Week of 10/26/1998

Do You REALLY Want To Know?
Should politicians have a personal life?
- by David Matthews 2

Picture this scene sometime in the near future:

Dateline: Washington DC - The political world was shocked to learn that Senator Joseph Blow of Tennessee had once engaged in a sexual activity. The two-term Republican was embarrassed to admit that he had engaged in sexual intercourse, but he said he was young and foolish.

"I cannot lie about my actions," Blow said in his speech. "I did engage in a sexual act, but it was with my wife and it was to fulfill my marriage obligations to her. However, I have since abstained from any kind of sexual activity."

Blow’s admittance of sexual intercourse is the latest in a string of allegations between him and his Democratic contender, Charlie "Hip" O’Cryte. Hip O’Cryte is the leader of the conservative-conservative group "Families Against Sex in Tennessee." Speaking from his campaign headquarters, the leader of FAST called Blow a disgrace to the state.

"It’s time we recognize that sexual activity, even between man and wife, is a sign of ultimate degradation in society. It pains me to know that such a perverted man can think he can serve the just and moral people of this great state!"

Hip O’Cryte continued to deny allegations, however, that he himself engaged in solo sexual activity in his youth, claiming that he has a right to privacy about his juvenile past.

Sounds a bit absurd, doesn’t it?

Well it should, but that is the pattern we will be heading towards in the political arena!

As the sex-and-lies scandal that is the Clinton Administration continues in its soap opera zeal, politicians are engaging in a form of damage control, making sure that their own closets are clean of any similar skeletons.

Not everyone is escaping this sexual witch hunt intact, however. Three Republicans in Congress were revealed to having extramarital affairs in their pasts. This outraged members of Congress, not for the affairs, but rather that the probe into such activity was starting to include them.

So now the question has surfaced - Should politicians be entitled to a private life?

Europeans think so. Many Europeans cannot understand why we Americans are so obsessed with the President’s sex life. They think that the President should be left alone when it comes to his sexual past, and any affairs should be a matter left between him and his wife.

But too many Americans say that they are entitled to know what a politician does while he or she is serving the public. Their rationality is that a politician serves the public trust 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and as such, they must be constantly under scrutiny, and that the public is entitled to know what that politician is doing at all times.

Folks, this is just sheer and utter lunacy! How much of a politician’s personal life are we expected to know? If we feel entitled to know whether or not the politician in question is faithful to his wife, why not also know how often he engages in sexual activity with his wife? After all, if he isn’t pleasing her, she may be engaging in an extramarital affair of her own! And isn’t THAT just as scandalous?

And adultery isn’t the only "immoral" activity that certain social crusaders abhor. How about drinking? Maybe we should find out what kind of drinks our politicians partake in. And where. And how many.

While we’re in their kitchen, why not check the fridge to see what kind of food our politicians eat. After all, their pantries are stocked with food paid for with our tax money, right? We don’t want to have our politicians die because of poor health, do we?

Great, now we have ourselves determining if our elected officials eat the right kind of bran muffins for breakfast. Happy now? Maybe we should check his bowel movements while we’re at it, huh? Any volunteers from our neo-Orwellian crusaders?

Let’s be brutally honest here. Moralists who feel they need to know every aspect of a politician’s personal life don’t want to stop with that politician. Many moralists, especially those who consider themselves social conservatives, do not believe that ANYONE deserves a personal life, never mind a politician. All they need is an excuse to pry into people’s lives. It doesn’t matter if that excuse is for "family" or "God" or "country," if they can use it, they’ll be peering through your windows and into your bedrooms in a heartbeat.

On the other hand, it is the very hypocrisy of our politicians that have caused some of the most abhorrent actions in the name of "protecting families" and "preserving America." The ink was barely dry on the First Amendment when Congress and the White House violated it with the Alien and Sedition Act. Americans abhorred the actions of Nazi Germany against those they considered "undesirable," but were quick to intern all Japanese-Americans during the start of World War II. And more recently, Congress joyously voted to allow the Kenneth Starr Report to go online on their own servers, while at the same time voted to ban similar material from going online freely on commercial servers. When it comes to hypocrisy, you’ll find the US Government as a shining example of it.

