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Dazed and Confused

LEE DRESSELHAUS / L’Observateur / August 11, 1999

So. That explains everything. I get it now. I understand. Hillary hasexplained it all. We know now why Bill Clinton has behaved the shamefulway he has behaved. We should have known what the answer was from thebeginning without Hillary telling us what should have been obvious.

Hillary says that Bill Clinton was emotionally abused as a child and that his continual misbehavior as well as his sexual escapades can be traced directly to the trauma of his childhood.

Don’t you just want to scream? I mean, don’t you just want to run around in circles, pulling your hair and yelling “Auntie Em! Auntie Em!” every time someone decides to blame everything they do on some childhood trauma? It seems that anyone who does anything for which they should pay a price has to blame it on some vague thing like being emotionally abused as a child. Well, I have news forall the village idiots out there who think that a rough childhood is an excuse for being an antisocial, manipulating, philandering, or even psychopathic burden on society.

Everyone’s childhood was traumatic. Get over it. That’s what childhood is.By its very nature childhood is a series of traumas that gradually fold themselves into what adults call “experience.” These traumas shape usand mold us into what we are as adults, but the plain fact is that most of us know that it’s wrong to shoot up a fast food restaurant, kill our parents with shotguns or lie under oath regardless of what type of trauma we went through as a child. So STOP USING IT AS AN EXCUSE FOR EVERYTHINGYOU DO WRONG! It doesn’t work. We don’t believe you. Take responsibilityfor your actions and quit using that nonsense as a crutch to help you hobble through your irresponsible little lives.

There. I guess I told them. Not that it will make any difference. To qualify this a bit, I’m not talking about the vicious types of abuse and traumas that do indeed have a lifelong effect on a person, like sexual or brutal physical abuse, or being locked in a closet and being fed cat food or real stuff like that. Tragically, these things occur, and I won’t second-guess their impact. But to lump the bad things and sometimes uglyexperiences we all go through growing up into the same category with these things, and then use them as an excuse for acting just any ole way you want is just plain wrong. And just plain transparent.And speaking of village idiots, let me get back to that statement by Hillary, our First Lady. She said that the reason she didn’t leave Bill afterall that Paula, Jennifer, Monica, and who knows who – else adventuring he did was because he had been emotionally abused as a child, and that when you love someone you stick by them, you don’t just leave. By way ofexperiment I decided to ask my wife just what she would do if I indulged myself the way Bill did then got caught, could I use the I-was- emotionally-abused-as-a-child defense? Would that work with her? The answer was not only a big fat NO, but she then proceeded to graphically describe several methods of adult abuse that she would heap upon me, most of which are too grim to list here. She wouldn’t go for it and Isuspect that most of the women out there wouldn’t either.

So why would Hillary come up with such nonsense? Because she probably didn’t want to leave the man who, by virtue of his position and power, was providing her with a very tasty meal ticket indeed. Would you? She is in a position of privilege that few in the worldwill ever experience and she isn’t about to throw the very powerful position of being the First Lady away over a little thing like infidelity.

She’s going to ride that pony until it dies a natural death at the age of eight, which is the end of the two term limit for President.

And now, she is considering a senate seat for when this pony expires. Andthe inevitable question has come up, why didn’t you leave a husband who cheats, lies, and has even been accused of criminal sexual misconduct, proven or not? (It wouldn’t take a conviction in a court of law for my wife to decide guilt or innocence, I can tell you.) So she had to come up withsomething that, under the prevailing system of operating under the assumption that a modern myth is as good as a fact if everyone believes it, she came up with the tried and true bad childhood theory to explain her husband’s behavior. And that is why she didn’t leave him. He’s a victim.Phooey.

Is there anyone out there who really, really believes that stuff ? Because if there is, hoo boy, do I have a land deal for you! Victim my foot. He’s thePresident Of The United States, for Pete’s sake! You’d think that the man could tell right from wrong.

Victim. Yeah, right.

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