[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 26 (Friday, February 12, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H650-H654]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MEDIA MISREPRESENTATION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, it might surprise a lot of my
conservative friends, but one of my joys every day is reading The New
York Times, and especially the editorial page of The New York Times.
There are a lot of writers there that I do not particularly agree with,
but I certainly appreciate their flair and their style and just how
they are really some of the best and the brightest writers in the
business.
One of the best writers stylistically is also one of the most liberal
and somebody that I rarely agree with, and that is Anthony Lewis. A few
days ago, on February the 9th, Mr. Lewis wrote an article entitled
``Self-Inflicted Wound'' regarding the impeachment process, and gave a
searing critique of the House managers' performance in that. He talked
about his greatest concern being the moral absolutism these House
managers took over to the Senate trial. This is what he said:
``Representative Lindsey Graham's voice trembled as he ended the
Republican prosecutors' presentation of evidence. `For God's sake,' he
told the Senate, `figure out what kind of person we have here in the
White House.'
``Why the trembling emotion? Frustration, I think. Mr. Graham and the
other Republican managers are true believers.
``If they could only see it, one reason'' that Americans don't
understand their argument is ``their absolute conviction that they are
right.''
Mr. Lewis goes on to say: ``Americans are wise to be uncomfortable
with absolutism. Sir Isaiah Berlin, the great British historian-
philosopher, showed us that certainty about everything has been the
hallmark of totalitarian movements.''
Mr. Lewis goes on to say: ``The Republican managers did not
understand how their zealotry troubled the audience. The Financial
Times put it, they were `blinded by their moral righteousness.''' And
he goes on to discuss how such moral absolutism is dangerous for this
Republic.
Well, I personally believe that the House managers have done a very
good job and been pleased with their performance. But if Mr. Lewis
believes that they have been blinded by moral absolutism, then I think
that is certainly a message he needs to get out to the American people.
But I wish while he was getting that message out to the American
people, I wish he would also send a message to the most extreme
elements of the left in this House, and in the media, and in Hollywood
and across America that moral absolutism from the extreme left is
dangerous, just as it would be from the extreme right.
For over a decade the extreme left has practiced the type of moral
absolutism of the destructive nature that Mr. Lewis warned of. I
remember back in 1987 at the beginning of the nomination of Robert
Bork, who has been so villified over the past 11 years it is really
hard to recognize that he was one of the most respected voices in the
judiciary for years and years. But in 1987 the blind moral absolutism
of the extreme left took a vicious, vicious turn during the nomination
of Robert Bork.
As Charles Krauthammer wrote in The Washington Post on February the
9th, ``The Democrats owe Robert Bork an apology. You remember Bork: the
brilliant judge and legal scholar who was so savagely attacked when
nominated in 1987 by President Reagan for the Supreme Court that his
name became a verb. `Bork: to attack viciously a candidate or
appointee, especially by misrepresentation in the media.''' That is
Safire's political dictionary.
``Within hours of Bork's nomination,'' Krauthammer goes on to write,
``Senator Edward Kennedy was on the floor of the Senate charging that,
`Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into
back-alley abortions, among other travesties; blacks would sit at
segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens'
doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught evolution,
et cetera.'''.
Now, these arguments were absolutely false. They were proven
absolutely false and outrageous. But the extreme left took them and ran
with them and savagely attacked Judge Bork simply because he did not
agree with them and their view of the Constitution. He believed that
the Constitution should be interpreted in much the same way that many
today still believe it should be interpreted, and that is looking at
the original intent.
{time} 1030
But I do not recall in 1987 Mr. Lewis ever talking to the Senator or
condemning anybody for this sort of moral absolutism that now
supposedly is this great threat to western-style democracy. Sadly, I
expect they did not. And sadly, I expect they never will so long as the
moral absolutism and the extremism and the vicious attacks come from
the left.
We do not hear about it in the media, either. Let me tell my
colleagues, I was deeply, deeply offended, I was deeply saddened by a
campaign commercial that ran in Missouri, the home State of the
minority leader of this House. This is what this Democratic ad in
Missouri said in 1998. I am not talking about 11 years ago. I am
talking about in 1998.
[[Page H651]]
This is what the Democratic ad said right before this past election.
