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Jewish World Review Feb. 6, 2001/ 13 Shevat, 5761

Marianne M. Jennings

Marianne M. Jennings
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Enough already with the Clintoons


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- THE "LITE" rock radio personality, who knows the best margaritas in town or how much to subtract from a weigh-in while wearing Doc Martens, found, after years of Clinton adoration, Margaret Carlson's column in Time and her road to Damascus. Carlson's list of the Clintons' parting assaults on decency moved her to outrage: Marc Rich's pardon, (a fleeing felon with renounced U.S. citizenship whose ex-wife, Denise, gave a million to the Dems, $70,000 to Hillary's campaign and $7,375 in furniture to the Clintons), $190,000 in dishes from Steven Spielburg and Ted Danson et al., $700,000 tab for Bill's new Manhattan office digs, and stripping Air Force One down to the Crest.

Enough already with the Clintons. We on the "extreme right" find these antics but a 3 on Clinton Richter scandal scale. So Hil took $8 mil for a book. And? Since the time of the 1992 New Hampshire primary I have written that this man and his consigliore wife are crackers, white trash, tawdry, tacky and unseemly. To my new comrades of punditry including Margaret, the Washington Post, the New York Times and airhead DJs: Clinton shenanigans are old news.

There are two lessons for them in their bends-producing reality descent. First, there has been a comfortable disregard of facts via the "extreme right" label. This facile dismissal is dangerous. Remember, the Waco Wackos were right all along.

Paying tribute to facts is a good skill in opinion formulation. My daughter took a women's studies course in which she was taught that women earned about 32 cents per hour if they dressed as concubines, 27 cents if they dressed like Ellen DeGeneres. I gave her several studies that factored in education level and work experience and found no gender wage gap. She shared them privately with her professor who, although willing to produce handouts from the NOW web site, refused to hand out the salary studies because "it would send the wrong message." My daughter could, however, discuss them in class. When she did, the aspiring feminists, stymied, queried, "Were these done by someone of the extreme right?"

"Extreme right" means "idiots" or, for the more continental, "les incompetent." Slap that label on and no further thought is needed. A Nexis search of the past 60 days found 399 uses of the term "extreme right," mostly in John Ashcroft stories, save for a story about a Swedish conference to propose legislation against "the extreme right" for their oppression of "homosexuals and religious minorities." Do the Swedes understand the extreme right is the religious minority?

By contrast, NEXIS showed only 107 mentions of "far left" or "extreme left," with "far" being more frequent than "extreme." Interestingly, the "extreme right" uses were in the articles' texts. "Far left" mentions were in quotes from folks such as Gary Bauer, head of the Family Research Council think tank, and Larry Klayman, head of Judicial Watch, a Clinton litigation nemesis.

The shock lefties presently experience is not, however, simply a function of their dismissal of all that is "extreme right." There is one more lesson for the crestfallen Clintonites. Never surrender principle for power or integrity for victory.

Outrage from the left emerges now as the Clintons exit, with rock star encores. Lefties have been silent lo these many years. It took flatware and a $1,560 soup tureen to get their dander up. They belittled us for demanding accountability for perjury and fraud. Now they toss plates about when no harm can befall them!

Where were they when we discovered Hillary the novice commodities trader had parleyed $1,000 into $100,000 through the slot machines of investment - cattle futures? Where were they when Mr. Clinton had his way with an intern and her cigar and lied about it? Where were they when Markie Post and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason were photographed jumping on the bed in the Lincoln Bedroom? Where were they when billing records under subpoena for two years surfaced during Hillary's spring-cleaning?

They should have been with us for the ride while the train was moving. We lost some passengers on that ride. Billy Dale was wrongfully prosecuted for the travel office coup, Newt Gingrich was driven out of town on a rail, along with Bob Livingston. Vince Foster succumbed to the pressure of Whitewater, and Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick lost their reputations and pets.

We appreciate the sentiment, but it's a tad late. The Clintons' parting shots over the bow of decency will find their home in historians' reflections. Out here in the extreme right we are exhausted. We need a Clinton respite. No more Clinton bashing, no more weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. The long national nightmare is over. While we appreciate the distraction your outrage has provided, allowing John Ashcroft to slip through and W to look positively regal next to the looting hicks, we wish to move onward, and more importantly, upward.


JWR contributor Marianne M. Jennings is a professor of legal and ethical studies at Arizona State University. Send your comments by clicking here.

Up

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01/25/00: Stroke of the pen, law of the land: Clinton's Camelot
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12/14/99: Drop-kicking the homeless
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11/18/99: The elusive human spirit and accountability
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06/30/99: That intellectually embarrassing Second Amendment
06/24/99: Patricia Ireland eat your heart out --- but check out the recipe in 'women's mags' first
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06/17/99: True courage is more than just admitting troubles

© 2000, Marianne M. Jennings