So where should we draw the line?

Personally, I think that a politician, like anyone else, DESERVES a personal life that should be their own. When they’re not on the stump, they should deserve to live their lives as they see fit, just like we expect of ourselves. The same too for celebrities. If they invite us into their bedrooms, that’s one thing. But otherwise let them enjoy their life outside the limelight.

But there’s one caveat: If they decide to use their position to act as a judge of other people’s behavior, they had best be living up to their preaching! You want to talk about family values, you’d better not have any past mistresses lying in wait. You want to talk about the sanctity of marriage, you best not have any ex-spouses in wait. You want to talk about "addictive substances," you better have your own vices in check!

Conservatives and moralists may not like the brief public scrutiny into their personal lives, but in many cases it is an effect of their own creation. Those who feel it is their right and their role to peer into the personal lives of others must realize that their own lives would be scrutinized as well.

The moralists apparently have forgotten a little passage from a certain carpenter’s son: "Judge not, lest you be judged."

Week of 10/19/1998

Election Time Rants
- by David Matthews 2

Okay my fellow Americans, it’s the election season. That time when stuffy politicians come down off their lofty self-righteous positions and act like they really care about Joe and Jane Six-pack. The time when stupid commercials from the dysfunctional elite say "Vote for me, because I’m nothing like my incompetent opponent."

I also know that most eligible voters in America will do the stupidest thing in the world and not vote. Part of the reason will have to do with the time involved, but another will have to do with the candidates themselves. The campaigns have become dirtier than Pigpen at a Monster Truck rally in the middle of a sandstorm!

Folks, there is a reason why political campaigns have gotten dirtier and muddier than ever: THE POLITICIANS DON’T WANT YOU TO VOTE!

I’m serious. There is a direct correlation between dirty campaigning and political apathy. The dirtier the race, the fewer people that show up to vote. The new strategy for career politicians is this: since they already have their core group of voters, all they have to do is to make sure nobody else can show up with more votes against them. So they pick on the most arcane of past histories and the vaguest of reference points to use against their opponents. They use the most trivial of issues as their cause. And, of course, the other side does the same thing, because they know that such a dirty pool can dissuade the few remaining marginal voters who voted for the incumbent. They saturate the media with so much 100% pure methane that it becomes impossible to differentiate between one candidate or the other. The public gets disgusted, they assume the two parties are pathetic, whining children (which really isn’t far from the truth), and they stay home, leaving only the extremists who are loyal to the cause and have an agenda to push.

That’s how the game is played, folks! And you’re walking right into it when you decide that your vote doesn’t matter!

Isn’t it great to know you’re so gullible and predictable?

I have to laugh when I look at some of the bull that’s out there. I mean, the spin doctors and the political consultants really try to put one over on the voters. Let’s take a minute to look at some of the political tactics:

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The "Would’ve Voted" Commercial - The commercial says that "Senator Dumbass voted NO for SB1234. Joe Blow says YES." So what else was in SB1234 to make Senator Dumbass vote no on it? Every single bill that’s presented to the legislature is chock full of pork and mealy-mouthed lawyer-speak that I don’t even think that the politicians themselves know half the time what’s in it. The spin doctors certainly don’t. Maybe SB1234 would’ve done the exact opposite of what it was intended to do. If that was the case, even if Dumbass voted for the bill, Joe Blow and his legion of spin doctors would’ve rode his ass for it and say that "Joe Blow says NO to SB1234." And then there’s the fact that, in many of these cases where this tactic is used, Joe Blow never held a public office in his life! How the hell would we know if Joe Blow would’ve voted for SB1234? Maybe he would’ve done the very thing Senator Dumbass did!

The Useless Words Hook - You know, I’m beginning to understand why politicians and political wannabes use catchwords like "family values" to death. It’s not that their opponents are against "family values," but rather they can’t say anything positive about what they’d do if elected!

So you’re a "family values" politician huh? Well, so supposedly was Adolph Hitler! What makes you any different?