When you don't vote, you let another church explode. When
you don't vote, you allow another cross to burn. When you
don't vote, you let another assault wound a brother or a
sister. When you don't vote, you let the Republicans continue
to cut school lunches and Head Start. When you don't vote,
you allow the Republicans to give tax breaks to the wealthy
while threatening Social Security and Medicare, * * *
a false message that continues to be delivered today on the House
floor.
Do vote, and you elect Democrats who want to strengthen
Social Security and Medicare.
When you vote, you elect Democrats committed to a Patients
Bill of Rights that lets us, not the insurance companies,
make choices about our health care.
Voting will change things for the better. On November 3,
vote. Vote smart. Vote Democratic for Congress and the U.S.
Senate.
Paid for by the Democratic Missouri Party, Donna Knight,
Treasurer.
That was an ad that aired on WGNU radio, St. Louis, Missouri, that
was targeted toward an African-American audience.
Now, to me this is so shocking. It is demagoguery of the lowest order
to suggest that if they vote for me, I am a Republican, then they
support churches exploding; if they vote for me because I am a
Republican, they are voting to allow another cross to burn; if they
vote for me, they let another assault wound a brother and a sister.
Because after all, according to these Democratic ads, Republicans
support church burnings. According to this Democratic ad, Republicans
support crosses burning. According to this Democratic ad, Republicans
also support brutalizing African-Americans.
Basically, this is an argument that the Democrats rolled out the last
hour, an argument of the first order of closed-mindedness and moral
absolutism and extremism. How in the world can somebody in a campaign
stoop that low?
I suppose the Democrats can bring up the Willie Horton ad which
attacked Michael Dukakis in the 1988 campaign. But did that ad say that
every single Democrat was for letting murderers out of prison? Did that
ad say that Democrats supported church burnings? Did that ad say they
supported cross burnings?
These people do not know about my background. They do not know about
every Republican's background. In fact, I would challenge them to find
a single Republican that is elected in Congress that supports cross
burnings, that supports church bombings, that supports the assault of
African-Americans or any American.
This ad says here, ``scandalous, insulting and patronizing.'' But I
never, ever heard major media outlets take the Democrats down for
engaging in this type of shameless, hateful, mean-spirited, extreme
race baiting.
I have never once heard the minority leader, who is from Missouri,
come to this floor and attack his State party for suggesting that
Republicans support cross burnings. I have never heard the minority
leader come to this floor and attack his State party for suggesting
that the Republican Party supported cross burnings. I never once heard
the minority leader come to this floor and attack his home State party
for suggesting that the Republican Party supports the assault of
African-Americans. Not once.
In fact, I have not heard any Democrat come forward and say that. And
I certainly have not heard the major media types come forward and say
that. No, the moral absolutism that they want to attack today is the
one that suggests by our House managers that the President committed
the crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice. And while they want
to quote the polls about how all the people love the President, I have
never heard them once quote the poll that 86 percent of Americans,
according to a recent CBS/New York Times poll, believes that this
President committed the crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice.
But to them, and certainly to Mr. Lewis with the New York Times, that
is dangerous moral absolutism, that is extremism. But I guess it is not
extreme to suggest that if they are a Republican, if they believe in
limited government, if they believe in lower taxes, if they were
willing to fight to balance the budget in 1995 when the President said
balancing the budget in seven years will destroy the economy, I suppose
that that sort of extremism, that sort of race baiting, that sort of
moral absolutism is okay. It is certainly the message that we have
picked up from the media.
But it does not stop there. Also, our dear friends from Missouri had
this to say in a January 26, 1999, Democratic senatorial campaign press
release. The headline was, ``White Supremacist's Presidential Choice:
Senator John Ashcroft.'' That is shocking. That is absolutely shocking.
They go on and give a press release and say that the Council for
Conservative Citizens had some member that said they would have chosen
John Ashcroft as their presidential nominee if he had run, this one
person. And so from that, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
from the home State of the minority leader gives us a headline that
calls Senator John Ashcroft, a great Missouri governor, a great
Missouri Senator, just a great man, calls him a white supremacist's
presidential choice.
Now, I have got a question to ask, and I certainly hope in the coming
days the minority leader of this Senate will step forward with an
answer that I think Americans need to hear. Just how desperate is the
extreme left to elect people in the State of Missouri and across
America to public office? What will they do? What compromises will they
make? What slanderous attacks will they participate in? What low grade
race-baiting will they engage in? How low in the gutter will they go to
win seats?
