House of Eratosthenes

Now this is interesting. In the Clinton presidential library there is an “Impeachment Exhibit” which has been roundly criticized by the former President’s opponents and questioned even by his allies for the self-pitying overtone playing out therein. Surprisingly, nowadays much of the “Move On” argument rests on this quote from Newt Gingrich. This Washington Times piece gives as good an overview as any other I can find:

The former president, in exhibits he approved, repeatedly castigates Newt Gingrich…assert[ing] that the former House speaker led a cabal of radical right-wing “revolutionaries” bent on destroying Mr. Clinton for one reason: “Because we can.”

This is new stuff. I remember a lot of arguments from six years ago about how President Clinton’s transgressions were not such a big deal, it was time to “move on”, he lied in response to a question about private matters that were nobody’s business so it didn’t count, etc. etc. etc. Newt Gingrich’s incriminating statement, as I recall, was mentioned briefly in some glossy magazine article. Maybe it was Newsweek. Certainly, the bulk of the “Move On” school of thought was not resting on this, as it apparently does today.

Maureen Dowd brings to this situation a delicious piece of irony, and I don’t know if she’d be willing to do so if she understood the ultimate effect of the irony. Mister Clinton had started this crisis in the first place, thereby placing himself in the situation he was in, because he himself had done something – for no other reason than because he could.

In his “60 Minutes” interview, Bill Clinton calls his intern idyll “a terrible moral error,” illuminating “the darkest part of his inner life.”

“I did something for the worst possible reason,” he told Dan Rather about his march of folly with Monica.

“Just because I could. I think that’s just about the most morally indefensible reason anybody could have for doing anything.”

Just because he could. What a world of meaning is packed into that simple phrase.

His “could” reflects a selfish “Who’s gonna stop me?” power move, stemming from a droit du seigneur attitude, as opposed to “should,” signifying obligation, or “must,” indicating compulsion.

The former president engaged in a relationship of choice, not necessity. As a friend of mine explains:

“It’s a guy thing. We’re not likely to get up off the couch if we don’t have to. We might cheat with a chick who just happens to be there if we feel we could get away with it.”

In his memoirs, Clinton complains about Republican droit du seigneur, writing that impeachment was driven neither by “morality” nor “the rule of law” but, as Newt Gingrich said: “Because we can.”

I don’t think Dowd is trying to be ironic — just yet anyway. The quotes all belong to others, her narrative is minimal at this point and what she’s trying to do is build a recognition of what all is going on before she uses the last part of the column commenting on it. But I find it interesting that Speaker Gingrich is supposed to be engaging in something “immoral” for doing something just because he could, when what he’s doing is prosecuting a higher authority figure who got in trouble for doing something just because he could.

A President can do a lot more things than a House Speaker. If it’s wrong for the Speaker to do things just because he can, isn’t a greater danger posed when our President is doing things just because he can? Mr. Clinton’s argument as I understand it, which Ms. Dowd apparently supports, is that you should have a moral red flag of sorts being raised when you find out about someone in a position of power doing things just because they can. The Jurassic Park theory, okay I can buy into that. All right then…if you buy into the argument that Newt Gingrich is some kind of force of cosmic evil, and the “because we can” comment is representative of this, doesn’t the whole affair then seem like a case of just desserts? Blaming Newt suddenly becomes about as morally high-handed and well-advised as blaming…something like gravity.

There is something else however. The Clinton/Dowd moral red flag test, itself, is something I find to be problematic especially when we discuss authority figures within & the constitutional structure of the United States. People should not do things just because they can. There has to be some kind of higher calling. What’s this?

You might say the pilgrims left England and fled to this continent because they had to, but that would be a matter of opinion. It would be just as legitimate to say they did it because they could.

You might say the Founding Fathers declared our independence because in the situation they faced they had no choice. It would be just as legitimate to say they did it because they could.

In fact, because I can strikes to the very heart of motive for any profit-making venture, and America has been built on these, one at a time, as a house is built on bricks.You might say Alexander Graham Bell had to invent the telephone or he did it to help people. You might say Thomas Alva Edison invented electric lighting on an altruistic quest to promote the public good. You might say Henry Ford invented the automobile simply to help his fellow man. I’d lay even odds, though, that if you could bring these guys back from the grave they’d say they did it because they could.

In fact, without bothering to research the issue too deeply I’d speculate that a lot of what is good about America, would be washed away in a heartbeat if we were to repeat history solemnly dedicated to ensuring that nobody ever undertook any task, large or small, if they were doing it just because they could. The Dowd/Clinton red-flag test, from where I sit, looks decidedly un-American and, well, more than a little bit red. Come to think of it, in my own personal life, things I did because they were the right things to do, have simply kept a bad situation from getting worse. Things I did because someone told me to do them, simply preserved my reputation as a can-do guy on whom people can depend, when the chips are down. It’s not that I’ve done much stuff that is overwhelmingly positive or has made life significantly better for myself or somebody else – but those few things, are things I did because I could, every single one of them. All…um…six, or four, or three or whatever.

My gut feel is that anyone who examines the past events in their own life, if they do it honestly they’ll have to come to the same conclusion. Something deep to think about.

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Whitewashing WhitewaterSunday, November 21st, 2004

Whitewashing Whitewater
Sunday, November 21st, 2004