The Great Disconnect

(3 of 5)

Now, with the trial under way, he knows that all the expectations and coincidences of luck and timing work to his advantage. Last week he took every opportunity to drive the wedge a little deeper. "The important thing for me is to spend as little time thinking about that as possible and as much time working on the issues we're here to discuss as possible," he said. "They have their job to do in the Senate, and I have mine, and I intend to do it."

White House aides boast that their man is the only guy in town with an agenda or a list of things to do; they also admit Clinton recently asked a long list of intellectuals--writers E.L. Doctorow and Henry Louis Gates, scientist David Ho, historian Robert Dallek--to fill his tank. Their written suggestions, which varied in length from three paragraphs to 30 pages, helped provide the millennial rhetoric to go with the usual Clinton cafeteria of small fare: funds to improve food safety, hire more police officers, replace aging school buildings and provide more help to minority entrepreneurs. Brownback smiles when he thinks about the litany of little things Clinton will suggest on Tuesday. "It's beautiful politics," he says. "But it isn't significant. It doesn't change the world. It just keeps the people happy."

A dozen men are sitting around a table Friday morning at Coburn's Family Restaurant, drinking coffee and talking about the trial. Clinton's removal would be just another form of change, they figure, something new to worry about in an age of permanent impermanence. Who wants to wrestle that one to the ground too? "If the President is removed, there won't be huge applause," says Jeff O'Dell, 46, news director for kvoe radio. "It's like if you get a new boss at work. You're not sure what will happen next." He digs into a stack of pancakes. "People here still have their lives to attend to," he says.

When people who do look to Washington for help don't get it, the news travels. Donna Newkirk's eyes flood as she tells how her 45-year-old husband Randy was killed in an accident last year. She received a $255 death benefit from the federal Social Security Administration--exactly $5 more, she discovered, than her grandmother got 31 years ago when her husband died. "I was absolutely stunned. I mean, that didn't even buy embalming fluid," she says. "It was like getting a dime tip after you've worked for an hour for a table of 15." Instead came food and prayers, in a humbling wave, from her friends and neighbors. "We take care of our own," she says.

Maybe the reason Americans don't care that the lines are down between them and Washington is that in the past few years, so many new lines have gone up; people have put out leads, cables, wires, dishes and high-speed traces connecting them to just about everything else. In a hyperconnected digital age, the last thing anyone can afford is an analog connection to a government that doesn't get it, can't keep up and is probably only going to make things worse if it finds you. Gordon Smith, the freshman Republican Senator from Oregon, is worried that a government engineered more than two centuries ago risks irrelevance in the Internet age. He and Democrat Ron Wyden held a series of bipartisan town meetings earlier this month, thinking they might be a good antidote to the bickering. But what Smith heard from voters surprised him. "I expected to be deluged with questions about the scandal," Smith said. "But it was the opposite. I got questions about everything but this."

Nobody's talking impeachment at the Emporia Livestock Sale Barn on Friday. It's almost noon, and a cattle auction is in progress. The drone of the auctioneer tells the story, head by head. Cows are going for between 27[cents] and 31[cents] per lb.--salvage price by local standards. "Should be 40[cents]," mutters Loren Wagaman, 79, a rancher taking a coffee break. Philip Bender chimes in. "They're not working for us in Washington," he says, paying for a cinnamon bun. "We're little peons to them. They don't give a dang about whether we make it or whether we don't." Bender, 79, an eye snapper in his orange Sunglo hat and cherry-red windbreaker, didn't bother to tune in to the trial. "I kept the TV off yesterday," he says. "I was working on my books to see if I could go another year."

Brownback got a lump in his throat two weeks ago when he raised his right hand and swore "to do impartial justice." It's the President of the U.S., he thought. This is serious. "But I had a keen sense of sadness too," he recalled later. "You tell your kids not to do things that are wrong, but whatever they do, you tell them, 'Don't lie about it.' Americans all over the country say that every day to their kids. That's the reason we're here. That's the reason the Chief Justice is here, 100 Senators are here, and all this time and money is being spent. Because of that one admonition."