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Imagine if students were allowed to play around with rules and standards like our president is. Picture this:
The high school class president, Slick Bubba, walks into class a few minutes late, but confidently sits down in the front row. Like any other day, the teacher calls for homework and, as he collects it, notices that Bubba doesn’t have his finished again.
Nothing too out of the ordinary. Slick’s class was never very enthusiastic about doing their homework; but because Slick is student body president and has some influence among the other students, the teacher decides to make an example of him. The teacher, Mr. Planet, launches a lecture on honesty, morality and the work ethic.
In the middle of the lecture, Bubba stands up to defend himself.
“What are you talking about? I didn’t have any homework last night.”
“Mr. Bubba, you know I’m talking about your math.”
“Oh,” Slick responds with great relief and an extra thick layer of sarcasm, “then this is just a big misunderstanding. My homework is cleaning the kitchen after dinner and keeping my bedroom spic and span. You are talking about schoolwork, and I wasn’t at school, so I couldn’t have done it, so you can’t punish me, and you certainly shouldn’t punish the rest of the class.”
A few days pass. The students were notified that Mr. Planet had decided to take away Bubba’s presidency. The students thought it was because of the difference between the two interpretations of the word “homework.” The class became outraged.
Before jumping to this conclusion, the students should find out what is really going on, and whether Bubba’s actual crime was more than a little white lie.
Like this imaginary class, we Americans are faced with a situation that runs deeper than a misconstrued word. We have gotten caught up in the small stuff. We all know Clinton lied about having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. Before we let him off on a wishy-washy issue we need to look at what we are missing — the more important issues, which paint a bigger, scarier picture.
Instead of President Clinton doing his “homework,” he has been protecting his interests. There was the government’s sale of missile and nuclear technology to North Korea, who made no guarantee that they would not sell it to American political enemies like Iran or Iraq. Another of the investigations is called Filegate. Allegedly, 900 top secret FBI files have been kept in the White House illegally, and may have been used against Clinton’s political enemies. Even though we are all sick of the Starr Report, the latest segment contains information about a possible “goon squad” that has been threatening women to keep quiet about their affairs with Clinton.
Like Slick Bubba’s classmates, if Americans knew everything that is really going on, they would be less likely to rush to judgment.
— Nicky LaVoie |
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