Passing on the Torch - Sen. Torricelli escapes prosecution ~ WSJ.

New Jersey Senator Bob Torricelli is a lucky man. He's the beneficiary of what appears to be U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White's last parting gift to the Democratic Party. Last week she announced she is declining to prosecute Mr. Torricelli, a k a "the Torch," for the sort of suspicious finances that have ruined other politicians.

Ms. White is the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York whom these columns have scored for less than zealous prosecution of the 1996 Teamsters campaign scandal. She won convictions of lower-level figures but dallied going after higher-ups and last October lost her case against the biggest player, former Teamsters chief Ron Carey. She never did bring a larger conspiracy case against Mr. Carey and other leading Democratic lights, despite testimony that that is precisely what took place.

Ms. White did win supporters in New York for her terrorist prosecutions, and one reason the Bush Administration kept her on for a year was an ongoing terror case, now concluded. But all evidence now is that her Teamsters work is over; sentencing dates have been set for February for the lower-level figures who cooperated with her probe, which means that AFL-CIO official Richard Trumka (who took the Fifth Amendment when questioned) and others cited in testimony can relax.

Last week the Bush Justice Department said it accepted Ms. White's decision not to indict Mr. Torricelli as a proper exercise of "prosecutorial discretion." And if Ms. White were a prosecutor with the credibility of, say, Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau, we'd no doubt agree. But Ms. White's history makes her decision not to prosecute worth some closer inspection.

Mr. Torricelli stands accused of receiving thousands of dollars worth of unreported gifts (a Rolex watch and Italian suits, for example) from New Jersey businessman David Chang. The Senator doesn't deny receiving the gifts, but insists they weren't illegal because Mr. Chang and he once were "friends,'' which is one of the Senate gift-ban's loopholes.

One argument against prosecuting is that the case might have come down in court to Mr. Chang's word against Mr. Torricelli's, and Mr. Chang isn't the best witness since he's already been convicted of violating campaign-finance laws. A jury also acquitted Mike Espy, former Clinton Agriculture Secretary, of violating the gift ban a few years back.

On the other hand, Ohio Democratic Representative Jim Traficant is headed for trial soon on charges of accepting illegal gifts. His prosecution was not handled by Ms. White. Mr. Torricelli has also been caught in at least one large public deception in this case, having denied he ever helped Mr. Chang with business ventures in Korea when in fact he wrote letters to U.S. and Korean officials and personally lobbied on Mr. Chang's behalf. Maybe credibility in this case is something a jury of Mr. Torricelli's peers should have decided.

At the very least, the refusal to prosecute means the case wasn't politically motivated. When media leaks made Mr. Torricelli's prospects look bleaker some time ago, the Senator and his colleagues started to play the "Republican" Justice card in public. With Mr. Torricelli up for re-election this November, and Senate control a matter of one seat, his non-indictment is a huge benefit for Democrats. They owe Attorney General Ashcroft, who recused himself in this case, and Deputy AG Larry Thompson an apology.

For her part, Ms. White seems to have found enough sleazy behavior to at least refer the matter to the Senate Ethics Committee. That panel is notoriously slow, which means no one should expect any judgment before November's election. It is also notoriously reluctant to act against one of its own, unless a Senator has been accused of sexual harassment (Bob Packwood). It looks like the last word on Mr. Torricelli's questionable ethics is going to have to come in November from the voters of New Jersey.

all together now ~ Let's just move on

From the Wall Street Journal. editorial page 8.1.01:

The Club Asserts Itself

So President Bush has nominated Robert Mueller to head the FBI, in the face of the indelicate questions we raised last week about the BCCI scandal, which Mr. Mueller handled during the first Bush Administration. The questions remain, and indeed were underlined yesterday in our letters columns; where Ira Raphaelson, a Mueller colleague at the time, preposterously gave him credit for the results of prosecutions conducted or forced by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.

