Posted on 03/02/2002 11:14:05 AM PST by Masada
Late on Tuesday night, when the will of the voters can no longer be denied, it's a near-certain bet that Congressman Gary Condit will step to the podium, turn those big, round, hangdog eyes towards the cameras and concede that his political career is officially over.
We can expect him to say all the predictable things, to thank his dutiful family for standing by him through months of crisis and also, perhaps, to snarl a few bitter words about what it is like to be crucified by the media.
If we're lucky - and this bit will make fine TV indeed - there may even be a spirited denial that he had anything whatsoever to do with the likely death of Chandra Levy, the lovestruck Washington intern whose mysterious disappearance has caused Condit so much grief.
It will be quite a spectacle, no doubt about it, as the veteran Democrat acknowledges his inevitable defeat in Tuesday's primary election. But those public words won't be half as interesting as the thoughts that will surely be tumbling through his head as he bids goodbye to three decades of public life.
"How could this have happened?" he'll be thinking. "Why me? What made my intern scandal so different? Bill Clinton dallied with the help and told so many lies the authorities barred him from practising law - yet he has suckers lining up around the world, as far as Australia, eager to pay $1000 a plate while he talks."
By contrast, the congressman will know he is broke, about to be grilled by a grand jury, and might be charged at some point with - take a deep breath - perjury, abduction, maybe even murder.
Unless you happen to be one of those who believe Condit arranged Levy's disappearance - which is a sizeable body of opinion - it will be hard not to feel a twinge of sympathy at such unequal treatment. How could two blowdried deceivers begin with almost identical mistakes and end up in such radically different circumstances?
If Condit believes in poetic justice, he may well reflect that his predicament is an example of the bitter rewards that the fates reserve for hypocrites. If only he had not struck such a righteous pose when denouncing Clinton's carnal escapades, folks might have been more willing to ignore his own.
Clinton was accused of rape, alleged victim Juanita Broaddrick producing witnesses to back up her account of being bitten on the lip until it bled, forced on to a hotel bed and ravaged by a man who was skilled at ripping the crotch out of a pair of pantyhose with just one hand. Yet that allegation made not the slightest difference to the Clinton faithful. Even the National Organisation of Women, who tried to blackball Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for joking about a pubic hair on his Coke can, assumed all manner of unlikely and undignified stances to accommodate their pinup President.
No such luck for Condit. Clinton stained the Oval Office while his girlfriend performed innovative tricks with inanimate objects, and that was just jake with everyone - including the editorial writers of the New York Times, who tirelessly defended the sanctity of the President's "right to a private life." Condit, on the other hand, told a stewardess who was his mistress that he would like to wear leather while making love to her before an audience of raincoated men, and the treacherous trollop went on the talk shows to reveal his darkest joys.
And for that fantasy, not to mention his habit of shaving every scrap of body hair, the voters branded him a pervert. It has all been so unfair. It's not as if he asked his sweetheart to play funny games with fat cigars.
Clinton enlisted his wife, Hillary, in his defence, and the then-First Lady was hailed for her strength, devotion, and dignity. Mrs Condit tried the same tack, and the National Enquirer reported that she was a jealous bitch who screamed at his intern lover days before she vanished.
Worse, the other supermarket tabloids erroneously reported that she is suffering from "battered wife syndrome," and that she wears a pair of prosthetic thumbs - the implication being that her bestial husband may have torn off the originals.
Condit's friends? They let him down, too. Clinton's entire cabinet trooped before the cameras to reject the suggestion that he played fast and loose with Monica Lewinsky.
Condit's longtime driver, Vince Flammini, was invited to step into the spotlight, and what happened? He repeated Condit's boasts of "powerful protectors" who would always cover his tracks. "No matter what I do," Flammini quoted Condit as saying, "my friends ... if something happened ... if I killed somebody, they'd help me bury the body."
And who might those buddies be? According to the driver, Condit was most likely referring to the gang of hard-core bikies with whom Flammini said he liked to party on the sly, presumably in full leather regalia.
Clinton sold pardons to drug dealers and swiped the White House furniture.
All Condit ever did was hand out cushy jobs to the otherwise unemployable children of his political supporters, yet he is the one tarred as the foulest example of brazen corruption this side of Paraguay.
Condit tried to prove them wrong, defiantly refusing to resign when Democratic Party elders told him that he made the voters' skin crawl. He mortgaged the family home to fund his hopeless campaign and is reported to have sold the Washington apartment where that blabbermouth stewardess said he liked tying young girls to his bed. In the end, it was all for nothing. With just days to go before the primary election, the polls had him trailing his opponent by as much as 40 points.
On Tuesday, when the votes are tallied, it will become official. Already saddled with debts he has no possibility of repaying, Condit will be staring at the prospect of many more months' worth of ruinous legal fees.
The pundits will say his loss in the primary was to be expected. The country, they will insist, wants real leaders these days, not hairless oddballs with a kink for gladiator drag. Condit's defeat, they will add, is the ultimate proof that the Clinton era is over: character counts once again, especially after September 11, even behind closed doors.
At some point in his travels, if he has any sense of fairness, Clinton might pause on his golden road and send Condit a cheque. The money won't resolve Condit's woes but the act might propitiate those capricious fates.
But for our protection, they must be whispering to the former President, that wretch in California could have been you.
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