In message <l03102805b0f90ec15daf@[166.84.250.86]>, Doug Henwood
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>James Heartfield wrote:
>
>>Permanent scandal is getting to be the norm for the
>>political process in most countries.
>
>Replacing real politics, I suppose, a process the U.S. probably leads the
>world in.
I wrote this commentary for LM Online, comparing the US and British
scandals. Any criticism - especially on the US side of things gratefully
received:
Sex scandals
James Heartfield explains why he’s not prepared to swallow the latest
stories coming from the Whitehouse
For the last two weeks America and Britain have been in the grip of sex
scandals - scandals about US President Clinton’s alleged adultery and
harassment of women, and scandals about British Foreign Secretary Robin
Cook’s separation from his wife and relation to his lover.
This is one instance where LM Online is happy to rally to the defence of
Bill Clinton and Robin Cook. Not only are the allegations against them
both trivial, but even if they were entirely true they would be of no
account.
The gravest charges against President Clinton are those made by Paula
Jones in a sexual harassment suit that is being supported by the Special
Investigator Kenneth Starr. Paula Jones allegations, even if they were
true, are at worst the description of a misunderstanding between two
adults. But without any direct evidence they are simply unprovable. The
attempt to ‘establish a pattern of behaviour’ by dredging through the
President’s past are a scurrilous attempt to smear Clinton and prejudice
people against him - in the hopes that prejudice will substitute for a
real case.
The latest tittle-tattle standing in for news reporting is the Monica
Lewinsky allegations. This parlour room gossip is dressed up as ‘serious
allegations’ on the spurious grounds that Clinton told Lewinsky to
perjure herself in the Jones’ trial by denying an affair. But again
there is no proof behind these allegations.
Similarly, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook is berated for trying to
sack a civil servant so that he could get his girlfriend Gaynor Regan
the job. Cook is also challenged for taking Regan along on foreign trips
as his spouse. These high moral principles about perjury, perks and
civil servants are just an excuse for Conservatives and Republicans to
stir up the sexual scandals and keep them in the public eye.
According to Hillary Clinton, the allegations against her husband are
part of a right-wing conspiracy. It is true that the Right has rallied
behind Kenneth Starr, but there is no need for a conspiracy theory to
explain the scandals.
In fact the descent into scandal has more to do with the failures of the
right-wing opposition - in Britain and in America. Rather contesting the
policies of Blair and Clinton, the right have latched onto sexual and
other scandals to make up for their lack of a political alternative to
New Labour and New Democrats alike.
But more than the politicians, it is the press that has fuelled the
scandal-mania. The British press are pre-occupied with Labour scandals
in much the same way that they obsessed on Tory scandals in previous
years. Labour’s honeymoon with the press would seem to be over (though
Tony Blair has managed to rise, presidentially, above the gutter-
sniping).
There is a great deal that the British press could criticise the Blair
cabinet for. Labour’s many attacks on civil liberties, or its refusal to
pay the nurses the award recommended by the independent review are an
example. But New Labour is rarely criticised for its policies. There is
a consensus in Britain that political differences are best swept under
the carpet, in case they provoke any real conflict.
In America, too, there is no real criticism of what Bill Clinton is
doing - except what he does with his fly open. Bipartisanship is the
order of the day between the Democratic President and the Republicans in
Congress. There the press are equally craven about the President’s
policies.
The British and American press both glory in their role as a check on
the power of the politicians. But the truth is that the press have
manufactured bogus scandals to embarrass the politicians, while going
along with all the regressive social policies - from criminalising
children to welfare cutbacks.
An additional force behind the US scandals has been the role of the
Special Investigator Kenneth Starr. The existence of this permanent
legal investigator into any and all allegations against the incumbent
president is a sneaks charter. Any accusation, no matter how cranky, is
investigated, without any end-point ever coming into view. Starr began
looking at the Whitewater affair - an investigation into real estate
speculation. Now Starr has lumped in the latest sexual harassment
scandals.
Starr is alleged to be politically motivated. He might well be, but the
principal motivation is the office itself. The role of Special
Investigator was created after the Watergate era, as a check on the
power of the President. It was characteristic of the left then that they
would try to achieve by legal activism what they failed to do at the
ballot-box: get rid of Richard Nixon. The creation of a special
investigator with a roving brief to investigate allegations against the
President might as well be designed to generate scandals. Starr’s office
is a magnet for ‘smoking bimbos’ and conspiracy theorists.
The way that Kenneth Starr has crippled the US political process should
be a warning of what the future in Britain will be like. The Special
Investigator is the model for the Nolan and Downey enquiries into
parliamentary sleaze. Far from lifting the smell of corruption from the
Palace of Westminster, the recent attempts at parliamentary regulation
will foster more investigations and more newspaper-driven scandals. The
creation of an unelected office, with greater powers than those of
Parliament is a dangerous precedent. Those powers are designed to be
used against politicians and they will - irrespective of whether the
scandals have any substance or not.
Already the so-called opposition has taunted the Prime Minister with the
recently published Code of Conduct for Ministers alleging that Cook is
in breach of it for taking Gaynor Regan abroad with him. That just
illustrates the problem of publishing the Code of Conduct. Instead of
criticising the government’s policies, the temptation is to fixate on
their ‘conduct’ - as if politics were reducible to good behaviour. It
will not be long before the demands for new Downey enquiries are made,
and a government that has made a fetish out of moral rectitude will find
it difficult to fend them off.
The only real grounds for complaint against these politicians sexual
adventures is that it would be a nice idea if they did some work instead
of fooling around. Perhaps political leaders who dedicated more time and
effort to the problems society would command more respect. After all, it
is the political leaders themselves who have made their own personal
lives and behaviour the be-all and end-all of their political activity.
Bill Clinton should think twice about forcing his family life down the
American peoples’ throats. And Robin Cook should be more circumspect
about ‘ethical foreign policy’. If politicians will insist on reducing
politics to a morality play about personal behaviour, they should expect
that their own personal behaviour will come under scrutiny.
The one piece of good news from America is that the US public are wholly
unmoved by the latest scandal, and the President’s poll-ratings how no
great surge of feeling against him. Newsmen take note. Your prurience is
not necessarily shared by the public. In particular the Republican party
failed to make any hay while Monica Lewinsky’s sun was shining. Looking
at the near-paralysis of the right in the face of the new style of
politics promoted by Clinton and Blair, that is not surprising.
The bad news - though well told - is in David Mamet’s screen-play to the
film ‘Wag the Dog’, showing now in the US. In Mamet’s film a US
president embroiled in a sex scandal launches a war against a small
country to distract attention from his domestic problems (Michael Moore
had a George Bush-a-like president start a war against Canada in his
straight-to-video classic ‘Canadian Duck’).
In the lead-up to the Paula Jones hearings the American spies called
‘weapons inspectors’ provoked a fresh confrontation with Iraqi president
Saddam Hussein. Robin Cook pledged British support for any US action
against Saddam, while the other members of the UN Security Council
balked at a renewed conflict. These staged conflicts have served as a
useful distraction for American presidents, regularly coinciding with
the Presidential and Congressional elections and resulting in the deaths
of innocent Iraqis. Already the Arab press is referring to the growing
conflict as ‘the War of Clinton’s penis’. This gruesome human sacrifice
to the virility of the US presidency must stop. Bill Clinton and Robin
Cook should make love, not war.
----------ends
Fraternally
--
James Heartfield