Our reading is that the bipartisan Beltway Club has once again asserted itself, making sure that the FBI is in the hands of someone who will turn over no rocks and rock no boats.

Questions for Mr. Mueller

The Republic has just seen why the Director of the FBI is appointed to a 10-year term. Louis Freeh's era at the bureau had its share of mishaps and errors; no director since J. Edgar Hoover has succeeded in establishing full control of the proud and secretive institution. But Mr. Freeh was farsighted in the world-wide fight against terrorism and courageous in withstanding constant pressure from the Clinton White House and Justice Department on Whitewater, the campaign finance scandal and so on. Whatever else, Mr. Freeh has been a stand-up guy.

Tough act to follow

These qualities came to mind last week as we watched trial balloons floating over Washington with the names of Robert S. Mueller and George Terwilliger as Mr. Freeh's possible successor. These names set us to perusing the books on one of our long-lasting preoccupations, the Bank of Credit & Commerce International.

The BCCI scandal was the most important corruption story of the 20th century. Crooked international bankers cast a world-wide web of influence. They bought and sold politicians around the globe, ripped off depositors for some $10 billion, laundered drug money, worked with assorted spooks and trafficked with terrorists.

In the U.S., they illegally bought a major Washington bank, First American, and installed Democratic Party icon Clark Clifford as its head. George H.W. Bush headed the CIA during BCCI's early days and was President when its wrongdoing first began to surface. Even George W. Bush bumped up against the outer fringes of the BCCI crowd during his tenure with Harken Energy and in his friendship with Texas entrepreneur James Bath.

BCCI holds important lessons for the future. Our dawning century is one of international criminal gangs operating with increasing sophistication in a shadowy world beyond the control of fragmented national authorities. The banking and political systems are particularly vulnerable to this sort of corruption. BCCI is a prototype for this new form of global crime. As FBI Director, Mr. Freeh got a foothold on these problems; his successor will find them a major preoccupation.

Both Mr. Terwilliger and Mr. Mueller were senior Justice Department officials when BCCI got away. Mr. Terwilliger was Deputy Attorney General; and Mr. Mueller ran the Criminal Division at Main Justice from 1990 to 1993. When it came to making decisions about investigations and prosecutions in the BCCI affair they were the men at the switches. Only the Attorney General and the President had higher federal authority. Mr. Terwilliger apparently is off the short list because confirmation would be complicated by his legal work for Mr. Bush in the Florida election dispute.

This means the presumed front-runner is Mr. Mueller, who took personal charge of the BCCI probe. If he is nominated, a number of questions need to be asked. How did BCCI manage to gain entry into the U.S. banking system and acquire First American? Did the U.S. intelligence community grease the skids for BCCI at critical junctures? Was the Justice Department part of the solution to the BCCI mess, or part of the problem?

When Mr. Mueller took over the Criminal Division, critics in Congress and the media were already raising questions about Justice and BCCI. He stepped into this breach, telling the Washington Post in July 1991 that maybe indeed there was an "appearance of, one, foot-dragging; two, perhaps a coverup." He denied the coverup claims, specifically rejecting a Time magazine report that the U.S. government was seeking to obscure its role in the scandal partly because the CIA may have collaborated with the bank's operatives. Perhaps Justice should have been more enthusiastic and aggressive about the case, he told the Post, but "nobody has ever accused me of lacking aggression."

Still, the problems with Justice persisted. And the timing of some of Mr. Mueller's moves raised eyebrows. In September 1991, Justice indicted six BCCI figures and a reputed Colombian drug lord on racketeering charges. The indictment was unveiled just minutes after then-Congressman Charles Schumer issued a report sharply critical of Justice Department handling of the case. As Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin noted in their authoritative book, "False Profits: Inside BCCI," the indictment was merely "warmed-over information from an investigation that had ended nearly two years before."

