Part of the poignancy of Bill Clinton’s disgrace may be collective guilt. Before the election in 1992, we knew Clinton was less than fully honest on many issues, but a plurality of us chose him to be our president anyway.
Watching Bill Clinton was sort of like being with a salesman who did not seem fully trustworthy, but whose smile was likable. His product seemed as good as the competitors’. So, we went with the man with the smile.
As the years wore on, we found the product is not as good as we hoped. We wish he had done better. We wish we had done better. We wish that we tried harder to have a political system that would develop and expect candidates of both high character and talent. We wish that when tough issues arose, Bill Clinton would reflect our ideals rather than our baser sides.
We wish that a core of honesty and integrity would at last ring through, instead of having a president who hides behind claims of being “legally accurate.”
As we move toward the next century, and when we will inevitably face crises, we need a leader who is anchored with honesty. We do not have that. Instead we have a president who, in times of stress, reflexively avoids the truth. And we are the ones who chose him.
Bill Clinton, and we, need to do better.
