Pilgrim Ken, The Father of American Political Assassination
It must be 'heritage'.
It's gotta be our long social and political hangover from our forebears as they set foot on this 'godless' land, and brought with them all the stiffened trappings of Puritanism....
and it trails right over the river and through the woods, to grandmother's house, and right up to the foot of Capital Hill.
However austere and lovely this well-known George Broughton painting, or how beloved - let's face it: those folks are formidably self-righteousness with no shyness whatsoever about condemning others, and especially about sexual misconduct. That's the American Achilles heel.
It explains a lot.
So when you want a person booted, that's the particular arrow you choose from your quiver and let fly, and you don't even need reporters...Twitter and Facebook (et al) will find it as fast as dogs will find ground beef left on the counter, and before you know it, we're knee deep in bloody meat.
Remember this guy?
Remember the Summer of Shame... 1998?
I've been thinking a lot about that period in our history since yesterday when the Sanford scandal broke, and how enraged I was at that time by Kenneth Starr's behavior.....MUCH more so than President Clinton's. That bulldog Starr was bound and determined to bring down the presidency and by damned, if it took a lurid scandal to do it, one that would make us appear utterly ridiculous in the eyes of the rest of the world as we greedily gobbled up every crumb of semen-stained detail, then by god that's what he'd do because he knew....... THAT'S WHAT WORKS!
I still bristle at the image of that man, and at the memory of his rabid witch-hunt that began with the failed Whitewater that came to naught, right up to the successful 'National Enquirer story' that brought what he wanted: a vanquished president. And Bill Clinton was a great president -- well-liked and intelligent to boot. Something the Republican machine could not stand.
But the difference is that America (for once) was able to bypass his personal life and elect him anyway. We knew all about his infidelities - and so did his wife- no hypocrisy there- and the man got elected... WONDER OF WONDERS!
The Old Guard was incensed! It put Ken into action, and we did the rest.
And the whole world laughed at our 'Pilgrim sticking out'- and rightfully so.
These two newest sexual scandals do not shock me, only the hypocrisy shown by both men. (Yes, Clinton lied once cornered, but he was asked to answer a question nobody had any business asking in the first place- and after two long years of constant pounding and picking and improper scrutiny. Hell ... I would've lied at that point myself.)
Just as John Edward's became hideous MOST OF ALL because of the image he put out there of faithful husband and guardian of family values while he was busy sleeping with (and possibly impregnating) that glory-hound of a 'campaign consultant'...it's the LIES, GUYS. Not the act itself. Make 'fidelity and family values' the mainstay of your political message, and it will devour you if you are not who you profess to be: if that's your message, you'd better be prepared to live it.
In this country, the ACT ITSELF is all that's needed to strip the paint off the car and send it to the pound. Lawyers know that.
Politicians know that.
Why don't we?
I submit it's because we've been programmed this way from the time the Mayflower docked. We're lascivious, judgmental, gossip-spreading pilgrims at heart, and sometimes we make the horrifying mistake of giving all our power and attention to old Rodger Chillingsworth up there....
I re-read an excellent article from 'Salon' today, written at the end of the Lewinsky business just before the impeachment proceedings. (That's what this current posting sprang from... along with the idea of Kenneth Starr as henchman-prototype.) This quote stood out:
Absolutely. Read it. It's part of our past that's spilled over into these present messes, and we continue to trail it like a string of tin cans because Starr showed us how...
he was the first.
It's gotta be our long social and political hangover from our forebears as they set foot on this 'godless' land, and brought with them all the stiffened trappings of Puritanism....
and it trails right over the river and through the woods, to grandmother's house, and right up to the foot of Capital Hill.
However austere and lovely this well-known George Broughton painting, or how beloved - let's face it: those folks are formidably self-righteousness with no shyness whatsoever about condemning others, and especially about sexual misconduct. That's the American Achilles heel.
It explains a lot.
So when you want a person booted, that's the particular arrow you choose from your quiver and let fly, and you don't even need reporters...Twitter and Facebook (et al) will find it as fast as dogs will find ground beef left on the counter, and before you know it, we're knee deep in bloody meat.
Remember this guy?
Remember the Summer of Shame... 1998?
I've been thinking a lot about that period in our history since yesterday when the Sanford scandal broke, and how enraged I was at that time by Kenneth Starr's behavior.....MUCH more so than President Clinton's. That bulldog Starr was bound and determined to bring down the presidency and by damned, if it took a lurid scandal to do it, one that would make us appear utterly ridiculous in the eyes of the rest of the world as we greedily gobbled up every crumb of semen-stained detail, then by god that's what he'd do because he knew....... THAT'S WHAT WORKS!
I still bristle at the image of that man, and at the memory of his rabid witch-hunt that began with the failed Whitewater that came to naught, right up to the successful 'National Enquirer story' that brought what he wanted: a vanquished president. And Bill Clinton was a great president -- well-liked and intelligent to boot. Something the Republican machine could not stand.
But the difference is that America (for once) was able to bypass his personal life and elect him anyway. We knew all about his infidelities - and so did his wife- no hypocrisy there- and the man got elected... WONDER OF WONDERS!
The Old Guard was incensed! It put Ken into action, and we did the rest.
And the whole world laughed at our 'Pilgrim sticking out'- and rightfully so.
These two newest sexual scandals do not shock me, only the hypocrisy shown by both men. (Yes, Clinton lied once cornered, but he was asked to answer a question nobody had any business asking in the first place- and after two long years of constant pounding and picking and improper scrutiny. Hell ... I would've lied at that point myself.)
Just as John Edward's became hideous MOST OF ALL because of the image he put out there of faithful husband and guardian of family values while he was busy sleeping with (and possibly impregnating) that glory-hound of a 'campaign consultant'...it's the LIES, GUYS. Not the act itself. Make 'fidelity and family values' the mainstay of your political message, and it will devour you if you are not who you profess to be: if that's your message, you'd better be prepared to live it.
In this country, the ACT ITSELF is all that's needed to strip the paint off the car and send it to the pound. Lawyers know that.
Politicians know that.
Why don't we?
I submit it's because we've been programmed this way from the time the Mayflower docked. We're lascivious, judgmental, gossip-spreading pilgrims at heart, and sometimes we make the horrifying mistake of giving all our power and attention to old Rodger Chillingsworth up there....
I re-read an excellent article from 'Salon' today, written at the end of the Lewinsky business just before the impeachment proceedings. (That's what this current posting sprang from... along with the idea of Kenneth Starr as henchman-prototype.) This quote stood out:
"And so the Clinton/Starr drama came full circle.... Kenneth Starr was finally able to get his man. Like Roger Chillingworth, the vengeful moralist who relentlessly pursued the adulterous Hester Prynne and her lover, the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale, in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," Starr branded Clinton with the scarlet "I" -- for impeachment."
Absolutely. Read it. It's part of our past that's spilled over into these present messes, and we continue to trail it like a string of tin cans because Starr showed us how...
he was the first.
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