Mr. Mueller also engaged in a running series of battles with the Manhattan District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau. According to news reports over the years, Justice prosecutors were instructed not to cooperate with Mr. Morgenthau's office, documents were withheld, and attempts were made to block other federal agencies from cooperating. In July 1992, both Mr. Mueller and Mr. Morgenthau simultaneously but separately indicted Mr. Clifford and his top aide Robert Altman in the BCCI scandal, with Mr. Morgenthau finally winning the right to try the men. Mr. Clifford was later dropped from the case due to infirmity and Mr. Altman was eventually acquitted. The curious and distracting fight over jurisdiction stands to be revisited.

Janet Reno named Mr. Mueller interim U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California in 1998; he was confirmed for the position in 1999. He was sent to reform an office marked by trouble, and his success or lack of it should be closely examined. His position as FBI front-runner, we read, was won by showing the ropes to new Attorney General John Ashcroft when he was home alone at Justice without a confirmed staff.

With Mr. Mueller's splendid paper credentials, we initially thought he must be a top-flight professional, whatever his misfortunes with BCCI. When we sought out some former Justice officials and others whose views we trust, we were surprised by negative returns, BCCI aside. While we hesitate to traffic in anonymous slams, let it be said that informed doubt exists about not only his independence, but his managerial competence.

On general principles, our view is that it would be a mistake to appoint as FBI head anyone who had any role in the failed BCCI probe. Too many important questions remain unanswered, and we clearly need another stand-up guy after the Clinton depredations at Justice. On the evidence we can see, Mr. Mueller would be a peculiar choice indeed.

Ask

Orin (Reno Escape) Hatch

clinton: "There isn't a shred of evidence." Q ERTY2 rodham-clinton reality-check BUMP!

"I did not have any involvement in the pardons that were granted or not granted," insisted Sen. KnowNothing, seeming to forget her presence at the New-Square/Oval-Office schmooze that secured pardons for the four Hasidic felons who set up a phony school in Brooklyn to swindle the government out of millions intended for the poor.

Mia T, Sen. KnowNothing Victim Clinton Effectively Pleads 5TH in Press Conference by Invoking Spousal Privilege

It is very significant that hillary clinton didn't deny clinton culpability for 9/11..., notwithstanding tired tactics (if you can't pass the buck, spread the blame) and chronic self-exclusion. ("I knew nuttin'.")

hillary clinton blames hubby for terrorism (NB: SHE knew nuttin')

(Meet the Press, 12-09-01)

Sen. KnowNothing Victim Clinton Holds News Conference
EFFECTIVELY PLEADS 5^TH BY INVOKING SPOUSAL PRIVILEGE
by Mia T