The same goes out to the politicians who pride themselves on claiming to be "conservative." I mean, come on! Any politician that talks about changing the status quo is, by definition, NOT a conservative!

These are examples of useless words that the spin doctors and political consultants use to describe their candidates. But the problem is that they have been so used and abused that they no longer have any legitimate meaning. You might as well say one politician is "pro-spoon" rather than "pro-fork."

Guilt By Association - The new Republican campaign is a variation of the old "Are you now or have you ever been a Communist?" Theirs is "Do you now, or have you ever relied on Bill Clinton to campaign for you?"

The inference, of course, is that Bill Clinton is so politically toxic that any association with him means that candidate is just like Clinton. That includes the simple fact that Clinton represents the Democratic Party. So much for the "big tent" inference touted by both parties.

This tactic is not limited to scandalous unconstitutional presidents. Here in Georgia, the two leading candidates for lieutenant governor are campaigning on the meaningless "conservative, pro-family" stance, and are squabbling over who is associated to gay and lesbian groups. Mark Taylor claims Mitch Skandalakis used to associate himself with gay and lesbian groups to get elected on the Fulton County Commission. He did, but then, in true political fashion, stabbed them in the back. Skandalakis then countered by saying Taylor got an "endorsement" from the gay publication "Southern Voice." Which was true, but the endorsement was completely tongue-in-cheek, which means it wasn’t an endorsement at all. But try to explain that in a sound bite.

Using guilt by association is nothing more than a cheap tactic originally developed by lawyers to dispute damnable testimony, and perfected by politicians to further their careers.

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When you look at this year’s political season, I hope every voter out there uses a very valuable tool. It’s not a "voters guide" or a cheap political slogan. What I want every voter in America to do is this - use your brains! That’s the most powerful tool you have against a politician. When all is said and done, politicians are nothing more than glitzy used car salesmen, and sometimes really bad ones at that. If they can’t sell it to you, they can’t control you.

Use your brains, people. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Reformist, Green, or even an American Communist. It doesn’t matter if you’re a conservative, liberal, libertarian, moderate, or autocrat. THINK about the choices out there.

Don’t let the politicians do your thinking for you.

Week of 10/12/1998

Target: Generation Y
Are The Boomers’ Progeny Ready For Prime Time?
- by David Matthews 2

Take heed, my fellow members of Generation X, our replacements in the pop scene have been discovered!

It seems like it was just yesterday that we were at the forefront of popular culture. We were the anti-Boomers. We were conformists when the Boomers were activists, and activists when the Boomers were conforming to authority. While Boomers were fighting for peace, we were fighting for the right to "PARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR-TY!"

Anyone remember how we got the name "Generation X" in the first place? We got the moniker "X" because the sociologists couldn’t come up with a single term that best described our generation! We weren’t like the post-World War II Baby Boomers. There was no war to mark us like the "War Babies" of my parent’s generation, or a world depression like there was in the early 1930’s. Nope, nothing monumental that could mark us. So we were the "generic" generation.. Generation X.

Well now the torch has been passed to the children of the Baby Boomers. The sons and daughters who comprise of…. Generation Y?

I’m serious, fellow X-ers, I didn’t make that title up! Apparently the social experts who tracked us were too lazy to come up with an original moniker for the next generation. They simply moved up one letter.

And from the response from the media, the world seems ready for the new blood to take over the cutting edge from us. They deem Generation Y to be optimistic, eager to spend their money on new goodies, and activists on all the right causes.

Of course, they still have every right to be optimistic and idealistic about life. The oldest of the Gen-Y breed are just starting to venture out from the house. The college-bound have yet to suffer college-loan shock for a few more years. The job market is healthy.. for now. They have a few years of disposable money before getting hit with the burden of bills. Things look optimistic for them.. at least for now.

Of course, part of the reason why Generation X got such a bad rap was because the Boomers, not just Madison Avenue, couldn’t understand us. Let’s be brutally honest about this, we came in after the party was raided by the complicity police. Boomers had free love, we got the deluge of information about sexually-transmitted diseases and AIDS. There were no great causes that the Boomers had that interested us at the time. There was no great war for us to protest against. Race relations went from opening all doors of opportunity to keeping some of those same doors closed.

