Our Obsession with Scandal Leaves World Laughing at Us
/The Boston Herald
Someday, we will look back on January 1998 as a time of peace and prosperity, and wonder how we could have been so stupid not to have enjoyed what we had when we had it. Someday we will wonder why on earth, when times were good, we had to wallow in someone else's bad news.
We have already wasted way too much energy, way too many words and brain cells and waking moments, speculating and moralizing about our president's sex life. And what have we gained from this singular preoccupation?
Are we any closer to the truth today than we were a month ago? Are we smarter, wiser, kinder? Are we a better people for having pondered the president's sexual preferences? Is our country a better place?
There's no heavy lifting in this sordid story. No maps or graphs or philosophies or concepts too difficult to understand.
It's all heavy breathing. That's what we get, because that's what we like. Mindless fun, a real-life soap opera. Stay tuned for scenes from tomorrow's show. And we do. We devour every word.
Sex definitely rivets us. We go from scandal to scandal in this country, from shock to shock, the ante upped a little every time. This time it's the president we're ripping apart, but it's always someone. Wilbur Mills and Fanne Fox. John and Rita Jenrette. Gerry Studds and his boys. Gary Hart and his girls. Barney Frank. We can tell you what they all did in bed, or on the steps of the Capitol, but we'd be hard-pressed to define their politics.
And that about says it all.
In the meantime, while we're focused on this newest scandal, speculating about what the president may or may not have done, or what may or may have been done to him, Saddam Hussein is doing his thing, away from any kind of moral scrutiny at all. And when the troops start landing and bombs start flying, we'll be nudging each other and saying, "Hey, how did this happen?"
Maybe Iran and the Mideast and Ireland and the IRA and the stock market and the Nobel Prizes and the pope's trip to Cuba really are too big for us to understand. Maybe we're just a nation of children, eternally stuck in fifth grade, repeating the same old jokes over and over, never going anywhere but around in circles.
It seems that way. Before Clinton, it was Louise Woodward and her seamy tale that captivated us, and before her it was Princess Di and her tragic love life, and Kelly Flinn's indiscretion, and Marv Albert's penchant for cross-dressing and back-biting, and Dick Morris' toe fetish. It's all melodrama and peering into someone else's window; fascinating, yes, but edifying? Hardly.
There are so many ways of communicating these days, but what are we saying? How are we using what we have?
The alarm goes off and the radio comes on and it's yesterday's news repeated again. Hillary is protecting her husband. Hillary is saying this and Bill is saying that and so many unnamed sources are saying this and that, and it's the same thing on TV and in the papers and in the news magazines and on the Internet, scandal without end.
I don't want to hear it anymore. It's not news. It's gossip. It's not fact. It's conjecture. Let the investigation take place and let what is said by people willing to give their names be reported. Let the truth be told. But all the rest? Enough, already. This isn't Melrose Place. It's the United States of America, and the U.S.isn't looking too great these days. It's looking ridiculously immature and self-absorbed.
If the stories about Clinton turn out to be true, he'll pay the price. But right now we're all paying it. We may be laughing and the rest of the world may be laughing, too. But not with us. They're laughing at us.
And that's the shame of it all.
