(2 of 2)
The movie should be required for new members of Congress--instead of lectures by Newt Gingrich. It's spring, and Washington is crowded with hordes of high schoolers posing on the steps of the Capitol with their Representatives. It's just a picture bite. Few nonpayers get to see their Congressman. Just last month, when a stricter drunken-driving standard was up for a vote, Mothers Against Drunk Driving couldn't get in to see key members, who they were told were "in conference or on the floor." But the door was open for the lobbyists for liquor and restaurants, who have donated $25 million. The standard died in committee.
As for the President, what is being a lame duck if not a near-death experience? Why can't he offend the power players? He doesn't need them anymore--unless he's planning to build a really, really big presidential library. He should be going after the producers of drivel, the teachers unions who protect the status quo, the fat cats to whom he apologized for raising taxes. Instead, how about criticizing them for their wretched excess--$1,000 bottles of wine, $250 cigars, Versailles-like mansions? Or reversing the appalling gap between their income and those who haven't got on the Clinton gravy train?
Last Thursday, after his first solo press conference since the Lewinsky scandal broke, Clinton was praised for a bravura performance. Few asked whether what he said was true, or if it mattered--only whether it worked. At 65% in the polls, the President could do with a little less Eddie Haskell, a little more Bulworth. There might be a legacy in it for him.