Then there was the hypocrisy of many of the Boomers as they matured. The generation that didn’t trust anyone over thirty did turn thirty, and became parents, and they didn’t want their kids to be like they were in their youths. The generation that followed them grew up watching this hypocrisy as it unfolded, and bore the brunt of their folly.

Madison Avenue didn’t get the joke when they saw the grunge scene. They tried to emulate the look of torn jeans and bargain-basement clothing in high fashion circles and then wondered why we were insulted by it. They didn’t realize that we weren’t trying to be fashionable, those were the only clothes we could afford to wear!

We in Generation X were depressing because we got stuck with the bill. The job market shriveled up. Downsizing was the name of the game. It’s hard to be optimistic when you find out that the minimum wage job you applied for was given to a Boomer who just lost his high-five-figure job and needs to feed his family. Members of Congress couldn’t even balance their own checkbooks, never mind the federal budget, and we were being told there would be no money in Social Security when the time comes for us to access it. And every time there was talk about fixing Social Security, the media would flash some geriatric on the screen screaming "this is OUR money, you can’t have it!" when they don’t realize that those same spendthrift politicians they keep electing were the ones who really spent "their" money. Given all those things, wouldn’t you be depressing?

Truth be told, the Boomers didn’t WANT to understand Generation X. They were too busy trying to raise Generation Y, living that life they once despised and though of as a joke.

Well now Generation Y has been discovered by the cutting edge, and for all that it’s worth, they’re welcome to the limelight.

Maybe they can be everything their parents wanted to be in their youth but couldn’t. Or perhaps they can be something better than their parents. More responsible, less hypocritical, and more realistic in how they see the world than their parents ever were. I would certainly hope it to be so, because I hate to see how "Generation Z" turns out if it doesn’t.

Week of 10/05/1998

Just A Sample..
Do you think DNA dragnets aren’t intrusive? Wait until it snags YOU!
- by David Matthews 2

Picture this: You’re sitting at home with your family, dinner’s almost ready, and there’s a knock at the door. You open the door to see two officers standing there, badges visible, squad car in the driveway.

"Good evening Mister Smith.. I’m Sergeant Joe Thursday, this is my partner, Officer Miranda Voided. Sir, we’d like to ask you to come down to the station with us to provide a DNA sample."

You wonder what’s going on. Are you a suspect in any crimes? Do you need to call an attorney?

"No sir, we don’t suspect you of any crimes, this is simply a precaution. You see, we’re investigating a number of crimes in the area, and we’d like to weed out any potential suspects by having people provide us with a sample of their DNA. It’s a fairly easy procedure. We’ll just take your picture, take some fingerprints, and then take a swap to the inside of your mouth for some skin samples. We can have you back home in an hour."

You tell them you’re uncomfortable being taken down to the police station like an ordinary criminal.

"Well Mister Smith, I can understand you feeling uncomfortable with all this. This is, after all, a new procedure for us, but it’s being used in Europe to crack down on their killers and rapists. I would think that an upstanding citizen like you wouldn’t hesitate to clear any possible connections to crimes and …. No, Mister Smith, I told you that we don’t consider you to be a suspect in any wrongdoing. But we want to eliminate you from any possible crimes, and we can’t do that if we don’t have a sample of your DNA to do it. You don’t want to be wrongly accused of a crime, do you?"

So you ask them what they’ll do with this DNA sample once they get it from you.

"What do we do with this data? Well, I really don’t know what happens to it. I assume they keep it on file for reference, but we really haven’t set any policy for how to handle it.

"Now, Mister Smith, we can’t force you to take part in this. This is completely up to you. But I want you to think about how suspicious it looks to have you refuse to take part in this. It may make us think you have something to hide. You wouldn’t want us to think that way, do you?"

Fantasy, you ask?

Try this is becoming REALITY!

You know, Americans tend to pride ourselves on the freedoms we claim to have. We like to think we’re NOT in some totalitarian regime or in a theocracy run by rabid religious extremists. And yet, one has to think about this kind of stuff and wonder how far America really is from being something straight out of George Orwell’s 1984!