WASHINGTON- February 22. Sen. KnowNothing Victim Clinton held her premiere press conference today on Capitol Hill, ostensibly to answer questions about the peddling of White House pardons by her brother and her campaign treasurer. Notably absent among the press queries were any about her own involvement not only in those pardons, but in the larger universe of sold pardons--the incipient clinton scandal du jour--Pardongate.
KnowNothing's brother, Hugh Rodham, secured two of the 141 clinton midnight pardons, one for a cocaine kingpin and the other for a snake-oil swindler. Rodham netted a quick $400,000 for his "work" according to various rodhams and clintons and their assorted lawyers. KnowNothing's campaign treasurer, William Cunningham III, himself a law partner of longtime KnowNothing adviser Harold Ickes, helped obtain last-minute pardons for two convicted felons.
LA FAMIGLIA
Displaying a willingness to throw her brother (along with her husband) to the wolves, Sen. Victim Clinton was quick to make a distinction between her big, bad brother's pardon "work" and that of her campaign treasurer, "a fine lawyer and a fine man." The "family" connection of brother Rodham to Clinton made brother Rodham's "work" bad, bad, bad, whereas the campaign treasurer Cunningham's connection to the senator and her campaign coffers made his securing of two pardons in record time a sterling example of highminded, effective public service.
KnowNothing is apparently not the best of thinkers. If the "family" connection makes lobbying for cocaine-kingpin and snake-oil-swindler pardons bad, bad, bad for brother Rodham, then the "family" connection makes lobbying for the Hasidim 4 (see Keating 5) pardons bad, badder, baddest for the wife, First Lady and senator-elect. Moreover, pardons for votes is arguably worse than pardons for dough.
EFFECTIVELY PLEADS 5^TH BY INVOKING SPOUSAL PRIVILEGE
KnowNothing specifically declined to answer when asked whether she discussed the pardons with her husband, effectively pleading the 5^th. Turning aside questions about the pardon decisions her husband had made, she told reporters they should address those issues with him and his staff. She refused to say whether he should agree to appear voluntarily before congressional committees investigating the pardons. Interestingly, no one asked her whether she would agree to appear voluntarily before those same congressional committees.
I DIDN'T HAVE SEX WITH THAT PARDON
"I did not have any involvement in the pardons that were granted or not granted," insisted Sen. KnowNothing, seeming to forget her presence at the New-Square/Oval-Office schmooze that secured pardons for the four Hasidic felons who set up a phony school in Brooklyn to swindle the government out of millions intended for the poor.
RESURRECTING RUFF
KnowNothing noted that her"best memory" was that she never spoke to her brother or to Mr. Cunningham about the pardons. With variations of "I don't have a memory" and "my best memory, and avoiding the more obvious "I don't recall" and "my best recollection," KnowNothing reprised the Ruffian standard used during the clinton years to commit perjury without penalty.
I GET LETTERS
...or more precisely, envelopes. During her denials of involvement in any of the pardons, KnowNothing made the curious claim: "People handed me envelopes, I passed them on [and never opened a single one. Honest.]"
I AM VICTIM
Reprising the role of victim that enabled her to win a senate seat in spite of record-high personal negatives and public failures, the senator peppered her answers about big, bad Hugh (understanding that the subtext was big, bad Bill) with "saddened" and "disappointed" and "heartbroken" and "shocked."
UTTER CONTEMPT FOR THE PEOPLE
This session today was cut short by a staffer when reporters appeared dissatisfied by Senator KnowNothing's lack of candor.
In the end, this press conference full of poses, poll-tested phrases and prevarication was just another display of the clintons' utter contempt for the people. Bill Clinton committed the same error last Sunday in his shameless, lie-filled New York Times Pardongate Apologia.
The clintons' fundamental error: They are too arrogant and dim-witted to understand that the demagogic process in this fiberoptic age isn't about counting spun heads; it's about not discounting circumambient brains.

HEY, HEY MARY JO!

by Mia T

So many pardons 4 sale.

So many rodhams & clintons to nail.

Hey, hey Mary Jo!

Can you spell R-I-C-O?

Don't lose

Your head

To gain a minute

You need your head

Your brains are in it.

--an old roadside ad, Pushme-Pullyou

"My client had nothing to do with the low-rent, trailer-park trash politicians who infested our country for the past eight years."

--Michael Rosen, lawyer for Thomas Gambino, son of late Mafia boss Carlo Gambino
New York Post via The Wall Street Journal

(Michael Rosen was understandably eager to distance his client, a convicted loan shark, from the clintons. Another Thomas Gambino reportedly paid $50,000 to roger clinton in an unsuccessful effort to get a pardon for his father, Rosario Gambino.),

It was Robert Torricelli…right before his eyes
It was Robert Torricelli…who's quite small in size
He had poured much money into his campaign
But now what he was seeing's quite insane
It was Robert Torricelli…that worthless lump

(La-la-la-la-la)
It's Robert Torricelli…it's Robert Torricelli
It's Robert Torricelli…that worthless lump

----doug from upland


THE GODFATHER -- Part XXXVIII

by Edward Zehr
______________________
Scene: Don Tor~r~-i-CHE-li's suite in the Senate Office Building.

