OH, TO BE SO VIRTUOUS ABOUT VIRTUE
I may be the only person in the nation who has no strong opinions one way or
the other about president Clinton, and it worries me. I mean, every film
star, senator and intellectual knows what's wrong with the man, and I can't
make up my mind -- it's aggravating.
The other day I was watching Bill Bennett on TV. Bennett is the author of The
Book of Virtues and our moralist laureate. So I was watching eagerly, hoping
to receive some guidance in the matter. And sure enough, Bennett knew exactly
what was what. Like, cheating on your wife is wrong and lying about it is even
worse. No question, I thought, I'll go along with that. I felt pretty good
about it, too, because I have never cheated on my wife.
But then, right through my feel-good glow, I had these perverse ideas. Maybe
it wasn't virtue, I thought, that had kept me pure. Maybe it was timidity or
just luck. And maybe not lying about cheating on your wife is worse than
lying. See what I mean? Every time I listen to people like Bennett, they make
me moral and then some crazy thought creeps in to take me down again. It's
pathetic.
Another time I read in the paper that a majority of Americans, i.e., more than
500 of the 1000 asked, thought that what the president did in his spare time
was his business. Right on, was my first reaction, what harm to the nation can
there be in a little dalliance in the White House? But then, I thought,
suppose Pakistan attacks us and the president has to push the red button
while he is busy pushing other buttons? There's only so many things a person
can do at the same time! So I changed my mind about him.
Now the media tell me I shouldn't have, because he wasn't pushing any buttons.
It's true that he was having his buttons pushed, but he had his hands free! So
he could have done something about Pakistan after all. I was wrong again!
What doesn't help is that until recently, I was legally illiterate. Words
like 'perjury' meant nothing to me. I now realize that committing perjury, by
not telling the grand jury what your hands were doing, is awful. At the time
though I had no idea the situation was so grave; I thought he was just lying
about some hanky-panky.
I still don't know what to think of the president. But I noticed that my
foreign friends giggle when they hear his name, and that's kind of
embarrassing. So maybe he should resign. It would give me a six month breather
before starting to worry about Al Gore.
At Random - Adrian Korpel
