Friday, January 30, 1998

'Monica Madness' bit disproportionate

By Donald Kaul

I'd be the first to admit we here in Washington have gotten a little hysterical over this Monica Lewinsky thing. It's pretty much all anybody in this town wants to talk about. "What did the president do and can we get pictures?" is the question of the day.

On Monday a friend was walking through downtown Washington when he encountered a howling mob, some of whom were carrying cameras.

"What's happening?" he asked.

"Monica," came the answer. Apparently it was suspected the lady in question was inside, talking to her lawyers. I can only hope she escaped via a back exit. If she showed herself to that mob, they'd have torn her apart, literally.

There was a remarkable story going on in Cuba last week. Pope John II, one of the great anti-Communists of his time, bearded the Antichrist -- Fidel Castro himself -- in his lair. It was a wonderfully melodramatic confrontation -- this feeble old man, summoning his energies to speak out for liberty and freedom in this decaying stronghold of a dying ideology, while a subdued Castro supported his frail body.

It was a moment that offered many things, including an opportunity to re-examine our policy toward Cuba (talk about hysterical). And nobody noticed.

It got some publicity, but basically we were consumed by the Clinton-Lewinsky story.

Pretty much the same thing happened to peace in the Middle East. Netanyahu and Arafat come to town for discussions that might mean life or death to hundreds of thousands, and the president couldn't get through a photo opportunity without discussing his sex life, if any.

We may very well be moving toward another war with Iraq, and nobody here seems to care. If "Hard Copy" ain't interested, why should the rest of us be?

Other nations think we're crazy, of course.

"Wanting to know everything about a man is an essentially totalitarian practice," said a French editorialist. "It is this puritan tyranny which sometimes imbues the beautiful American democracy with an unfortunate resemblance to police states." France, you'll remember, is where the funeral of its ex-premier, Francois Mitterand, was attended by his mournful widow and his equally mournful mistress and her and Francois' grown daughter.

The Russians were almost congratulatory toward Clinton. "People here watch and think, well, there may be something wrong with it, but on the other hand, he is a real muzhik," said a TV analyst there, using the slang term for "real man." "They think this is the guy we need to rule the country."

The Danes were persnickety. "The American public's obsession with smut and scandals is not compatible with a well-functioning democracy" said the Danish daily, Politiken.

The Palestinians were conspiratorial. "The Zionist lobby and world Zionism creates disasters for anyone who may cause it problems," said Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas.

And the Brits were, well, British. The London Express said that Bill and Hilary were "badly flawed and empty people, unfit for the high task placed on their shoulders."

Oddly enough, the American people seem to be perfectly able to keep separate the private and public lives of their leaders. Polls show President Clinton's job approval ratings have fallen hardly at all in the early days of this scandal, while his moral standing has plummeted. That works for me.

There is still a legitimate question as to what he did, if anything. The denial he issued at the child care press conference on Monday was categorical and forceful. He really looked like an innocent man outraged. But we've all seen him do that act before, and I'm not sure I believe him.

None of which changes my feelings about the special prosecutor law. It is simply batty to elect a man president, then immediately appoint someone with unlimited resources to overturn every rock in that president's past to see if you can catch him in something that will prove politically embarrassing. Of course you can; we don't elect perfect people to office.

What about what a Democratic Congress did to Nixon? The high crimes and misdemeanors of Richard Nixon compared to Clinton's alleged transgressions are as an iceberg to a tray of ice cubes. The magnitude makes all the difference.

Not that you'd know it from the coverage.

E-mail Donald Kaul at otcoffee@aol.com or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services. Inc., 435 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1400, Chicago, IL 60611.