[Enter Clinton]

Don Tor~r~-i-CHE-li: [pinching his cheek] Beely-boy, paisano, howa-
you-doin' uh?

Clinton: [kisses his ring] My respects, Don Torricelli.

Don Tor~r~-i-CHE-li: [speaking in a hoarse, high-pitched whisper]
You know-a da boys here -- "Dungheap" Harkin an' "Doofus" Dodd, da
lowa half-a da waitress samwich. [Head jerks in their direction].
Da uddah half couldn' make it ta-day.

Clinton: I keep tellin' him not to mix booze and coke.

"Doofus" Dodd: [muttering] No respect -- evah since dat aftanoon
at La Brasserie I don't get no respect.

"Dungheap" Harkin: What a pile-a dung! I tole ya ta keep ya paws
offa-da help till afta hou-was, ya big doofus.

[Don Tor~r~-i-CHE-li casts a stern look in their direction --
the two wiseguys pipe down].

Don Tor~r~-i-CHE-li: So, what bringa-you here to see you old
God-Fatha, huh? [playfully mussinng his hair] You in trouble over
la ragazza again? Huh? Uh? [leers knowingly]

Clinton: [looking worried] I'm worried, Godfather. They're talking
to Monica again. They've got six Jane Does warming up in the
bullpen. Six! Whatamigonnado, Godfather, whatamigonnado?

Don Tor~r~-i-CHE-li: [looking VERY annoyed] HEY! hey -- whats
alla dis whatamigonnado, whatamigonnado? Whatta you God-Fatha
teacha YOU, huh? You KNOW whachu gotta do. You senda wiseguy around
ta break bot-a dere legs. Ya remembah how we take care-a dat
mout'piece in Liddle-Rock -- da one wid' da tapes-a you at Gennifuh's
pad?


Clinton: B-but, but . . .

Don Tor~r~-i-CHE-li: But? BUT? Hey look, paisan' -- I know you gotta
position ta uphold. You gotta image ta considah. Dis is a matta
f'la famiglia. You tella you God-Fatha da problem -- we
fixa f'you, Okay?

Clinton: But you can't break all of their legs -- how would it
look?

Don Tor~r~-i-CHE-li: [looking grievously wronged] BEELY, Beely,
Beely -- what great wrong did I doa-ta you, dat you treat me wid
such disrespect? Now you gonna teacha me my bidniss -- huh?
[in a cold tone of voice] You remembah Vin-CHEN-zo, right?

Clinton: [looking scared] Yes, Godfather.

Don Tor~r~-i-CHE-li: He hada biga mout'. He gonna talka
bout da blood-a-drive, right?

Clinton: Yes, Godfather.

Don Tor~r~-i-CHE-li: We fixa f'you, okay? No blood-a-spatta, no
broken-a-teeth, no crime-a-scene photos, no x-a-ray. We provide-a
da drop-a gun. (No charge). We laya him out nice & neat -- very
professional, very discrete. You gotta complaint?

Clinton: No, Godfather.

Don Tor~r~-i-CHE-li: Good. You do-need-ta worry about no Jane Does.
I make-a-dem an offa dey cannot refuse, capish?

Clinton: Yes, Godfather.

Don Tor~r~-i-CHE-li: [pinching his ear] You-a goodboy, Beely.
Give-a my regards ta-da wife.

Clinton: [kisses his ring and withdraws].

