I was all prepared to

I was all prepared to unleash my flaming sword of righteousness upon this article but Robert at The Llama Butchers beat me to it.

On the Lewinsky Coverup Impeachment: "The whole battle was a badge of honor. I don't see it as a stain, because it was illegitimate." Stain? Interesting choice of words. I'm glad he didn't use the term "bad taste". On Meany Republicans: "When the Berlin wall fell, the perpetual right in America, which always needs an enemy, didn't have an enemy any more, so I had to serve as the next best thing," Clinton said. Another interesting choice. Let me see if I have this straight: Ronald Reagan conservatives took on the worst totalitarian empire the world has ever seen, one responsible for literally hundreds of millions of deaths and unquantifiable misery, sacrificing God only knows how much in terms of (pardon the cliche) blood, sweat and tears, dragging along a bunch of obstinate, whiney and sometimes outright hostile allies at home and abroad, and eventually crushing this Evil - all because we needed an enemy? And after it was defeated - Bubba was the next one in line? Think about the implications behind Clinton's pop-psychology: If Conservative actions are based on nothing more than an internal need to kick someone or something in the ass, then whoever's ass is being kicked is simply a victim. Communists, fascists, Bubba, whoever. Doesn't matter if they're good, bad or indifferent, they're just victims. Gorbachov, Castro, Saddam - just minding their own business when they were suddenly cold-cocked by testosterone-crazed Conservative whack jobs looking for a fight. And let's not even get into the egomaniacal implications of comparing oneself, even if one is the President, with a seventy-year old global-scale system of tyranny. Unbelievable.

Unbelievable is right. And I think Robert's on to something here. Now, I try not to waste my time with Bubba. Ultimately, bitching about the Clintons is an exercise in frustration that will finally cause me to succumb to the family disease (hypertension) and honestly, I don't think either one of them is worth a spike in my blood pressure. After all, he could hardly begrudge me for this, right? It's self-preservation, and we know that Bubba's all about self-preservation. He never fears to invoke that clause from the Human Handbook, but I can't really help myself today. What an ass. I never voted for the guy, so my conscience is clear on that front. The fall of 1992 was my first semester of senior year. I'd moved into a room in our sorority house with two very close friends of mine, who as it happened, both wound up voting for Bubba. I refused to discuss the election with either one of them. Not so much because I didn't want to discuss the issues: I did, but their reasoning for voting for this man was, and I quote: "Bill has textured hair and Al Gore is a babe." The first time they both said this, my jaw dropped and I walked from our room in a stupor. Because I knew they both believed it. That was their actual reasoning. And no, I'm not joking. Their complaints seemed to revolved aroud the fact that they were pissed off that America had been run by fuddy-duddies for years and here was this cool guy with textured hair, who'd gone on Arsenio and played his saxophone and they were going to vote for him because of this. That was their reasoning for voting for Clinton. Not the economy, not foreign policy, not anything remotely involved with running the government; they wanted someone cool in the White House; someone with charisma. And boy did Clinton ever have loads of charisma. No matter what else repulses you about the guy, you have to give him points for charisma. For better or worse, he's got it. I remember watching his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention that year, and the phrase if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is kept wandering around in my head. I was a political science major in college. I felt I had to watch it to see what the guy was saying. That didn't stop my brother from coming into the TV room and yelling his fool head off. My brother Dave is a golf nut. At the time, one of his favorite places to practice his swing was in the family room. High ceilings, lots of swinging space, and CNN. He kept a driver, his seven-iron and a putter under the sofa and he'd swing away while watching TV. I remember him walking over to the sofa, pulling his driver out, and then noticing what was on the boober. His jaw dropped and he suddenly became enraged, so much so that I kept thinking he was going to swing his driver straight into the old RCA. He kept saying, "How can you believe a word this guy says? I lived in Arkansas when he was governor! It was a shit place. It still is a shit place! He's corrupt as hell! And so on and so forth. I told him to shut up. That I couldn't effectively judge for myself if I couldn't hear what the guy had to say. Dave left the room in a huff, his three-wood clasped righteously in his hand, and I listened on. And that was the last time I really listened to Bubba because, like my brother, I didn't buy a fucking word the guy said. He was a fibber. A stretcher of the truth. Someone who claimed credit for other people's work. He was, to put it another way, the proverbial used-car salesman. Someone whose ego was so strong and so unbreakable that he refused to see what everyone else could. The husband thinks Bubba is delusional. I personally think the guy fits the definition of meglomaniacal. If you added up Robert's, the husband's and my diagnoses he would be a delusegomeglomaniac. (phew!) Whatever the psychological condition's name is, it's pretty obvious he's afflicted with it. The man's brain isn't wired correctly. It just isn't. His mom turned tricks for a living---which is not a nice way to put it, but it's true. I can't remember if his father disappeared or if he died, and it doesn't really matter. His brother dealt coke. Little Bubba learned that certain unacceptabe behavior, if you couched it just right, would be overlooked and he took this lesson all the way to the White house. He's not well. Really and honestly he's not. That he didn't think lying under oath was wrong, that screwing around with an intern "just because he could" wasn't wrong, that he was victimized by the Republicans just because they needed a punching bag is further proof that this guy is legally insane. But he's got textured hair, so that apparently makes it all right. Posted by Kathy at June 1, 2004 02:11 PM | TrackBack