Clinton, '98

With regard to the current controversy over the president's sex life, it would be helpful if it was looked at on multiple levels.

At the top level are the questions regarding sexual improprieties in the White House and perjury. This is being covered well.

At the second level politics and the question of which party is to dominate in the future is in question. Should the President be forced to resign, Gore has time to establish himself in the presidency and thereby make himself a formidable opponent to the Republicans by the next election. Should the controversy be successfully defused and Clinton executes the next three years with aplomb, Gore will also be formidable. If the scandal damages the president but allows him to stay in office, the Republicans will achieve the most.

At the third level, this is a new round in the struggle between the feminists and their conservative Christian opponents, those I call masculinists. The masculinists are those that Mrs. Clinton refers to when she discusses the "vast right wing conspiracy." They are epitomized by Jerry Falwell. In their view, Clinton is little better than the anti Christ and any means to force him from power would be justified. They see Clinton as a stealth feminist, an undeclared feminist who proposes and promotes policies, such as late term abortion and homosexual rights, that are anathema to them.

This is the real meaningful struggle. This is ideology. It is of no great moment if the president is having an affair, or even encouraging discretion too forcefully. The president, like many high achieving men, seems to have a lot of libido and an ineffective wife in helping him to deal with it. Such a man cannot be expected to refuse attempted seductions by admiring women.

It is only slightly more meaningful which party has control of the White House. As we saw during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the most anti feminist leader we have had or are likely to get, the feminist movement continued unabated during his administration. He may have slowed down abortion rights a little, but not much. The real debate on feminism and its values is going on on TV, with the dramas and sit coms on one side and the American people on the other. Seinfeld and Friends are devoted to this issue and are also the most popular comedic shows on TV. Dramas like Picket Fences, Northern Exposure, and LA Law were likewise aimed precisely at this issue.

So, ideology is the real game. On one side we have Hollywood, magazines like MS and Cosmopolitan, organizations like NOW, The Children's Defense Fund, Emily's List, and The Democratic Party. On the other there is The Moral Majority, The Christian Coalition, and the amorphous Religious Right. Everyone else is somewhere between these extremes. The Christians have an advantage in that they represent a well developed and regarded past. The feminists have an advantage in that they promote democratic values. They want equality, they say.

The fact that Judeo/Christianity is on one side, should tell us that the feminists are their opposites. In our world, everything opposes something else. Night and day, up and down, left and right, feminism and masculinism. There are no other options. All individuals and organizations lie somewhere on that spectrum. One of those organizations is America and the feminists are pushing with all their might to move us further towards their end of the spectrum, while the Judeo/Christians are resisting as mightily as they can.

So, this is the actual battle. It looks like the masculinists are going to make a little hay here, but, looking back over the century, it is clear that the feminist are winning the war.