Now, I have no problem with the advancement in technology that makes DNA testing more and more faster, easier, and affordable for police and prosecutors. In legitimate criminal court cases, DNA can make or break a case. DNA testing has freed many a wrongfully convicted person when all else has failed, and has served to cement a case when all other forms of evidence can be refuted.

Yet now that same speed in testing is being used as the excuse to collect as many DNA samples as possible of the general populace. A form of DNA "dragnet" is being used to collect samples from certain groups as a way to "narrow" a search. Police in some towns are using this in isolated cases, but others are wondering if this could be used on a regular basis, much like their counterparts in England have.

Their rationality is simple - people give up a little DNA sample from inside their mouth, it gets matched against DNA samples taken from crimes. Those samples match, they’ve got their criminal. They don’t match, you’re still free. No muss, no fuss, no attorneys, no warrants, no courts. Simple.

Too simple.

Unfortunately, the theory doesn’t match with how it has been used. In all the instances where genetic dragnets have been employed, there have been no instances where the genetic samples resulted in arrests! The only breaks in cases where such a procedure was used came from the dragnets themselves, not what was collected.

In other words, the only successful use of the genetic dragnets has been as a bullying tactic, exposing possible suspects by finding some way out of the tests. Still, the concept of collecting such information is seductive to law enforcement here in America.

Of course, the supporters of such a measure say there’s nothing wrong with genetic dragnets, that it’d be just another consequence of us living in a so-called "civilized" society. After all, look at the number of states where you’re asked to give up your fingerprints as part of your drivers license. How about those states where you have to give a breathalyzer test if the police suspect you of driving drunk? If you refuse, they take your license away on the spot. And how about the number of companies that require you to take a drug test as part of your employment? Certainly a violation of a person’s personal rights, yet it’s done nonetheless.

Let’s be brutally honest here, folks. There’s a difference between having to pee in a bottle for a job and having the police escort you to the station to give up a genetic sample. You don’t HAVE to work at that job, and if you refuse to take the test and don’t take the job, that’s all. But if you refuse to allow the police to take a genetic sample from you, you’re considered a suspect in a crime. That means they get to poke around in your life, follow you around, and try to find just WHAT IT IS you’re so guilty about!

Here’s a dirty little secret, folks: in the war on crime, the police do not recognize conscientious objectors. It’s often a zero-sum game, and you’re either with them or against them.

Now for those of you who think such a dragnet would be a great idea, I want you to go back to that scene at the top of this article. I want you to imagine how you would explain to your family and your neighbors that you had to go to the police station like a criminal, get fingerprinted and photographed like a criminal, and then had a genetic sample taken from your body like a criminal. Then explain to them that you didn’t do anything, and that you were just cooperating with the police. Oh, sure, they’ll believe you. Maybe. Or how about being rousted in the middle of your sleep? Or summoned from your job? You want to explain that situation to your boss?

Then there’s the fact that, like any other kind of police power, it can be abused. People in the Boston area may remember an incident about fifteen years ago where a successful white attorney called the police on his car phone to report that he and his wife were shot by a black man. Every single black male matching the brief description of the lawyer were rousted from their homes, taken to the local Boston PD district, fingerprinted, photographed, and put on a lineup for the attorney to identify. Every single civil rights group in the area was screaming about Gestapo tactics, which failed to bring forth a single suspect. It later turned out that the attorney had shot his pregnant wife and himself and blamed it all on a fictitious attacker for the sole purpose of collecting on the insurance. Unfortunately the attorney committed suicide before the truth came out. Now tell me, do you want that kind of situation happening in New York? Or Los Angeles? Or Atlanta? Or Birmingham?

Supporters claim that the whole procedure would be "voluntary," but that is a myth. There is no such thing as "voluntary" when it comes to government. Even George Washington has said that "government is not eloquence, it is not reason, it is force."

What about what happens to the samples once they are collected and a person is cleared of the current crime? Knowing the federal government and its obsession with information, there is no doubt that the Federal Bureau of Investigation would set up some kind of genetic database like they do fingerprints. Your genetic sample, encoded, in some database for anyone in the government to gain access to for any reason whatsoever. Yeah, that’s a reassuring thought.

