vision2020
Re: Collective unconscious in the 105th Congress
Excerpts from Russel Baker's column today in the New York Times:
Hellbent" is the word for Republicans at this eerie moment, and what
they are hellbent on is the destruction of President Clinton.
This passion does not present them in an ennobling light despite efforts
to portray themselves as the Lord's righteous army wielding its
terrible, swift sword (Republican majorities in the Congress) to stamp
out immorality and mendacity.
It is never easy to feel comfortable with politicians who claim to hold
the high moral ground, as the Republicans now do. Few spectacles are
more grotesque. A politician holding the high moral ground is like a hog
in a bathtub.
Yet this is the situation in which Republicans find themselves in their
desperation to cleanse the Republic of a President they portray as
abominable and loathsome, and quite possibly Satanic.
The single-minded partisan intensity of their campaign for impeachment
has the smell of fanaticism on it, and possibly a touch of madness...
...What we are seeing, as Geneva Overholser notes in The Washington
Post, is the death of the political middle. Extremists are in charge.
They are always plentiful in Congress, but they rarely rule.
When Lyndon Johnson was majority leader he used to call them "the red
hots." They were dominantly liberals then, and had no muscle. Now they
are conservatives for whom accommodation and compromise amount to
betrayal of faith.
For six years they have tried to persuade the public to get rid of Mr.
Clinton for general vileness. Maddened by the public's refusal to see
the light, they have talked themselves into a frothing lather. They are
hellbent on putting a stake through his heart, and public sentiment be
damned...
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Ron Force rforce@uidaho.edu
Dean of Library Services (208) 885-6534
University of Idaho Moscow 83844-2350
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