What national ordeal?
by John Hedgecoth

You haven't heard from me as the impeachment thing dragged out because I felt like we were all deluged by the media and that everything had been said. With a bit of time to reflect, at least a couple of things need to be added to the debate, and here they are:

1. There is no constitutional crisis. The reason that term was used in the Nixon era was that after withholding key evidence from the Congress, Nixon fired the special prosecutor assigned to the case, in what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre.

Further, Nixon's underlying crimes were in and of themselves challenges to the legitimacy of our republic, including the illegal surveillance of the opposition party during a presidential election. I fear that Watergate's place in the pantheon of American political hisotry may end up being eclipsed by what amounts to an aftershock along a very active political fault line. A slimeball and potential perjurer in the White House does not a constitutional crisis make.

If Clinton perjures himself regarding sexual misconduct every day for the remainder of the term, what is the damage to the nation or the constitution? Well, some GOP zealots are arguing it undermines the authority of the presidency and our system of government when the nation's top executive and commander in chief lie to us. We can't teach our children right from wrong unless we identify wrong. This is laughable. We stopped believing in the White House as a source of TRUTH before I entered first grade in 1976.

I will argue that President Reagan was not even held to a standard of truth - his remarks were taken as parables, never intended to be literally interpreted. But that's another argument.

The constitution is in stable condition and will be released after a few days of observation. It is an organic document that has survived lying presidents before (See Iran/Contra; Gulf of Tonkin) and will survive this one intact.

2. The myth of the liberal media is dead. Sam Donaldson is on an outright crusade to goad the president into resigning. Saturday evening, December 19, he called the president's vow to fight on, "sad, really." Any doubts about Donaldson merely being a Democratic Reagan-hater who wanted to attack the right should tune in now to watch the old man attempt to keep pace with the Drudges and Chris Matthews of the world in savaging this president. Show me the Clinton apologist among the paid talking heads on the major networks or cable.

Please, God, let this be the moment in history when we all realize that the media's goal is to create, sustain, develop and interpret THE STORY, whatever that story might be.

Where it involves sex, drugs, dirty money or tape recordings, so much the better. The ratings will go up, the books will be written, the lecture circuit becons for the good guys and the bad guys alike (is G. Gordon Liddy still on the air?) and the scandal-into-money alchemy works out well for all who are in the loop. Wow, I should have remained a reporter. Maybe I could scalp some local member of Congress. Sigh.

The media has no political allegiance - such trifles would be bad for business. Matthews is an excellent example, in that he toiled for a Democratic president (Carter, who will, in my view, be the last decent human being to hold the office, for reasons not set out here) and then in obscurity at the SF Chronicle before exploding onto the pundit scene as the host of cable's most acerbic anti-Clinton vehicle. Who cares that Clinton shares 90 percent of Matthews' worldview? There's THE STORY to serve, and it is a story that will "make" Matthews as a household name across North America. Liberal media, we hardly knew ye! What will Rush do now that he's mainstream?

John Hedgecoth retired from the liberal media when he realized he needed to pay the bills.

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