Listen folks, there’s a reason why government has been limited to the kinds of intrusive searches other countries have allowed. Our country was formed on the basis that the individual should be free from government intrusion into their personal lives. It has also established a system of justice where someone is considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Those two concepts may not always be in fashion, but they have stood as safeguards against an over-intrusive government. That’s something our well-intentioned advocates of genetic dragnets can never guarantee, not matter how much they sugar-coat their goals.

Week of 09/28/1998

What IS "It" About?
Whatever the politicians WANT it to be about!
- by David Matthews 2

There’s been a particular mantra being hummed out on a daily basis concerning Bill Clinton’s "improper relationship" with then intern Monica Lewinsky. You’ve probably heard this mantra at least once every other day..

"It’s not about sex."

Conservative talk show hosts recite that mantra on a regular basis.

"It’s not about sex."

You read it in every letter to the newspapers submitted by a conservative citizen.

"It’s not about sex."

Even one of my cousins, a regular reader of my articles, e-mailed me his comments about my take on "L’affair Lewinsky" and reiterated this mantra…

"It’s not about sex."

No matter the topic, no matter the spin, the conservatives have recited this mantra on a regular basis.

"It’s not about sex."

Bullshit.

That’s right, I said BULLSHIT!

You know, it takes a lot for me to believe the assertion by liberals that conservatives are just mindless sheep, but this constant reciting of the mantra of "It’s not about sex," makes me sick to my stomach. It’s almost cult-like in how it’s being used.

Let’s be brutally honest here - It IS about sex!

Sex is the selling point for this scandal. It’s Bill Clinton’s Achilles heel. It’s the reason why every air-fluffed ego in the media, every political hack, every moralist with a chip on their shoulder and a book to publish, every talking head yearning for another talk show, and every lawyer who suffered from media exposure withdrawal from the OJ Simpson trial is trying to milk this for all its worth. Sex sells! Sex gets people to look at the story!

Listen folks, do you really think that the public would be this passionate over campaign finance scandals? The notion that Washington is for sale to the highest bidder is old news! What used to be called "bribes" and "political kickbacks" are now called "campaign donations," "soft-money," and "junkets." The motivations are the same, only the names were changed to protect the politicians.

Ditto for the flap over the travel office. Yes, it’s political nepotism and cronyism at work! The only difference was that it was more blatant this time. Did we care? Hell no! It’s Washington at it’s worst, nothing more!

Don’t get me wrong, it still sucks to high heaven, but how many of us cared about those scandals? Not enough to warrant this kind of media attention!

But let’s go with the conservatives on this for a moment and ask then what this whole "L’affair Lewinsky" IS all about if it’s "not about sex."

Unfortunately, you won’t hear a consistent answer on that one. Rather, you get a constantly shifting response.

"It’s not about sex, it’s about lying."

Let’s see.. in 1990, Governor Clinton promised the voters of Arkansas that he wouldn’t run for higher office if he got re-elected. Two years later, he goes back on his word. Was he lying then, or was he suffering from political amnesia? In 1992, he promised American voters that if he was elected president, he’d give working families a tax cut. He hasn’t yet. Matter of fact, he raised taxes and then created even MORE taxes you probably never even noticed yet but you’re paying for! (Check your phone bill lately?) I’d say that’s lying, wouldn’t you? Nothing new, and nothing that has involved sex either!

"It’s not about sex, it’s about lying under oath."

How about this oath: "I, William Jefferson Clinton, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my abilities, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God."

Sound familiar? He put his hand on his family’s bible and swore that oath to the public not just once, but TWICE! And has he fulfilled that oath? Just ask the Cato Institute and you’ll find that the Clinton Administration is by far the most UNCONSTITUTIONAL administration in the history of the nation! So if he could lie about his JOB, why should we trust him in a civil trial?

Okay, how about this one: "It’s not about sex, it’s about morality and values!" It’s the house special for the moralists.

Two words: Dan Burton.

Okay, okay, two more words: Henry Hyde.

