Let’s recap a recent history of some obvious decisions, value
judgments, if you will.
A rickety boat filled with refugees from Communist Cuba sinks
off the Florida coast. A passing fisherman helps save most of the
passengers. Among those who are lost is a woman, who has brought
along six-year-old son. The son survives.
The woman’s son has relatives in the U.S. who gladly take him in
and take care of him.
The Communist dictator of the island nation from which the boy’s
mother fled blusters and threatens, demanding the return of the
child. What would Ronald Reagan have said and done? “We’re not
going to send a child back to a Communist hell-hole that this boy’s
mother lost her life trying to escape.”
Simple. Obvious. Didn’t happen that way.
A MEDICAL EMERGENCY INCAPACITATES A WOMAN. She can be maintained in
a compromised state with a feeding tube. Her husband leaves her.
Her parents care for her, and claim to be able to communicate in a
rudimentary way with her. She gives some signs of responding to her
parents’ care.
After an estrangement of years, the sick woman’s husband
petitions a court to order the woman’s feeding tube removed
— i.e., to kill her by thirst and starvation.
The obvious, just, and moral response to that petition should
have been, “No. You can’t kill a person, no matter how badly
crippled she is.”
It didn’t happen that way in this case, either.
IMPEACHMENT CHARGES ARE BROUGHT AGAINST President Bill Clinton for
perjury and obstruction of justice. In essence, he tried to use the
power of his office to fix a civil case brought against him by a
former employee of the State of Arkansas, when Clinton was
governor.
The argument over the impeachment charges rages on the
then-almost-new medium of cable TV news and talk radio. The
President lies blatantly and repeatedly. In addition, he employs an
entire cohort of spokesmen to feed talking points to the news
media.
Astonishingly, the news people largely buy — and
largely admire — the President’s tactics, and help
him by slanting the news and commentary in his favor.
I remember thinking at the time, “Well, this’ll do it, once and
for all. This time the bias of the media is so blatant, so
over-the-top, nobody will ever trust them again. They’re done
for.”
But, once again, it didn’t happen that way. Indeed, the media
still does business at the same old stand and still maintains the
same old propositions. If anything, their biases have gotten
worse.
I do not, by the way, assert that it was obvious President
Clinton should have been impeached. Obviously, a man of any quality
in his position would have resigned.
OBVIOUSLY, I AM A VERY BAD PROGNOSTICATOR. In the 1996 Presidential
run-up, my candidate was Phil Gramm. In 2000, I favored John
Ashcroft. Something has happened here, and, like Bob Dylan’s Mr.
Jones contemplating monstrous people, I don’t know what it is.
The characters in Bob Dylan’s song were monsters indeed,
prefiguring the monstrous types who dominate today’s public stage:
perverse speakers of malicious nonsense, obscene exhibitionists,
proud purveyors of insane propaganda.
I don’t blame Mr. Jones a bit. The pencil in his hand won’t do
him any good, however. He should just leave. Today’s monsters can’t
survive without the Joneses to maintain an orderly society. You
can’t epater les bourgeoises if the bourgeoises
don’t pay you any mind. The Joneses can get along without the
monsters just fine.
