Throw Us a Rope

Three years ago, President Clinton promised to build us a "Bridge to the 21st Century." I still don't understand the metaphor, even as we enter the downward slope of the bridge, speeding toward the toll plaza. (Thank god for EZ-Pass.) What are we crossing over? Bridges usually get you somewhere you can't get without one, like across a river. Time will take us to the 21st century, like it or not.

But now that the Lewinsky matter is over (sort of), the bridge metaphor may take on a new meaning: The bridge Clinton built for us was the sex-and-perjury-and-obstruction-and-mendacity scandal itself. It was one big distraction, an all-consuming diversion with its own engine. Under the bridge lay everything real--all the issues the government could have been spending time and money on instead. But for all the complaints about how the bridge was a waste, a regular government boondoggle, many millions of people escaped the reality below by coming along for the ride. We got on the bridge last January (if not when the Gennifer Flowers scandal broke in 1992) and got off just days ago, with Clinton's acquittal. And aren't we a great deal closer to the 21st century now?

Others skipped the bridge entirely. They drove to the 21st century on the ground below--driving to work, driving their kids to soccer practice, driving to Blockbuster to rent "Titanic," driving to Barnes and Noble to buy "A Civil Action" and "Cold Mountain." Every so often these people snuck a glance up at the bridge to nowhere; after all, the ugly, low-hanging structure (which they were paying for) cast a heinous shadow over their idyllic suburban landscapes, insulting their aesthetic sensibilities and corrupting their children. And it paid to look up occasionally, if only to make sure you weren't hit by falling debris.

It's not a pretty metaphor, but isn't that appropriate?

Speaking of useless rhetoric, is anyone going to stop pundits from declaring what The American People want? First, there is no "The American People." There are whites and blacks, Northerners and Southerners, Protestants and Catholics, rich and poor. It's problematic enough to try to say what these groups want, but it is idiotic to claim to speak for The American People united. More important, such talk leaves out the question of what different people with different values should want.

Politicians have quickly adopted the foolish language of the press, and the accompanying majoritarian mindset. "I intend to get down to business," House Speaker Dennis Hastert said last month at his swearing-in. "That means formulating, debating and voting on legislation that addresses the problems that the American people want solved." Politicians must walk a fine line between reminding us what we want and urging us to embrace some wants and abandon others. The fact that the Republicans anointed someone as apparently unvisionary as Hastert indicates the consequences of the run to the center in American politics: the desperate capitulation to reflecting rather than shaping the opinions of the overpolled American People.

Indeed, polls are now so essential to our national life that the President's approval rating will no doubt soon join the weather and the Dow Jones Industrial Average on every news update. Can't you hear it now? "It is currently 41 degrees and overcast in Central Park. In business news, the Dow closed down 128 points today, closing at 9,104. In Washington, the President's approval rating climbed one and two-fifths to 71.6 percent, hitting a new high. Now this."

Immediately after his acquittal last week, President Clinton (walking the Bridge to the 21st Century, apparently) sent an e-mail to his staff. "The remaining years of this Administration can and must be a time of great achievement for our nation," he pledged, reiterating his State of the Union emphases on education, health care and Social Security reform. Try though he might to craft an unimpeachable legacy in the upcoming months, Clinton is only fooling himself yet again. He has too little time to leave any great achievements, and assuming he doesn't win the Nobel Peace Prize (he was nominated for it this week), he had might as well accept his fate and put all his might into getting Al Gore '69 into the White House and Hillary into the Senate.

Not that she needs his help. Hillary is intellectually savvy and knows the campaign trail well, and The American People have finally gotten around to loving her. Her years of suffering at Bill's side (if a First Lady can truly suffer) are about to pay off big-time, quite possibly in a run for the Senate in New York in 2000--a prospect that has political junkies salivating.

The President commented in favor of the idea this week. "She and I both would like to continue to be useful in public affairs when we leave office," he told reporters. The remark would have gotten Clinton in hot water just a few years ago. But what stands out now is not that Hillary was never elected, but that far from leaving office, she seems more than ready to enter it. Indeed, though Bill's stained days in the White House are nearly through, Hillary could be back someday. Supposing the Clintons stay married, would voters really agree to put Bill back on the scene of the crime for four more years? Let's cross that bridge if and when we come to it, sometime in the 21st century. Geoffrey C. Upton '99 is a social studies concentrator in Leverett House. His column appears on alternate Wednesdays.