and he didn't know ... he thought it was a waterfall..."

May I remind everyone that President Nixon -- you know, that president guy who liked to have sex with his wife -- was incriminated by an 18-minute gap in a tape. If he were smarter, it would have been a six-month gap, like Clinton had in the Whitewater files.

Said the American people about the 18 minutes: "Aha! Caught ya! Trying to hide something, is he -- being all sneaky and cutting out 18 minutes. Thought he could pull one over on us, did he? We showed him!"

Re: Clinton: "Six months? So obvious? What could be wrong? It's probably nothing."

May I also remind everyone that Ronald Reagan wouldn't even take the jacket of his suit off in the Oval Office (temporarily renamed the "Oral Office" during this eight-year gap in the Executive Branch, which began shortly after the Fluke of '92).

Now, I told all my friends swooning over the handsome, debonair candidate in 1992, "Don't vote for Bill Clinton. By all means, have sex with Bill Clinton, but don't VOTE for the guy."

But they didn't listen, and he won, and here we are.

What does the First Woman have to say about ForniGate?

A headline reads: "Hillary Says She Believes Intern Allegations are False. 'I Will Stick By My Husband.'"

Translation: "I still have three years left in this house -- and nothing is going to get in my way!"

On second thought: "Actually, if I get a divorce before he gets impeached, do I get to stay?"

"He's a generous person," said She, when asked about the gifts he reportedly gave to the intern(s). "If you compliment him on his tie, he'll take it right off and give it to you. That's just the kind of person he is."

And a dress? Lingerie? Was he wearing that sparkly brooch on his lapel?

What is it with these women staffers coming forward, anyway? I mean, if you're the President of the United States of America, and you know that you like to have sex a few times a day with a few different strangers, why haven't you appointed a Secretary of Bimbo Control? I mean, girls will get upset, and sometimes a pretty dress or sparkle just isn't enough. And what ever happened to the White House Prostitute Budget -- like they have for every other president? That way, no one has an incentive to talk, so no one gets in trouble.

We wouldn't have these problems with Republicans. They have a much lower sex drive. It's the Democrats that tend to be more liberal with everything, if you know what I mean. They're always trying to redistribute the wealth, if you know what I mean.

It all fits now. After all, it's the Democrats that push for more social programs -- often for single mothers and their children. Bill Clinton might say, "They are the country's children. They could be your children. They could be my children -- hey, there, wait a second -- they are my children."

That's not welfare. That's child support! No wonder Hillary says It Takes a Village. She should know! If it weren't for birth control and unnatural sex acts, it would take a whole country to take care of all her husband's little bastards. I shouldn't fault the president, though. He seems merely to be trying to follow in the noble footsteps of the first president of the United States -- George Washington -- who has been dubbed, literally, "the Father of the Nation."

This whole Lewinsky affair should serve to teach us at least seventeen lessons. I'll name two.

Lesson Number One: What comes around, Hillary, goes around -- and payback is also a bitch. Most people haven't made the connection that Hillary Clinton was one of Nixon's prosecutors in Watergate. Funny that it should be tapes made at the Watergate Hotel bar that today are threatening her co-presidency.

And Deep Throat -- albeit, more literally this time -- strikes again.

Lesson Number Two: Things ultimately prove themselves to be what they are. When you're bad, you're bad through and through. Just when we think you've screwed up exactly 85 times -- there's always an 86th. And an 87th. No matter that you have the nation's media on your side, eagerly whitewashing your crimes, misdemeanors, and indiscretions. No matter that your public doesn't care how crooked you are, dismissing all of it as par for the course in the "game" of politics. If, despite all this help and good will, you keep at your badness, you will summon the straw that breaks the camel's back. And Monica Lewinsky is it.

Personally, Sweetie, I would have gone for Bibi.