Editorials: Another Stand-In Performance /Lying Still
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
"Another Stand-In Performance /Lying Still" by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. Regarding the State of the Union address, could someone tell me who the stand-in was for Bill Clinton? Whoever he is, is...
...Both Clintons lie with perfect aplomb...
...Few --- could string more than a few sentences together without tripping into grammatical blunders...
...Well, I certainly hope so...
...In the beginning he had never protested the war, and certainly never avoided the draft...
...There was Grover Cleveland, infinitely more dignified in his corpulence than, say, the Senate's retiring fat person, Howell Heflin of Alabama...
...Clinton as "a wonderful wife, a magnificent mother and a great first lady...
...Okay, well how about classifying him a fine reporter by any standard...
...Because of this, enrollments have decreased almost seventy percent in the last ten years, anti-Communist professors have been expelled from their jobs and often jailed, textbooks have to be in accord with government policies, and the standard of education is constantly changed to suit the government's need...
...Really, not a "single, solitary soul...
...Detectives, prosecutors, and psychiatrists will tell you that even gifted liars sweat or reveal some other physical sign of stress—darting eyes, twiddling fingers...
...We began with George Washington who could not tell a lie, and here we are with Bill Clinton who cannot avoid telling one...
...That wasn't true either...
...Wars and taxes were decided...
...And did anyone besides me see the two fat people 18 March 1996 • The American Spectator sitting in Senator Edward Kennedy's seat...
...And there are the many times he has gone out of his way to lie...
...Then there are the congresswomen...
...Then there were his lies about Gennifer Flowers—and that tape she released in which he actually instructs her on how to lie to the press...
...Since revelations of irregularities in his election campaigns, his financial dealings, his attempts to bribe loquacious troopers, his White House's contacts with off-limits government agencies, a lengthening list has been assembled of politicians, journalists, and other public figures, all accusing him of wrongdoing: some serious, some not so serious.breathing slumberous...
...Compare this amazingly eloquent, learned, angular man with any of the full-time joggers, health nuts, and speed readers whom the Clinton stand-in was addressing the other night...
...Yet sometimes that which distresses also makes us laugh...
...In the months ahead, as the congressional inquiries continue and the long arm of the law reaches into the Republic's most corrupt of White Houses, we are going to have the opportunity to see Our President at the height of his powers...
...She looks distressed even when she smiles...
...Here even the newscasters join in on the butchering of the language...
...But even with the careful selection of a privileged elite to attain a higher...
...Just last Christmas, with all the revelations of Travelgate and Whitewater pouring forth, Our President was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times...
...The other famed figures are almost as weird-looking...
...Another Stand-In Performance z 0 Regarding the State of the Union address, could someone tell me who the stand-in was for Bill Clinton...
...He is too clever for a wooden line like that...
...Earlier in the day he blabbed on about "prostrate cancer...
...Heflin looks like a blimp flying low, in fact flying low and dragging part of its great girth across the ground...
...Truth to tell, in terms of growth, productivity, inflation, and job creation, we are about where President Bush left us...
...The other day he leaped on Our President for intoning a real whopper during his State of the Union Address...
...I have no doubt he will surpass the masterpiece he performed for the Times...
...Clinton's eyes can go a bit glassy, and she tends to smirk when delivering an exorbitancy...
...Enrique Encienosa, "Youth Against Castro" APRIL...
...Scores of lies later it turned out he had organized protests here and abroad, and he had energetically avoided the draft...
...Wilson really was a gifted orator, never in need of the phony C rhetorical props resorted to by...
...But Clinton said no one had accused him of illegalities—and he claimed his spotless record extended back through his governorship...
...I offer this appraisal as a collector...
...Clinton sat motionless, her expression frozen...
...But don't miss her sentencing...
...was debated in that ornate chamber...
...In an economy that is adequate—but scarcely more spectacular than the economy Our President was hanging around President George Bush's neck during Campaign '92—Our President let out this howler: "Our economy is the healthiest it has been in three decades...
...As I watched all these fantasticos stomp their feet, clap, and marvel at the Clinton stand-in's heroic declaration of the obvious and the occasionally untrue, I thought of those who have preceded these mediocrities in this historic room...
...The appearance of so many members of the Congress and the cabinet is well, odd...
...Before his wink at the Los Angeles Times, my favorite whopper was the following: At a press conference an entire year after his famous $200 haircut snarled up Los Angeles Intemational Airport, Our President was lamenting the treatment he suffered from the assembled journalists...
...His delivery was also not up to Clinton's high standards of gasconade...
...When they arose to applaud they looked like a road-side billboard...
...but Bill Clinton betrays no sign of tension whatsoever...
...I began my collection with his many lies about his position on the Vietnam war and his draft record...