Okay, okay, not enough.. two more words: Helen Chenoweth.

Okay, okay, okay, how about these two words: Bob Packwood.

One more? How about this: Dan Quayle. (Oops! Sorry, that’s for "It’s not about sex, it’s about spelling!")

The point of this matter is this, with the sexual inquisition at full steam, a lot of "morality and family values" politicians are having to check their closets for any undeclared skeletons, no matter how old those corpses are. So much for that argument!

Here’s a good one: "It’s not about sex, it’s about sexual harassment."

The possible perjury is based on a sexual harassment case that was thrown out of court, not because Clinton lied, but because the plaintiff did not prove quid pro quo, which is the substance of a sexual harassment charge. But the corollary on that one is:

"It’s not about sex, it’s about a chief executive having sexual contact with an intern in his office!"

Designed, of course, for those office Clinton supporters, and often posed by some Republican suit who is disgusted at the notion that his own freedoms as a man are being neutered thanks to sexual harassment policies. Never mind the fact that there is very little chance that you’d find a chief executive LIVING in his workplace. The White House is not just the president’s office, but it’s also his home for the duration of his tenure in office. Clinton doesn’t have the luxury to take his personal affairs out of the office like most stuffed suits in that position do.

How about this one: "It’s not about sex, it’s about a man being involved with a woman half his age!"

Oh, yes, the AGE factor! Perfect for turning off the "soccer mom" voters who reach for their Clairol hair coloring and still fantasize about Bill Clinton. Yeah, like AGE has a factor in all this. Funny, we never asked about the ages of all the women in Ted Kennedy’s life. Or the age of guys in involved in Barney Frank’s little scandal a decade ago. By the way, we seem to forget Kathleen Wiley - the Democratic supporter who allegedly got groped by Clinton while asking for a job. She wasn’t some young intern, was she? No, she wasn’t.

Folks, age is NOT a factor here.

How about this one: "It’s not about sex, it’s about the American system of justice!"

Or better yet.. here’s it’s ugly cousin: "It’s not about sex, it’s about upholding the Constitution!"

Waive the flag boys! Them patriotic HE-ROWS of JUST-US are in Congress!

Yes, the same institutions behind making Ted Kennedy pay for Chapaquiddik and OJ Simpson pay for Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman are here to make Bill Clinton pay for our disgust of this scandal!

Okay, okay, at least that response is a bit closer to the truth than the others, but it’s still off the mark. Upholding the law or upholding the Constitution are part of Bill Clinton’s job description, or at least they’re supposed to be. And Congress is doing their job by the impeachment inquiries. So this is really a non-issue.

Finally we get to: "It’s not about sex, it’s about obstruction of justice and abuse of power."

You know, if the conservatives and moralists had stuck to this statement, we’d all have no problem with the issue. Obstruction of justice and abuse of power are very serious and credible charges to levy against Clinton.

Okay, so we’ve got obstruction of justice and abuse of power.. in what regard?

Well, according to the Starr Report, the obstruction of justice and abuse of power was in regards to an affair with an intern that Clinton said he never had.

Hmm.. that brought us back to SEX, didn’t it? Every bit of the Starr Report dealt with Clinton’s sexual encounters and his attempts to conceal them from the public.

You know, it seems that ever answer that followed "It’s not about sex" had one common thread - that they didn’t want it to BE about sex.

And perhaps that is where the truth lies. The people who say "It’s not about sex" wish it WASN’T about sex.

Why? Perhaps it’s because they’re uncomfortable with the subject. Or perhaps they can’t discuss it because to do so would make them appear to be hypocritical or prudish on the subject.

Or just perhaps they’d rather want to take down a sitting president for something that was perceived as a serious threat to the nation, but can’t with the information at hand. Think about it. What sort of credible danger exists in the nation to know that the President is a tomcat in heat? None whatsoever. It’s simply a measure of how easily we’ve been conned by a master politician.

So for all those people who beat their chests and proudly proclaim this whole "L’affair Lewinsky" is "not about sex," just take a step back from the impeachment morass and think for a minute about what it really is all about. You might be surprised.