We certainly know that the minority leader wants to be the Speaker of
the House. We know they are five or six seats away from doing that. And
if they do that based on issues, then God bless them because that is
what this great Republic is all about. It is about the power of ideas.
And if the minority leader and the Democrats in Missouri and the
Democrats across America have an agenda that Americans want, then I
wish them all the luck in getting the six seats that they want and
taking over this House. But one has to seriously question the strength
of their ideas when we look at the gutter tactics that they engage in
to win, saying that because I am a Republican I support cross burnings
and because I am a Republican I support church burnings, or saying
because I am a Republican I support the deliberate assault of African-
Americans. That is shocking and moral absolutism of the first order.
Yet again, I hear absolutely nothing from Mr. Lewis. I hear nothing
from other people in the mainstream media. And maybe that is because a
lot of the most scandalous attacks have actually come from the media.
I give my colleagues the tirade of Geraldo Rivera on February 2,
1999. Of course, Mr. Rivera has been unabashedly the President's
cheerleader, and he followed the lead of many people on the left with
their vicious attacks, vicious personal attacks on men and women who
did not share their view of the President, who for their own reasons
believed, like 86 percent of Americans, that the President committed
perjury and obstruction of justice.
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). If the Member will suspend, the
Chair reminds all Members that they must refrain from discussing
allegations and proceedings currently pending against the President.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, I certainly will not do that. I am
simply reflecting the views of the polls.
But certainly Rivera and many other journalists did not for one
second see how anybody could be troubled by certain allegations against
the President of the United States.
So, on February 2, this is what Mr. Rivera on CNBC said: ``I don't
want to be a brown racist, substituting for white racism here. But
don't you think 13 guys, all of whom, you know, are not noted for any
contribution to civil rights, I'm talking about the House managers, all
of whom are born-again, all of whom are right-to-lifers, all of whom
are, you know, anti-immigration, pro-English only, etc., etc., don't
you think that when that face is presented, isn't that one of the
reasons the majority, the vast majority of the American people support
the President? When they look at the people prosecuting, some say
persecuting him, and say, wait a second, those people
[[Page H652]]
wouldn't even let me into their home or their neighborhood or to work
alongside them?''
Now, this is a classic sort of diatribe, not only from Mr. Rivera but
from the extreme left, that has so dominated the media in the past few
months. First of all we have reverse race-baiting, and I read the
Democratic ads from Missouri, Mr. Speaker, that engaged in extreme race
baiting. We have religious intolerance.
If they cannot attack a conservative's position, then just say they
are born-again, say they are right-wing extremists. Because make no
mistake of it, in 1999, among with the elite in America, among
educators, among media types, among Hollywood types, being a born-again
Christian is seen as being closed-minded and extreme.
{time} 1045
This sort of religious intolerance continues and continues. It is
demagoguery of the first order. Now, I know these guys, all 13 of them,
and I know they do not share the same religious views or the same views
on immigration.
But it is this sort of moral absolutism, ``you either believe
everything that I believe, or you are evil,'' that Mr. Lewis supposedly
is concerned about when it comes from the right, but certainly not when
it comes from the left. You know, it seems that the Christian right has
been the favorite whipping boy of media elites and our own far left
Democratic peers here who dominate their caucus for some time.
I wonder if Mr. Lewis in being concerned about moral absolutism has
ever written about the vicious attacks that constantly take place and
are launched against those Christians who are unfortunate enough to be
conservative? Because certainly the conservative right, the Christian
right, is constantly attacked and demonized in moral absolute terms,
but we do not hear such persecution about the Christian left. In fact,
Members of the Christian left are able to attack those that disagree
with them with personal vicious attacks without any accountability.
Of course, we had a great example just this past week where the
Reverend Jesse Jackson did not agree with everything that George Pataki
agreed with, so, what does he do? He compares them to racist
segregationists governors in the south from the 1960's.
The message is clear: ``You either agree with me all the time, or you
are evil.''
I saw a member, a respected member from the extreme left a few years
ago, compare our former Speaker with Bull Connor. Of course, many of
you remember Bull Connor. He was the drill sergeant, the police chief,
of Birmingham in the 1960's who took care of African Americans who
actually wanted the same freedom we have all been able to enjoy for 200
years. He was the police chief that loosened the dogs on them, that
allowed dogs to tear African-Americans to pieces just because they
wanted to protest to gain the same rights and the same dignity that I
have and that my children have and that white Americans have had for
almost 200 years. His actions, and the actions of other
segregationists, who were willing to attack African Americans for
simply pursuing their rights, was evil of the first order.
