Public Anger Rises Over Starr’s Abuses

Los Angeles is the city that gave the nation its first example of scandalous behavior on videotape (the LAPD beating of Rodney King), its first example of sexual hysteria in a day-care scandal (the McMartin case), its first target in an official government witch hunt (the Hollywood 10, which launched McCarthyism) and the one case where conclusive DNA evidence was rendered inconclusive (the O.J. Simpson trial). We’re the city of dreams and delusions, manufacturer of artifice and image.

Bill Clinton should be our poster boy--sex, lies, videotape, sexual hysteria, DNA and a witch hunt rolled into one juicy story. Yet, curiously, newspapers here are doing better at telling the real story beneath the media-hyped one, quite different from what folks on the East Coast are getting. For example, on the day that one Eastern newspaper’s headline was “Painful Debate Over Clinton’s Future Begins: Nation Showing Its Dismay and Reluctance; Censure Gets Closer Look,” the Los Angeles Times’ headline was “Public’s Support of President Found to Remain Strong: . . . Numbers show Starr took bigger personal hit than did Clinton.”

Over and over again, the majority of the public, nationwide, has made it clear that they think impeaching a man for having a sexual affair and lying about it is inappropriate and ridiculous. Of course, many despair about Clinton’s astonishing hubris in assuming he wouldn’t be caught, and many joke about his stupidity in pursuing an affair with an infatuated, conniving tchotchke like Monica Lewinsky. But most have said repeatedly that they are angrier at Kenneth Starr, whose reckless obsession to bring down Clinton makes Ahab’s pursuit of the whale look like a fishing expedition.

Yet none of these consistent surveys seems to matter. The Republicans escalate their moral crusade, their prattle about bipartisanship and their own sexual hypocrisies to the contrary notwithstanding. The media, their teeth on a story that’s worth O.J. Simpson, Princess Diana and Chappaquiddick rolled into one, aren’t about to let go.

The result, from where I sit, is a groundswell of public anger and fear for the future of the republic such as I haven’t seen since the divisive days of Vietnam. Congress can censure or impeach a president for an abuse of power; where, the public wonders, are the controls on Starr’s abuse of power? Why is Congress not concerned about the “high crimes and misdemeanors” committed by the special prosecutor’s office: the coercion of testimony, the invasion of privacy of private citizens as well as the president, the hounding of innocent people in Arkansas to try to dig up dirt on Clinton, the leaks to the press?

But there is a big difference between how people felt during the Vietnam era and how many feel now: Then, both supporters and opponents of the war felt they had a voice and that their voice mattered. Opponents had a specific goal: Stop the war. Today, many people feel helpless to slow, let alone stop, a governmental juggernaut: How can we possibly organize an “enough, already!” campaign?

In social psychological terms, the nation is caught in an emotional contagion--excitement, news, endless talk and analysis, all feeding on one another and generating more of the same--and such contagions have no logical stopping point.

What will help us achieve closure on Bill Clinton? First, Congress can vote on whether to officially censure Clinton for his “inappropriate” and “immoral” sexual behavior and for lying to save his skin. This will allow everyone to feel they have taken the moral high road. Second, Congress should officially thank Starr for all that time and money spent to bring a sexual rascal to justice. Then Congress should pass a resolution instructing Janet Reno to fire him. This will allow everyone to feel that the $45 million was well spent, while congratulating themselves on saving the taxpayers the next $45 million Starr would run up.

If Congress fails to take these steps toward closure, defying the wishes of the American majority, then it will be left to the public to send a resounding message to the pollsters and to Republicans this election: We have had enough of this moral crusade, this fascistic effort to bring down a legally elected government. If the public remains angry yet apathetic, I fear not only for the president, but for the presidency; not only for the Democrats, but for democracy.