[CUT]

It's not easy to play fair against Mr. and Mrs. Clinton, who, in the words of the authors, "operated like a crime family, expecting friends and aides to protect them even against their own best interests." What's amazing, of course, is that's exactly what Clinton friends and aides have always done, from Susan McDougal to Webster Hubbell to flocks of nameless White House special assistants. Even Jim McDougal died just in time to deprive the independent counsel of a key witness against Mrs. Clinton, thus derailing what the authors report to have been her likely indictment for perjury and obstruction related to the Whitewater investigation....
Reading the tumultuous events of the Lewinsky probe in a comprehensive narrative is unlike attempting to make sense of it in daily doses. Something different comes through the heavy accumulation of detail of, for example, the duplicity of the Justice Department, or the sharklike behavior of the White House. One begins to get a choking sense of the atmosphere of corruption and ruthlessness the Clintons inhabit -- and, worse, have forced the rest of us to inhabit. Taken in one piece, the habitual, even casual abuse of power on display begins to resemble conditions one normally associates with a state of totalitarianism, where such concepts as truth and justice are only paid lip service. In the end, then, it makes you wonder when there will be fresh air again.

-----Crime-family values

The only way they can win is to convince people that we're space aliens.: --bill clinton




Peggy Noonan's excellent piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal is really the story of the death of democracy. At its core it is the description of the human double helix gone terribly awry, of a denatured protein grotesquely twisted, of two mutant, tangled strands of DNA, the basest imaginable of base pairs linked permanently, as firmly as guanine to cytosine, bill inexorably to hillary and conversely, doing what they do best, and doing it relentlessly.

Killing.
Killing insidiously.
Killing as they pose and pander and feel our pain.

My only complaint is with Peggy Noonan's title.
The Mad Boomer, doesn't begin to capture candidate clinton considered separately or even taken as the self-anointed "twofer," permanently conjoined at that cavity conspicuously empty except for ego, that place where brain and soul and guts and heart normally reside.

This is not to say that she -- that they -- are not both quite mad and of that self-indulgent, arrogantly, ignorantly solipsistic age sandwiched flatly between yesterday's innocence and tomorrow's insouciance. Rather, it is that their madness and their boomerism don't even begin to explain their noxious influence: The cloying, internally inconsistent clinton calculus. The unspoken clinton threats. They permeate the atmosphere like a coiling miasma, choking off all freedom.

Even in New York.
Especially in New York.
When she wrote "The New Colossus," Emma Lazarus hardly had in mind this pair of mutant, deadly, twisted aliens.

So forget Arkansas-Illinois carpetbaggery and standard issue muckraking. The clintons are aliens of quite another sort. They are extrinsic, not of this world. They are inhuman. They are dehumanizing.

You may recall that the first act of this story of two degenerates maintained by iterating idiots, farce of farce ad infinitum, was generated quite by accident by iterated AlGoreRhythm, who, it should be noted, is now himself the object of iterated calculation by said degenerates who want iteration 2004 all for themselves.

And thus the odd bit of bloody Gore in Act II: The ugly sight of a corrupt, bottom-heavy hillary self-impaled on the horns of a Treason-Dilemma- masquerading-as-a-Third-Term-Dilemma-masquerading-as-a-Senate-stampede, for example, or bill's recent unsolicited, underwhelming Times interview on the Gore candidacy.

Act I was called "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover." Ostensibly the tale of the wife of a bloodthirsty crime boss who finds romance with a bland bookseller between courses at her husband's restaurant, it was in fact the Thyestean and moveable -- yet unmoving -- feast of hillary clinton at her husband's sham restitution. (Note the reciprocity. The sham restitution in Act II is all hillary's.)

Food, color coding, sex, murder, torture and cannibalism were the exotic (if mostly horizontal) fare in this beautifully filmed but brutally uncompromising modern memoir which passed as ancient fable about nouveau riche rapacity.
Not for the faint at heart, Purple Hearts or queazy stomachs, this depiction of the gross debasement of America was heavily peppered with irony and dark humor throughout.

Although she baked no cookies, didn't do illicit land or cattle deals and stood by no man, hillary clinton starred in the triple role of the Cook, the Thief and his Wife. Her lover was played at once vaporously and in workmanlike fashion by the ghost of Eleanor Roosevelt, with Janet Reno, between her stints rendering intermittent injustice for the Husband, as the reliable stand-in. Sidney Blumenthal was the stand-in for the Cook and Craig Livingstone the stand-in for the Thief. The last-minute addition of Christopher Hitchens as the snitch was a stroke of absolute genius notwithstanding its cerebral accident, its predictable-if-perfect pitch and its facile alliteration.

