O.J. trumps Clinton
KRISTOL, WILLIAM
O.J. Trumps Clinton by William Kristol Last Tuesday night, the Simpson verdict and the Clinton speech competed for the nation's attention. O.J. won. And he deserved to. O.J. Simpson's acquittal...
...Watts presumably wouldn't advocate, as Bill Clinton does, giving preference in hiring to former welfare recipients...
...But he never tried to explain what that idea is...
...If anything, Watts's principles would suggest rewarding those who have resisted going on welfare...
...Except when he is asked questions about White House ethics, Clinton is unable to summon up even mock outrage...
...it is an idea...
...Bill Clinton doesn't...
...case, Daniel Petrocelli, not Jesse Jackson...
...It is not, or at least it should not be, Republicanism...
...But Americans are not subjects...
...Last week's verdict in the civil trial doesn't make up for the failure of the criminal justice system...
...And although Watts did not really engage on many issues, he was at least willing to say that we should not ask Americans "to accept what's immoral and wrong in the name of tolerance...
...Decent people are made indignant by obvious instances of injustice...
...It's fair to note that most Republicans' comments on Clinton's speech were conciliatory and "constructive...
...Watts was better than most of last week's Republican rhetoric...
...they highlighted the extent to which the GOP too, unfortunately has become infected with the technocratic-therapeutic ethic...
...Certainly on Tuesday night he manifested none on behalf of any cause...
...Editor and Publisher William Kristol contributed to the symposium "On the Future of Conservatism" in February's Commentary...
...But "solving problems for the American people" is Clintonism...
...As Newt Gingrich reveal-ingly said, "I think on far more fronts he is with us than he is against us...
...His speech was appropriate to his vision—the nanny state...
...It is rather that his speech mixed the technocratic and the therapeutic in a way that precludes arguments about justice...
...Simpson's acquittal over a year ago was an injustice...
...The official GOP response by Rep...
...He spoke to Americans as subjects about whom the government should be concerned, not as citizens who have to choose how to govern themselves...
...or that certain policies follow from our idea of justice, and that other policies—e.g., racial preferences, abortion on demand, appeasement of China, judicial usurpation—conflict with that idea...
...So I take both the verdict, and the popular interest in that verdict, as healthy signs for our democracy: We still care about justice...
...The president did say at the end of his speech that "America is far more than a place...
...But it helps reassure Americans that the forces of justice are not entirely ineffectual, that individuals cannot simply escape responsibility for their actions, that our fellow citizens are not blind to evidence or to the truth...
...Politics—real politics, not Bill Clinton's politics— is about pursuing justice and deterring and punishing injustice...
...Newt Gingrich should have invited as his guest to the State of the Union address the lawyer who served justice in the O.J...
...In his world, nothing is wrong, and nothing is unjust: Everything is simply a problem to be solved or a condition to be improved...
...There was lots of talk about how Republicans are ready to work with the president "to solve these problems for the American people," as Senate Republican Conference chairman Thad Cochran put it...
...It is not simply that he never used the word "justice...
...Clinton claimed to put forth an agenda that would make our country smarter (his technocratic side) and nicer (his therapeutic side...
...The outrage over the original O. J. verdict was the outrage of citizens on behalf of their country and their sense of justice...
...He made no attempt in his State of the union speech to argue the justice of his policies...
...To do so might remind us that the American idea is inconsistent with other ideas...
...Watts spoke of morality and responsibility, and even of justice...
Vol. 2 • February 1997 • No. 22
