Salon Newsreal | A kinder, gentler lynch mob

A L S O+T O D A Y

City of self-hate
By Greg Critser
Why Los Angeles elites love being bashed by Mike Davis
(12/15/98)

[ 21st ]
Let's Get This Straight
By Scott Rosenberg
Bill Gates and Bill Clinton -- prisoners of Lawyer World

T A B L E+T A L K
What exactly is Maureen Dowd's problem? Theorize in the Politics area of Table Talk

___________________
Bone up on impeachment at BarnesandNoble.com
___________________

R E C E N T L Y
Off the cliff?
By Harry Jaffe
The White House tries lobbying, "scorched-earth" threats and one more speech to sway fence-sitting Republicans
(12/11/98)
Clinton's real crime
By Mollie Dickenson
The president's cagey testimony in the Paula Jones case shows he's guilty of sexual selfishness, but not perjury
(12/11/98)
"Real America?"
By Joan Walsh
Alan Dershowitz blasts Clinton critic Rep. Bob Barr for a speech to white supremacists
(12/11/98)
Impeachment hearing voices
A round-up of the most quotable moments from Friday's hearing
(12/11/98)
A president apologizes
The text of President Clinton's address
(12/11/98)
Clinton should be disbarred
By Lori Leibovich
A leading legal ethicist offers a punishment consistent with the president's crimes
(12/11/98)
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A kinder, gentler lynch mob
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THE 'PEACHY-KEEN GOP HAS SHOWN ITS TRUE COLORS -- AND THEY CONFIRM THE MOST BRAIN-DEAD RADICAL STEREOTYPES FROM THE '60S.
BY GARY KAMIYA
I grew up believing that Republicans were the incarnation of all evil. This was a harsh and unsophisticated judgment, but the political discourse of 1960s Berkeley, where I grew up, lacked a certain refinement. In fact, to be honest, it was pretty much taken straight from Saturday morning cartoons. In our righteous view, "the people," whoever they were, were always being "oppressed" by The Man, a bloated GOP plutocrat mouthing pious moral maxims. It went without saying that Republicans were self-righteous, mean-spirited rich white men who secretly napalmed Cambodian villages, turned loose the dogs against civil rights marchers and dug the Carpenters. They were Bad, and if we could somehow get rid of them -- meanwhile taking lots of acid and listening to Hendrix -- Good Things would happen.
Later, like many of my co-religionists, I became embarrassed by these sentiments. Such crude beliefs were unseemly. Sophistication demanded a more nuanced view. Republicans, I now realized, could be decent men and women who were just parroting the country-club line. Even the Reagan Age -- that endless period I as a Californian was forced to spend under the Great Communicator's genially callous thumb, while the Woolly Mammoths died out and Ice Ages came and went across the globe -- couldn't make me return to the wooden Stalinist sloganeering of my youth. I even reevaluated the Carpenters.
And then came the Starr referral and Henry Hyde and the House Judiciary Committee vote, and I realized I had gotten it right the first time.
When the Republicans in the full House vote to remove President Clinton from office, as they will almost certainly do, they will prove that those brain-dead radical stereotypes about them really do apply. They will be revealed as mean-spirited, partisan hacks, hypocrites, moral absolutists hiding their craven desire for vengeance and power beneath a ridiculously transparent façade of pious "deliberation" and "respect for law." The GOP will stand exposed before all of America as the party of vicious, petty ideologues who, in their outrageous desire to undo the results of two lawful elections, seized upon a grotesquely acquired legalistic evasion that falls so far short of meeting the constitutional standard of high crimes and misdemeanors as to be laughable.
Or, let's give them the benefit of the doubt, as the ever-generous New York Times did in a recent editorial. Let's assume that some of them are actually sincere in their belief that lying about sex -- in an obvious vendetta case brought by a biased and obsessed "independent" counsel who, after utterly failing to find any serious misdeeds, connived to lay a perjury trap -- constitutes an impeachable offense. But if they really believe that, then we must conclude that either their grasp of the Constitution is so weak that their fitness to sit in any elected office is highly questionable, or that they are so rigid in their moral purity as to be Torquemadas in power ties, quasi-theocratic inquisitors who would turn America into a frightening Bible Belt version of 15th century Spain or 20th century Iran.
Why are the Republicans doing this? Why, defying the express wishes of the American people, are they trampling on the Constitution, weakening the presidency and inaugurating a hideous new political world of blood feuds and true hatred? And why are they ignoring the warnings from the business community -- to which they used to listen -- that impeachment is dangerous and destabilizing?
The answer is simple: This is who they are. This action reflects the GOP's true nature. This is a party so desperate to burn a president they dislike at the stake that they'll incinerate the Constitution to get the fire started. All that hoo-hah a few weeks ago about how Robert Livingston was going to bring a new "moderation" to the party now that nutty professor Gingrich was gone stands revealed as empty verbiage. The truth is that this is now a party of zealots and ideologues, obsessed crusaders who have completely lost touch with the common sense, fairness and decency of the American people. Like Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, who declared a purifying "Year Zero" when history's slate was to be wiped clean (and all nonpeasants were to be killed), these high-minded crusaders want to restore America's sense of moral purpose -- and if they have to trash the country in order to do it, well, extremism in the defense of virtue is no vice! To the tumbrels with the parasites, citizens, while the Times and the Post knit their stern editorials! GOP "moderates"? What moderates? The few "moderates" who are trotted forth on TV to be shown to the mob, like condemned Chinese dissidents with signs hanging around their necks, seem barely sentient.
N E X T+P A G E+| "And just take off his head outside."