Although Act I had no rating, the new clinton soccer-mom directive will require a photo ID for any viewer without independent proof of illegal alien DNC or DNA sequencing.

In Act II, rabid anti-clinton voters, roughly 33% of the U.S. populace according to as-yet-unpodded pollsters, become increasingly aware that they are disappearing in droves and being replaced by alien pod replicas which have their physical attributes but lack all anti-clinton affect.

If Act I was a thinly veiled allegory about naked clintonism, then Act II is a parable about the plan for world domination by the Establishment, aged hippies in pinstripes all, with their infantile, solipsistic world view amazingly untouched by time.
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

HEY, HEY MARY JO! BUMP
by Mia T
: So many pardons 4 sale.; So many rodhams & clintons to nail.
: Hey, hey Mary Jo!; Can you spell R-I-C-O?

Q ERTY1 reality-check BUMP!
Nothing less than humanity, itself, will forever be in the debt of Pres. Bush for having had the courage to take on terrorism FOR REAL. (See:The Real Danger of a Presidential Faker: Post-9/11 Reconsideration of The Placebo Presidency) But that does not excuse Dubya's less-than-courageous decision not to expend political capital to go after clinton corruption. Not to do so threatens democracy--perhaps more slowly--but just as surely as terrorism does. In fact, it would not be a stretch to call the clinton crimes "domestic terrorism." Frankly, the incestuous, dynastic, professional nature of the current political structure, together with the clintons' limitless access to dark secrets via filegate, etc., suggest an even less honorable reason than simple politics for the decision "to move on."
by Mia T

Not Joe Klein's Primary Colors. And not Jack Stanton.
bill clinton is straight out of
Stanley Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

clinton is Alex,
one of the few truly amoral characters in either film or literature;
not quite as Kubrick (or Burgess) had imagined him, however,
but rumpled, wrinkled, paunchy, edematous,
stripped of the youth-excuse
after 30 additional, pathetic, recidivistic years
of marauding, stomping, raping, gangbanging, deceiving and destroying.

Like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, the story of bill clinton
is the story about a society that has lost its capacity for moral choice.
But unlike in the less fabulous and no more ironic fable,
clinton is not mere nascent symbol but nihilistic agent.

clinton, like Alex, is the leader of the gang, the "droogies."
Eerily prefigured by the rocking, crooked phallus,
clinton's a conscienceless sadist
who thrills at risk and gratuitous destruction,
whose sexual and non-sexual impotence
is at the root of his obsession with "the old inout."

When Alex kills a woman during a rape, Alex is sent to prison.
When clinton rapes women, girls, his country and God knows what else. . .
and kills? --- check out those fourscore-plus deaths, please!
And don't forget the wag-the-dog, desperately-seeking-a-legacy bombings,
or the cold-blooded Ricky Ray Rector execution---
not clinton but society is imprisoned,
imprisoned in clinton's
besmirched, semen-stained, feckless presidency.

A risible and repulsive result;
yet not even the punch line.

While Alex is conditioned in prison with aversion therapy,
transmuted into a moral robot who becomes nauseated
by the mere thought of sex and violence,
bill clinton and his Thought Police,
in a perverse reverse aversion,
have conditioned society's collective brain
into not mere acquiescence but twisted admiration.

In the end,
if clinton's arrogant, ruthless, reckless nature is restored to him,
it seems the joke will be on all of us,
for it will be a victory for infinite victimhood and irresponsibility,
for seduction, for violence, for nihilism, for anarchy.

We will have set apart clinton as the hero
by making his victims less human than he;
we will have allowed clinton to carefully estrange us from his victims
so that we can enjoy the rapes and the beatings
as much as clinton himself does.

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