Now, that is a moral absolutism that I feel comfortable saying and
talking about. And yet today, if you disagree with somebody on welfare
reform, just do what the Reverend Jesse Jackson did, and compare them
to segregationists, racist governors in the 1960's.
I heard other people going throughout the 1998 campaign doing the
same thing, calling the former Speaker, Newt Gingrich, and Trent Lott,
the current majority leader, ``the forces of evil.''
Talk about dangerous moral absolutism. It does not matter whether you
agree with everything that Speaker Gingrich and Majority Leader Lott
support legislatively.
I did not support everything that Speaker Gingrich stood for. I do
not support everything minority leader Dick Gephardt stands for. I
certainly would never say he is a racist or a bigot or hateful or a
socialist or somebody who, like his party in Missouri says, supports
cross burnings or supports church burnings or supports beating up
African Americans.
It is extremism, it is moral absolutism of the first order, and it
cannot be tolerated in American politics in 1999.
I look forward to a follow-up column by Mr. Lewis. It does not have
to condemn all of these things. He does not have to condemn the
Reverend Jesse Jackson saying Mr. Pataki is a bigot. He can choose the
Missouri ad that said John Ashcroft is a white supremacist choice for
President, or perhaps he can go ahead and attack the Missouri ad----
announcement by the speaker
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The Chair would remind Members
that they are to refrain to references to sitting members of the
Senate.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. I thank the gentleman, and I certainly made only
positive references to the Senator from Missouri. But in deference to
the Speaker's statement, I will refrain from mentioning his name.
But the Senator, who was viciously attacked in these Missouri ads,
did not deserve that. It is this moral absolutism that Mr. Lewis is
concerned about from the right, but obviously turns a blind eye to when
it comes from the left, that is dangerous to democracy in this country.
Other media types have thrown kerosene on the fire. Newsweek's
Eleanor Clift said on January 9, ``I think there are real questions
about separation of powers, and I do not think that the President
should go up there and appear before the Senate. Second of all, that
herd of managers from the House, I mean, frankly, all they were missing
was white sheets.''
So here we have a columnist that Newsweek allows to write for them
whenever she wishes saying that Henry Hyde was leading a group of
clansmen over to the United States Senate.
Then we have Time Magazine's Jack White on February 1 speaking of
White House lawyer Cheryl Mills.
Her rhetoric wasn't fancy, but it was on target. The GOP is
a party, all after, that owes its post-Barry Goldwater
resurgence to opposition to civil rights, and while its
leaders from time to time proclaim their belief in racial
justice, their pledges have been mostly lip service. Oh, they
are too gentile for a sheet-wearing bigot like David Duke,
but all too willing to embrace bigotry if it is dressed in a
suit and a tie.
That is shocking to me, and I guess I have to go back and look at my
1994 campaign literature, because I thought I got elected because I
believed in balancing the budget. I thought I got elected because all I
talked about was the need for tax relief. I thought I got elected
because I talked about the need to have my two children being educated
by their teachers and their parents and their local school board
members, instead of by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.
See, I thought I got elected in 1994 because I believed that a
smaller, more efficient, more caring government was the wave of the
future. But now I find from Time Magazine that actually I owe my seat
to opposition of civil rights.
Mr. Speaker, I do not know how many Americans can even begin to
understand how offensive such characterizations are, how absolutely
offensive, in light of my life, in light of my personal beliefs about
civil rights. It is just absolutely offensive.
So, if you are keeping a scorecard, Mr. Speaker, Republicans have a
majority because they are bigots, they are afraid to embrace David Duke
because he wears a white sheet, but not if a David Duke dresses in a
coat and a tie. According to the extreme left, the Democrats in
Missouri and across the country, Republicans are ``the forces of
evil.'' Republicans support cross burnings. Republicans support church
burnings. Republicans support the brutalization of African Americans.
This is the voice of the Democratic Party. This is their explanation.
This is their ally in the media's explanation on why we are here.
