Archive [November 1998]

Image vs. Reality

Last month, in fashion magazines like Vanity Fair and Glamour, designer Tommy Hilfiger ran a series of ads that caught the attention of the Clinton Administration. The ads depicted a sexy young woman sitting on an executive desk in what looked like the Oval Office. That is, until Clinton ordered the company to cease and desist.

Hilfiger said a legal officer from the While House notified them by letter of a “While House policy precluding the use of the While House or its likeness in advertising imagery.” Hilfiger obeyed instantly, killing the ad.

Of course. White House policy apparently does not preclude the use of sexy young women on the actual executive desk in the actual Oval Office in the actual White House.

It’s Only Sex

The Army is proceeding against Maj. Gen. David Hale, a retired two-star general accused of “serious misconduct.” The investigations of Hale could eventually lead to a formal court-martial.

“The allegations include dereliction of duty, false official statements, conduct unbecoming an officer and adultery, and involved misconduct toward subordinate members of his unit and their spouses,” the Army said. In a report, the Pentagon’s inspector general concluded that Hale, who retired in February as the Army’s deputy inspector general, “engaged in a pattern of inappropriate behavior” from 1996 to 1997 with the wives of four subordinates while Hale was stationed in Turkey as the deputy commanding general for NATO land forces in southeastern Europe. The report charged that Hale also sanctioned the misuse of government funds for travel and made false and misleading statements to investigators and Pentagon officials.

Hale “strongly denied all the allegations of inappropriate conduct,” according to the report, but did acknowledge a “relationship that he maintained with the former spouse of a subordinate Army officer.”

I say, leave him alone! This is his private life! Besides, the sex was consensual! It’s just sex and sex lies! Everybody lies about sex. Who cares? Who wouldn’t lie? Lying about sex is the honorable thing to do — in fact, sex lies should become an official military requirement. The Army is obviously full of a bunch of anti-Hale partisans. Let’s move on.

Liberal Emotion

For years I have been pointing out the core difference between liberalism and conservatism: at the heart of liberalism is the emotions of liberals; while at the heart of conservatism is the thinking and analysis of the best of human minds. Mine, for instance.

Here’s the latest evidence of how flawless my theory is. One of the country’s veteran feminazis has graced us with her very own psychological comparison of Presidents Clinton and Nixon. According to Gloria Steinem, it’s all about love: “If Richard Nixon had ever loved anything, had been emotionally spontaneous or available in any way, we would have a better country today,” she said. But, of course, Bill Clinton — the Phone Sex President — doesn’t lack emotional spontaneity. Continued the founder of Ms. magazine; “Clinton’s fault is an excess of energy and emotion, not one of coldness or cruelty.”

Naturally, Steinem lets the country’s Perjurer-in-Heat off the hook. Poor Bill Clinton. He’s working so hard for us, caring so deeply for our children, that something just had to snap. Of course he committed adultery over and over again in the Oval Office. Of course he lied about it for months. Of course he’s still lying about it. The man’s only human, after all.

Isn’t it a small price to pay to have a President with so much energy, so much emotion? … So much love?

That Was Then, This Is Now

“That the President’s conduct does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense should now be clear to everyone.” So Mike McCurry declared on Sept. 21, the day America saw the President on video lying through his teeth to a federal grand jury.

Lying under oath not impeachable, Mr. McCurry? Let’s turn to the most celebrated speech ever given on the subject of impeachment — delivered by a liberal icon, the late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan of Texas.

As a member of the House Judiciary Committee voting to impeach Richard Nixon in 1974, Jordan cited the impeachment criteria of the South Carolina ratification convention: “Those are impeachable ‘who behave amiss or betray their public trust,’” she noted.

“Beginning shortly after the Watergate break-in and continuing to the present time,” Jordan continued, “the President has engaged in a series of public statements and actions designed to thwart the lawful investigation by government prosecutors. Moreover, the President has made public announcements and assertions bearing on the Watergate case which the evidence will show he knew to be false.” Barbara Jordan considered lying to be impeachable even when the President is not under oath.

To quote from the eulogy at her funeral in Houston in 1996, “Through the sheer force of the truth she spoke … Barbara always stirred our national conscience.”

Barbara Jordan’s eulogy was delivered by President Bill Clinton.