So this is what leadership looks and feels like. It looks like a million people on the Washington Mall and not a single fistfight. And it feels like we can breathe again.
The first taste of President Barack Obama hit Americans like a gourmet feast after George W. Bush's long national porridge. Within the space of a week, the buzzwords "change," "hope" and "transparency" replaced "fear," "shock" and "awe." Few sweeter sights have been seen in recent years than that of Obama putting his hand on Abe Lincoln's Bible and the helicopter hauling Bush away from the levers of power.
As Bob Herbert of the New York Times put it: "Mr. Obama has been feeding the almost desperate hunger in this country for mature leadership, for someone who is not reckless and clownish, shortsighted and self-absorbed."
Obviously, the initial intoxication will wear off and give way to partisan bickering and frustration on the left and right. It, in fact, it already has, with dead-ender Republicans trying to hold up the confirmation of Eric Holder as Attorney General and offering "not in my back yard" backtalk about the placement of detainees after the now-scheduled closing of Guantanamo. But it seems reasonable to expect that the level of vitriol will not reach that generated by the Bush and Cheney regime.
Now that the smoke is beginning to clear on the wreckage they left behind, it may be time to ponder where America began the long slide into such dire straits. Some might mark the start of the slide with Reagan's dismantling of social services and unleashing of "free markets" while claiming wealth would "trickle down" from the rich. Lest we forget, Reagan also rescinded the Federal Communications Communication's Fairness Doctrine, making possible the rise of Mike Savage, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh and their ilk. Limbaugh, just this week, told his listeners, "I hope Obama fails."
I could be convinced that the slide started later, with the witch hunt of Bill Clinton spearheaded by Ken Starr. I recently exhumed a copy of The Starr Report from a Dumpster and, out of perverse nostalgia, began reading it. The book makes instructive reading. Here are some random items the "independent counsel" brought to our attention, all of which were vital to national security:
"She performed oral sex. He stopped her before he ejaculated&"
"She and the President kissed, and he touched her bare breasts with his hands and his mouth."
"The President fondled Ms. Lewinsky's bare breast with his hands and mouth and fondled her genitalia directly by pulling her underwear out of the way."
"Ms. Lewinsky gave the President& her personal copy of Vox, a novel [by Nicholson Baker] about phone sex on March 29, 1997."
And so on for 523 pages, the end result of four years' effort, millions of dollars spent and the people's business put on hold. Without the terrorist attacks of 9/11, The Starr Report might have been a mere political curiosity, exhibit A for the banality of Republican vindictiveness. However, this witch hunt effectively paralyzed the U.S. government during these crucial years.
Yes, Clinton was a sleazebag in his personal habits, lusting after fast food and ditzy interns. But, as Lawrence Wright's peerless The Looming Tower makes abundantly clear, the amount of time and expense wasted on Starr's endless witch hunt—and the priority given to the resultant scandals by the nation's press, at the expense of real news—allowed us to collectively take our eyes off the terrorism ball.
Meanwhile, we just said goodbye to a president who violated his Oath of Office, abused his power, thwarted the Constitution and lied the American people into an illegal war. Yet we will not even spend four months, four weeks or four days investigating his crimes. Sometimes I feel that we barely survived a decade of national insanity.
