Postmodern Times

IT may have been, altogether, a ragged, unsettling year since the Advent of Monica, yet nothing has been unsettled, or altered, in the character of Bill Clinton. He has remained, remarkably, the same. It is his defenders who have had to perform moral surgery on themselves. After watching the performance of the Democrats, and their allies, in the Judiciary Committee, we may even now say that the defense of Clinton has been far worse than his crimes. His very dissembling was a mark at least of his awareness that he had done something that the public—even in these times—was apt to regard as wrong. And while he summoned his usual fortitude in looking us in the eye and lying, he still presupposed that there was a truth to be covered up. In contrast, the Democrats in Congress have gone positively “postmodern” in their willingness to deny that there are any “foundations” or truths behind our judgments, that there are any objective standards that would allow us to measure either straight lines or straight stories.

What else are we to make of the willingness of Maxine Waters and other Democrats to emit, at regular intervals, the cry of “unsubstantiated charges”? Or the curious persistence of Rep. Mel Watt in asking Ken Starr just how he could accept the “credibility” of Monica Lewinsky when she had professed, so openly, that she had been reared by her mother on a regime of lying. Had it simply slipped their minds that there was, after all, a dress, with stains of semen, and a test of DNA so compelling that it could finally elicit an admission even from the most consummate liar in the land? What became evident was that this operating rule had settled among defenders of the president: The most documented facts, and the most incontrovertible “evidence,” can be waved aside as though they did not exist, or did not count, if one simply insists, without surcease, that there are only “charges,” “unsubstantiated”—that everything is arguable, everything a matter of perception and opinion—and that these themes, repeated day in and day out, will be enough to persuade about a third of the public. Nothing is apparently as credible as a falsehood grown venerable with repetition.

About the Author

Hadley Arkes

Hadley Arkes is the founder and director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding.

IT may have been, altogether, a ragged, unsettling year since the Advent of Monica, yet nothing has been unsettled, or altered, in the character of Bill Clinton. He has remained, remarkably, the same. It is his defenders who have had to perform moral surgery on themselves. After watching the performance of the Democrats, and their allies, in the Judiciary Committee, we may even now say that the defense of Clinton has been far worse than his crimes. His very dissembling was a mark at least of his awareness that he had done something that the public—even in these times—was apt to regard as wrong. And while he summoned his usual fortitude in looking us in the eye and lying, he still presupposed that there was a truth to be covered up. In contrast, the Democrats in Congress have gone positively “postmodern” in their willingness to deny that there are any “foundations” or truths behind our judgments, that there are any objective standards that would allow us to measure either straight lines or straight stories.

What else are we to make of the willingness of Maxine Waters and other Democrats to emit, at regular intervals, the cry of “unsubstantiated charges”? Or the curious persistence of Rep. Mel Watt in asking Ken Starr just how he could accept the “credibility” of Monica Lewinsky when she had professed, so openly, that she had been reared by her mother on a regime of lying. Had it simply slipped their minds that there was, after all, a dress, with stains of semen, and a test of DNA so compelling that it could finally elicit an admission even from the most consummate liar in the land? What became evident was that this operating rule had settled among defenders of the president: The most documented facts, and the most incontrovertible “evidence,” can be waved aside as though they did not exist, or did not count, if one simply insists, without surcease, that there are only “charges,” “unsubstantiated”—that everything is arguable, everything a matter of perception and opinion—and that these themes, repeated day in and day out, will be enough to persuade about a third of the public. Nothing is apparently as credible as a falsehood grown venerable with repetition.