PHOTOGRAPHS: AP/WIDE-WORLD, MGN ONLINE

A L S O+T O D A Y City of self-hate By Greg Critser Why Los Angeles elites love being bashed by Mike Davis (12/15/98) [ 21st ] Let's Get This Straight By Scott Rosenberg Bill Gates and Bill Clinton -- prisoners of Lawyer World T A B L E+T A L K What exactly is Maureen Dowd's problem? Theorize in the Politics area of Table Talk ___________________ Bone up on impeachment at BarnesandNoble.com ___________________ R E C E N T L Y Off the cliff? By Harry Jaffe The White House tries lobbying, "scorched-earth" threats and one more speech to sway fence-sitting Republicans (12/11/98) Clinton's real crime By Mollie Dickenson The president's cagey testimony in the Paula Jones case shows he's guilty of sexual selfishness, but not perjury (12/11/98) "Real America?" By Joan Walsh Alan Dershowitz blasts Clinton critic Rep. Bob Barr for a speech to white supremacists (12/11/98) Impeachment hearing voices A round-up of the most quotable moments from Friday's hearing (12/11/98) A president apologizes The text of President Clinton's address (12/11/98) Clinton should be disbarred By Lori Leibovich A leading legal ethicist offers a punishment consistent with the president's crimes (12/11/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		A kinder, gentler lynch mob THE 'PEACHY-KEEN GOP HAS SHOWN ITS TRUE COLORS -- AND THEY CONFIRM THE MOST BRAIN-DEAD RADICAL STEREOTYPES FROM THE '60S. BY GARY KAMIYA I grew up believing that Republicans were the incarnation of all evil. This was a harsh and unsophisticated judgment, but the political discourse of 1960s Berkeley, where I grew up, lacked a certain refinement. In fact, to be honest, it was pretty much taken straight from Saturday morning cartoons. In our righteous view, "the people," whoever they were, were always being "oppressed" by The Man, a bloated GOP plutocrat mouthing pious moral maxims. It went without saying that Republicans were self-righteous, mean-spirited rich white men who secretly napalmed Cambodian villages, turned loose the dogs against civil rights marchers and dug the Carpenters. They were Bad, and if we could somehow get rid of them -- meanwhile taking lots of acid and listening to Hendrix -- Good Things would happen. Later, like many of my co-religionists, I became embarrassed by these sentiments. Such crude beliefs were unseemly. Sophistication demanded a more nuanced view. Republicans, I now realized, could be decent men and women who were just parroting the country-club line. Even the Reagan Age -- that endless period I as a Californian was forced to spend under the Great Communicator's genially callous thumb, while the Woolly Mammoths died out and Ice Ages came and went across the globe -- couldn't make me return to the wooden Stalinist sloganeering of my youth. I even reevaluated the Carpenters. And then came the Starr referral and Henry Hyde and the House Judiciary Committee vote, and I realized I had gotten it right the first time. When the Republicans in the full House vote to remove President Clinton from office, as they will almost certainly do, they will prove that those brain-dead radical stereotypes about them really do apply. They will be revealed as mean-spirited, partisan hacks, hypocrites, moral absolutists hiding their craven desire for vengeance and power beneath a ridiculously transparent façade of pious "deliberation" and "respect for law." The GOP will stand exposed before all of America as the party of vicious, petty ideologues who, in their outrageous desire to undo the results of two lawful elections, seized upon a grotesquely acquired legalistic evasion that falls so far short of meeting the constitutional standard of high crimes and misdemeanors as to be laughable. Or, let's give them the benefit of the doubt, as the ever-generous New York Times did in a recent editorial. Let's assume that some of them are actually sincere in their belief that lying about sex -- in an obvious vendetta case brought by a biased and obsessed "independent" counsel who, after utterly failing to find any serious misdeeds, connived to lay a perjury trap -- constitutes an impeachable offense. But if they really believe that, then we must conclude that either their grasp of the Constitution is so weak that their fitness to sit in any elected office is highly questionable, or that they are so rigid in their moral purity as to be Torquemadas in power ties, quasi-theocratic inquisitors who would turn America into a frightening Bible Belt version of 15th century Spain or 20th century Iran. Why are the Republicans doing this? Why, defying the express wishes of the American people, are they trampling on the Constitution, weakening the presidency and inaugurating a hideous new political world of blood feuds and true hatred? And why are they ignoring the warnings from the business community -- to which they used to listen -- that impeachment is dangerous and destabilizing? The answer is simple: This is who they are. This action reflects the GOP's true nature. This is a party so desperate to burn a president they dislike at the stake that they'll incinerate the Constitution to get the fire started. All that hoo-hah a few weeks ago about how Robert Livingston was going to bring a new "moderation" to the party now that nutty professor Gingrich was gone stands revealed as empty verbiage. The truth is that this is now a party of zealots and ideologues, obsessed crusaders who have completely lost touch with the common sense, fairness and decency of the American people. Like Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, who declared a purifying "Year Zero" when history's slate was to be wiped clean (and all nonpeasants were to be killed), these high-minded crusaders want to restore America's sense of moral purpose -- and if they have to trash the country in order to do it, well, extremism in the defense of virtue is no vice! To the tumbrels with the parasites, citizens, while the Times and the Post knit their stern editorials! GOP "moderates"? What moderates? The few "moderates" who are trotted forth on TV to be shown to the mob, like condemned Chinese dissidents with signs hanging around their necks, seem barely sentient. N E X T+P A G E+\| "And just take off his head outside." PHOTOGRAPHS: AP/WIDE-WORLD, MGN ONLINE