36 boxes
a ShUpImTa column by Chris Jungle
Be concise. I don't know how to make it any clearer. If you want to prove a point, get to the point. Never accuse a president of 11 impeachable acts, hand over 36 boxes of "evidence" and say, "The proof is all in there." That's just asking wicked political science, history, and law school professors all over this country to add a special assignment onto this semester's syllabus of required reading. I always thought Ken Starr was creating some sort of political monster in his laboratory, but I had no idea it would turn out to require the use of a push cart to deliver.
Don't get me wrong (if nothing else, don't get me wrong). I think Clinton did some silly things, and he's doing his best Jimmy Swaggart to get out of trouble. He's even made me decide to publicly repent when I get caught for all of my wrong doings. In a nut shell, he had sex lots of times with a girl who thinks sex will blossom into love. It's the horny leading the foolish. On national TV, he apologizes half-assed, and then he spends the next few weeks apologizing more. I'm sorry. No wait, I'm really sorry. No wait, I've sinned. No wait, I've repented. No wait, Jedi mind trick. So what's my point to this paragraph? I'm not on Clinton's side, but that's really a minor point. Back to the main point of 36 boxes.
36 boxes! 36 boxes of papers, folders, indexes, tables, footnotes, appendixes, headers, title pages, references, quotes, testimony, words, jargon, group think, and some incriminating evidence against the president. Are there little red arrows pointing to the relevant pieces of information, or are White House and Congressional aides sitting around with a box each and a highlighter. "Jimmy, are you still on the third day of testimony of Vernon Jordan? You're falling behind."
I have a couple shoe boxes which contain some special momentos from my life. Some of the "evidence" could incriminate me. I still keep some pictures of when I was a teenager and drank booze in my parent's house while they were out of town. Most of the shots are blurry except for this one where I'm clenching a fifth of vodka with a cheesy grin on my face. Due to the drunken frenzy, I'd forgotten about taking the pictures, and my mom developed the film a month later. Parental distrust ensued. How's that for a classic teenage screw up? It only took a paragraph to explain. Be concise.
Other momentos include old letters from friends and girls, my first pipe, my fake ID, old UPS check stubs, my voter registration, national junior honor society card, a ticket stub from a Spike Lee speech, old report cards, and a condom. There's more, but all of it fits nicely into two shoe boxes. I hardly ever look in them, and a lot of the items have very little meaning to me. But hey, two shoe boxes don't take up too much space.
36 boxes take up a lot of space, and we're not talking about shoe boxes. We're talking the 1' X 1.5' X 2' cardboard maximizer jobs. Somebody had to look through all of that, somebody had to punch in the data to get it on the computer, somebody had to edit the massive beast down into 10 to 14 page spreads in the newspapers, somebody else, somebody who is not me.
I get upset at novels that go on 100 pages longer than they should, I don't like psycho manifestos that can't come to a conclusion quickly, and I'm not amused by a 445-page report. Lawyers never are quick about making a point. It's reason #10543 not to become a lawyer.
Allow me to sum up the Clinton case in a paragraph (that's right, it was all drivel up until now). The president wanted to have sex with a young girl instead of his wife. The young girl thought sex meant love. The president ditched her after using her to satisfy his sexual craving. He didn't tell too many people about it, but she did. Lawyers got involved. When lawyers asked the president if he about the young woman, he pretended to not remember (the Ronald Reagan approach). The girl tattled. Some people think the president should be impeached for lying to lawyers about his extramarital affair, and others think he should be forgiven. Whatever your opinion is on the subject, be concise. Preferably around 750 words. If I can do it, you can.
Chris Jungle is sorry.
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