A Not So Fond Farewell to Gingrich, Thompson, Burton and Barr

A Not So Fond Farewell to Gingrich, Thompson, Burton and Barr
by Mac MacArthur

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1997 (APJP) -- NEW YORK

An Open Letter to the Editors of Any Newspaper Brave Enough to Print the Truth:

Dear Editor:

In Arianna Huffington's soon-to-be-released new book, "Greetings from the Lincoln Bedroom," she inserts a hilarious chapter featuring none other than "Snakehead" himself, James Carville, selling -- at auction mind you -- everything from the President's cufflinks to his "Trust."

Trust, Arianna proffers is, "But like the finest china, it takes a long time to make and much less time to shatter."

Perhaps, as I recommend to her, she should re-write that chapter having Carville sell off Bill Clinton's dignity instead. For here is a president and a man, pilloried by the mainstream media, sued at every turn, mocked by leaders of his own party, but nonetheless loved by America. He's had to endure years of tribulation thanks to a group of unseasoned radical "defenders of the GOP faith" who see him as their final target to gain control of this nation's policy.

Yet, the people know better, and the sins of the Gingrichians are about to be visited upon them.

If you don't believe me, check the latest CNN/USA TODAY poll.

Quite simply, President Clinton Is America's "Most Admired Man" and has been for as long as I can remember.

Second in line for American kudos is Billy Graham, followed by Pope John Paul II and Colin Powell.

Hillary Clinton tops the list of American's most admired women.

Well, of course. The American people aren't stupid. They just like bęte noir-esque entertainment.

If you're Newt Gingrich, Dan Burton or Bob Barr, what do you say?

Well, I say, "Resign" -- your hateful political tricks didn't work. Your insidious witch hunts came up with nothing, and the millions in legal bills you ran up using my money are unacceptable.

Resign you poseurs, pay us back the moneys you wasted, and let the Grand Old Party rebuild itself without you.

This is my last column for the year. If I can make just one point, it's this -- I count many Republicans as "friends." There are Bill Brock and Dennis Whitefield, Ed Howard of Pennsylvania, Arianna Huffington, Henry Hyde, Henry Kissinger, the late Governor Rockefeller, the truly "beloved" Gerry and Betty Ford. There's Barbara Bush and Nancy Reagan, Bill Paxon and Susan Molinari. The list goes on. Perhaps I admire no politician more than Ronald Reagan - not for his politics, which were perverted by other men's greed -- but for his saneness, his life history, and his love for this country.

But these Republican men and women have nothing in common with toilet scum like Newt Gingrich, Bob Barr, Dan Burton and the utterly impotent Fred Thompson -- he too mislead by kooks like Bob Smith and Orrin Hatch. It is these men and one woman -- smiling Sue Collins from Maine -- who have engaged in such bitter meanness, such indictable prevarications, fact twisting, personal vendetta, and the destruction of families -- real families; It is they that truly deserve the wrath of voters come re-election time.

These interloper "leaders" make a mockery of Jeffersonian Democracy. They are purveyors of a cancer that eats at the guts of America. Greed, avarice, power mongering, lust for destruction. Those terms are describe them best.

Gingrich, Thompson, Burton and Barr - Paula Jones and Kenneth Starr -- they've done their filthy work. They've bankrupted the President and his family, his young strikingly smart and sincere daughter, his wife Hillary who only tried to give health care to the poorest of our poor.

They've completed their treacherous mission.

Yesterday, an heir to one of our greatest Justices, Cardozo, and the chief of the Clinton's Legal Defense Fund announced he was closing shop. The Clinton's, drowning in $3 million dollars of legal fee debt, are disappointed. But the donations to defend them dried up. Not for want of potential contributors, but from fear of the power the Gingrichians wield.

And they do wield a terrible power.

They can break your company by blocking just one key federal contract. They can get their friends at the IRS or the Bureau to investigate you. They can sue you in reckless abuse of process and maul you with an ever-ready yellow press controlled by their media "Axis." They can mock your wife and cuckold your daughter. They can take films of you with a "woman of the night." They can dig up bodies, pervert the law, follow you home to your bed and sap your sleepless strength. They can abuse your relatives, accuse you with full knowledge of your innocence and with full knowledge of their own guilt. They can manipulate the law, and try to stone you or shun you out of town. They can use honest Black generals as pawns in their sick chess game and ruin the lives of men who fight for your rights. They can call you as witnesses and twist your words. The can make fun of your pets, and ignore your decent invitations. They can mark a sellout and use him with glee. They can adopt false intellectuals to sell their brand of closet racism. They can slice up the working man with razor-attacks on floundering unions and stab at the teacher for their own lack of educational funding. They can insult Chinese Americans, Hispanic Americans, Black Americans, all Americans - with no fear. They can shake down our corporations for billions while accusing others of doing the same. They can sit in their plush House and their plush Senate offices making rat-lie phone calls in the night. They can whisper about "faggots" and lynch Ellen for being born. They can aim their hate with rifle shot accuracy and bring down even the most well-intentioned. They can tap your telephones and rummage your files. They can subpoena you to death. They can arrange for you to rot in one of the nation's worst prisons awaiting trial. They can accuse you of murdering two of your best friends and try to prove it.

They can, and do, appeal to the worst in all of us.

Sure, the American people may be too snug in our Clinton-borne prosperity to pay much attention to these hate-mongers. But believe me, as soon as things get a little tough, voters will turn on these cretins and send them to political Hades as quick as the strike of cobra.

It won't take much more than a little financial pain to wake us to the plight of others and the loathsome conduct of the duly-elected men and women who have given the greediest of us an "A Pass" to create the biggest gap in history between the haves and have-nots.

So, like others who write to and for this journal, I relish in Mr. Gingrich's suicidal announcement to his filthy-with-loathing colleagues that he'll provide another $50 million to "murder" the Clintons and anyone gets in Newt's way.

Let him take his best shot.

Let Fred Thompson continue to be mired in a bog of repugnance that will send him back to a closed-armed Hollywood where no roles await. Let Bob Barr continue to molest the Constitution even as he invokes it like Satan in St. Paul's. Let Paula Jones and her minions continue their battle to devastate the dignity of Hillary and Chelsea Clinton -- all for money, all for power. And let Dan Burton, who causes Mrs. Vincent Foster and Mrs. Ron Brown to scream in the wee hours with nightmare terror, make a comfortable political grave for himself.

All of them, every one, will cease to be even a blip on the nation's political radar screen. An anathema, they will sink below the waves of public outcry eventually... and sooner than later I think.

And with them will go the muckraking liars like Chris Ruddy, Paul Rodriguez and every pseudojournalist who has made money on the blood and weeping tears of human tragedy, weakness and yes, sometimes misjudgment by the President and his men.

What price do any of us have to pay for simple misjudgment?

Not much, not this much for certain.

America forgives and forgets most trespasses. It's a quasi-genetic part of our nation.

Yes, Bill and Hillary Clinton made mistakes. Who doesn't? But they've brought us a long way and they'll bring us further on the path to veridical Judeo-Christian values, not the kind touted by CD-ROM selling phony evangelical Orrin Hatch who'd sell his own mother for another nickel, another ounce of power.

The "New Republicans" will become the "Old Republicans" before we know it.

The ultra-right, consulted to by opportunist-malfeasor Ralph Reed will die a quick but painful death. Just as she has, for 222 years, America will seek her balance, heeding the need for comfort and protection, but not so much as to deny all her flock - black, brown or yellow -- the chance to grab the golden ring -the chance to live in dignity.