...For it is from the universities that the government will have to draw its future leaders in administration and technology...
...A year ago there was a widely reported story that I kept airport traffic waiting an hour in Los Angeles to get a haircut in an airport...
...True, Mrs...
...Yet in chatting with the journalists from the Los Angeles Times, he issued his now world-famous whopper that "there has not been a single, solitary soul accuse me or my wife of doing anything illegal not only in the White House, in the presidential campaign, or in the governor's office...
...In present day Cuba, only those students who are considered good Communists are permitted to attend the university...
...The stand-in had none of the real Bill Clinton's brag and bounce...
...The Democrats went wild—or as wild as they get in these Final Days...
...Some wear fat well...
...It is as though he has no conscience whatsoever—at least when the truth is at issue...
...A telling moment came when the stand-in looked up to hail Mrs...
...Even without Bill Clinton being present at the speech, there was plenty of drama and comedy out there beyond the speaker's rostrum where the Congress was seated along with the cabinet and various of the Republic's dignitaries...
...1971 The American Spectator • March 199 6 19...
...What amazes the experts who watch Clinton lie is his grace...
...Of all the marvelous and oleaginous lies Clinton has told as president, this is the most stupendous...
...and, forget not that vague look of distress that is forever on their faces...
...He lies when he does not have to, and he heaves up a gigantic lie when a slight suavity would suffice...
...education, university students in Castro's Cuba have been everything but submissive in their actions...
...And what about Jesse Jackson, glasses propped on his forehead, his eyes shut, his Lying Still Congratulations to Donald Lam-bro, one of Washington's finest reporters—no great'compliment, that...
...Whether he be 93-yearold Senator Strom Thurmond, or one of the youthful members of the freshman class, all emanate eternal youth and foppery...
...All are dependent on the hackneyed terms and nonce phrases that they believe give their public statements heft...
...And do not expect him ever to say, "I am not a crook...
...Whoever he is, is too old and frail for the job...
...EDITORIALS by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...Now I must file a demurral when the lady Republicans come into view...
...Americans are proud of their country...
...Slavery Adapted from RET's weekly Washington Times column syndicated by Creators Syndicate...
...You have the boyish male congressmen of all ages, hair blow-dried, faces reeking of after-shave lotion...
...It is one thing for them to view a group of oddballs on stage, say at a rock concert or at some awards marathon in Hollywood...
...For no plausible reason he suddenly erupted with,"I could give you a lot of examples...
...There have been more than twenty riots in five years protesting the poor quality of education, mass indoctrination, and the arrests of students who are suspected of belonging to anti-government resistance movements...
...But it was...
...today's statesmen, so-called...
...Perhaps, like me, she was wondering, "Where's Bill...
...I say this knowing full well that the majority of the American people view that audience as slightly repellent...
...With certain spectacular exceptions they really are lovely ladies, but those Republicans who are not, and all the female Democrats (who have taken full-immersion rites in feminism), make a most extraordinary display in their lumpy dress, desperate hairdos...
...Since revelations about his draft-dodging and his serial paramours began, the number of his public critics has steadily grown...
...I have amassed vast files of Clinton's lies...
...But it is distressing to see so many bizarre figures gather in the august chamber of the House of Representatives where the Republic's business has been carried out for nearly a century and a half...
...A. Lincoln stood there and Charles Graham Sumner, two Roosevelts, Lodges, and Tafts...
...Our President is a rubicund jogger...
...Some I pin on my bulletin board, as a butterfly collector pins his favorite specimens under glass...
...During the speech I actually saw him use a pen or pencil for some act of facial hygiene...
...Their appearances are as implausible as many of their policies...
...Anyone who missed this gathering of American giants and tuned in later to Letterman or Leno for laughs missed the best amusement since Hillary Rodham Clinton's last press conference...
...I actually heard Peter Jennings refer to ABC's Senate correspondent as a journalist who "prevails" over the Senate...
...Imagine what the bald and the fat, the bewhiskered and the craggy-faced, senators and congressmen of yesteryear would make of today's solons and numas...
...I could remind you of the gaucheries of the cabinet, a body that looks as if it were drawn by the cartoonists at Mad magazine...
...Twenty people seated behind them were lost from view...
...One can imagine an ordinary liar saying, "My only accusers are Rush Limbaugh, Gordon Liddy and the rest of those partisan extremists...
...Meditate on retiring congresswoman Pat Schroeder...
...25 YEARS AGO IN The American Spectator There are those who maintain that as long as students oppose Castro, there is hope for a free Cuba...
...Over the past three years I have come to admire Bill Clinton as quite possibly the greatest liar in the history of presidential politics...
...Or think of Woodrow Wilson at earlier State of the Union occasions...
Vol. 29 • March 1996 • No. 3
