"Why Move On? This is too much fun," the headline on the February 26th issue of The Weekly Standard proclaims. Above it runs a color photo of a bizarre quartet: Bill and Hillary Clinton arm in arm with Michael Jackson and Denise Rich, big jewelry and big smiles all around. (It's almost as amusing as the photo over my desk of a tuxedo clad Bob Dylan happily ensconced between Charlton Heston and Lauren Bacall at a Kennedy Center award ceremony.)
If only other journalists and pundits were as honest as The Standard's headline writers about their tenacious interest in Clinton's misdeeds. Of course his critics, right and center, parade their outrage -- some of which is genuine, I'm sure -- but they can barely cloak their delight that he has screwed up once again. They say that his abuse of the pardon power is bad for the country, but -- what the hell -- it's good for them.
I don't think enthusiasm for the latest Clinton scandal simply reflects political animus. Obviously, partisan political hatred of the Clintons supports right wing harpies like Barbara Olsen or Ann Coulter, and centrist apologists like Paul Begala. (What exactly would he do with himself if he didn't have Clinton to defend?) But a lot of working journalists, like newspaper columnists who have to produce 800 words, three times a week, write about Clinton because he's there. His scandals involve sex or money, which few people tire of discussing, and writing about them doesn't require any particular knowledge or expertise.
It's hard to write two or three columns of substance each week -- I doubt that I could do it -- just as it's hard to appear on television several times a week to offer interesting and original political commentary. There's no lack of important policy issues to discuss, but many of the pundits who keep Fox, MSNBC, CNN, and others in business aren't capable of intelligently discussing them. They have very shallow knowledge of the laws that Congress passes or decisions handed down by courts. They don't understand the workings of the criminal justice system any more than they really understand the Microsoft case or the dispute over Napster. That's why anchors and journalists in general turn to experts -- in law, economics, environmental science, technology, military readiness, or foreign relations -- when they want hard information or at least, informed opinion about a complicated issue.
But there seems to be limited public appetite for substantive policy discussions anyway, especially on TV, so most professional pundits, including some lazy, inept, or overwhelmed columnists, rely on political gossip to earn their keep. They traffic in attitude, instead of ideas and opinions rather than information. You could replace most of them overnight with a slew of old-time New York cabbies, and I doubt that we'd notice the difference.
I'm not defending Clinton's controversial pardons; from all that we know, issuing them was wrong as well as stupid. I'm not saying that we should pay no attention to them. I am suggesting that there's a difference between attention and obsession. I imagine that if we subjected any recent former president (except for Carter, perhaps) and every senator to the intense scrutiny leveled at the Clintons, few of them would emerge as candidates for Mount Rushmore.
Most of all, I wish we'd devote equal time to more consequential misuses of power. Clinton's sex life and his sleazy financial dealings should not have been given more airtime than the savings and loan debacle, which was much more costly to ordinary Americans. But we inhabit a culture that supposedly believes in redemption. Maybe we can change. If we're concerned about people buying preferential treatment from the government, let's examine the relationship between legislators who write the tax code and lobbyists for corporate America, as closely as we examine the behavior of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Let's follow the fortunes of the oil industry during the Bush Administration. Let's monitor the programs of churches that receive federal grants and the behavior of their spiritual leaders during upcoming elections. Let's see whose friends get the benefit of presidential largesse this time around. Bush has promised us an honorable administration. Let's dare him to deliver one.
