Calling Oliver Stone

The card says...
    By Dave Oppenheim

I often wonder what it would be like to be rich and famous, to be a controversial public figure, to be able to give an inebriated, semi-coherent lecture at a venerable institution such as Yale University. In short, I wonder what it would be like to be Oliver Stone.

If I were Oliver Stone, after solving the murder of John F. Kennedy—twice—I would turn my attention to more current presidential intrigue. While an unsmoked cigar is certainly a less riveting image than a smoking gun with a magic bullet, both lend themselves to a thrilling plot courtesy of everyone's favorite conspiracy theorist. Such a storyline might go like this:

It is a cold, rainy night in November of 1994. The Republican Revolution is sweeping ultraconservative, Clinton-hating, televangelist-loving "outsiders" into Congress. The beleaguered president is about to go out and make a speech on how the presidency is "still relevant." First, however, he resolves to reverse the damage of that evening by any means necessary.

Flash forward to 1997. The president has been the target of an ongoing, five-year, $40 million investigation by the most dogged and stubborn independent counsel in history. By this time, the "investigation of the week" theme has taken the special prosecutor from Arkansas real estate to secret FBI files in Washington to campaign fund-raisers in California with many twists and turns in between. Other than being only 5,000 frequent flyer miles away from an upgrade to first class, the investigator has little to show for his efforts. He becomes so desperate that he resorts to becoming chancellor of Pepperdine University.

Where most Americans see a pathetic individual who, like a medieval alchemist, has wasted a fair amount of his adult life, the shrewd president sees only an opportunity. He knows that his pursuers are desperate. He summons a young intern to the White House who craves fame, notoriety, and the status of being the not insubstantial butt of jokes throughout the land. Together, they manufacture an outrageous story of a love affair, complete with physical evidence of the basest sort. (There are such things in this world as fringe benefits.) They even let one of the intern's weaselly co-workers tape her conversations.

Predictably, the independent counsel and the Congressional Republicans stumble over each other trying to dance a victory jig. After realizing that old, fat, white men rarely have rhythm, they get back to the miraculously revived scandal-mongering business. Specifically, they play into the president's hands, asking him to testify about his "relationship." He cleverly gives answers misleading enough to provoke the ire of his attackers, but not, technically or factually incorrect. In other words, he does what any good lawyer would do, and he is one of the best.

Now the Achilles' heel of the Republican revolutionaries is exposed. At heart, they are the same zealously moralistic individuals first elected in 1994 with the overt support of groups such as the Christian Coalition. Determined to root out and destroy all sex in the land, they cannot allow presidential philandering to go unpunished. The bait is waved in front of their eyes, and they swallow it whole. They trump up charges of perjury and obstruction of justice and impeach the president. For his part, he goads the members of the House into this decision through answering their questions in a needlingly legalistic manner—the presidential version of the finger.

In so doing, they put every member of Congress on the record as having voted up or down on approving the first presidential eviction in 200 years. Not just any ousting, but one based on a stained Gap dress and a cigar. The trouble which they face, however, is that while a rational public may consider such items appropriate for the J. Edgar Hoover Museum, they don't find them appropriate for a constitutional debate by the people's representatives.

Now, the Republican members of Congress are stuck. They have devoted a substantial portion of their time and energy to pursuing this impeachment. Two hundred twenty-two of their number in the U.S. House of Representatives have already committed themselves to it. Their 55 senators are now faced with the losing choices of repudiating their House colleagues or following them down the path to the political guillotine. Meanwhile, the president continues to conduct the people's business with a smile.

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