It is very interesting, we Republicans, at least for the next two
years, are the majority party in the House and the Senate. It is very
interesting that Geraldo Rivera and all these people that are
castigating us and saying we are extremists and racists and bigots, it
is amazing they constantly talk about how Americans have the good
nature and the good sense not to expel this President from office.
But there seems to be an inconsistency, because those same Americans
[[Page H653]]
that supposedly had that good sense, according to these same Democrats,
elected Republicans to Congress because we are bigots. It does not go
together.
Of course it does not go together, because it is mean-spirited, moral
absolutism that Mr. Lewis wrote about. But, again, I suppose again it
is only dangerous when it comes from the right, and not from the left.
We had a New York Times article on January 25th talking to a
Holocaust survivor. Of course, they found one that would say that Mr.
Hyde's work reminded her of what the Nazis did under Hitler in the
1930's and the 1940's.
My gosh, this is the remarkable thing. I was a history major. I have
read so many books about World War II and the prewar period. I am just
shocked by the cruelness.
There is a new documentary out on the Holocaust survivors in Hungary.
I am just absolutely shocked that we have heard time and time again
over the past four years the comparison of the Republican party to a
movement that slaughtered 6 million human beings, 6 million Jews.
Talk about frightening moral absolutism. Every time they compare the
Republican party to Nazis, because we want the school lunch program to
grow by 6.4 percent instead of 6.6 percent, and because we want to
allow states and localities to distribute these free school lunch
programs instead of huge bureaucracies in Washington, D.C., they
minimize the horrors and the impact of the Holocaust. They minimize the
absolute evilness of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis that he ran.
It is just shocking. About as shocking as John Hockenberry, who has
his own show on MSNBC, who refused to simply suggest that the
Republican House managers were not ``uniquely stupid,'' but he said
instead, ``uniquely stupid is not the word I would use to describe this
process. The word I would use is Stalinist.''
Now, of course, for those history students that know Russian history,
it is estimated that Joseph Stalin while running the Soviet Union
throughout the 1920's to the 1950's may have been responsible for as
many as 40 million deaths in his own country. But according to a man
who runs his own show on a major cable network, MSNBC, controlled by
NBC and Microsoft, Mr. Hyde is running an operation that compares to
the operation of perhaps the greatest murderer in the 20th Century,
Joseph Stalin.
But, again, no outcries, no outbursts, no editorials, no op-eds from
Anthony Lewis about moral absolutism from the extreme left or
absolutism in the media, or absolutism from the extreme elements of the
Democratic Party. No, it is just allowed to pass by without a single
word of protest.
And who has heard protest about what the President's dear friend and
fund-raiser and Hollywood star Alec Baldwin said on December 11, 1998?
He shared his views with Connan O'Brien where he said regarding the
House vote on possible impeachment of the President, ``I come back from
Africa, and I am thinking to myself that in other countries they are
laughing at us 24 hours a day.'' And Baldwin goes on to say, ``and I am
thinking to myself, if we were in other countries, we would all right
now, all of us go down together,'' and at this point he starts to get
up and he starts to shout, he said, ``we would all go together down to
Washington and we would stone Henry Hyde to death.''
{time} 1100
``We would stone him to death. Wait, shut up, shut up, no, shut up, I
am not finished. We would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would then
go to their homes and we would kill their wives and we would kill their
children, and we would kill their families. What is happening in this
country? What is happening in this country?''
Mr. Speaker, what is happening in this country?
Now, I think that is a question that could be well posed of Mr.
Baldwin. And that is a question that we could pose to NBC for airing
that. It is a question we can pose to the mainstream media. My
colleagues would be surprised how few Americans know that the
President's friend and fund-raiser, Alec Baldwin, suggested that
Americans come to Washington, stone Henry Hyde to death and kill him.
Now, he says it was just a joke. Let me tell my colleagues, I have
got the clip. It is on my web site. One can click it and download it,
Mr. Speaker, and decide whether one thinks he was joking or not. It is
absolutely shocking. I think the most shocking thing is not the
stupidity of Mr. Baldwin, not the callousness of Mr. Baldwin. To
suggest that Henry Hyde and his wife, who is deceased, and his family
be drug out of their homes and murdered.
Now, the biggest shock is that NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, The
New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and every
other major media outlet has covered this up and not talked about it at
length, simply because the extremism and the moral absolutism and the
hate and the vile, mean-spirited, overreaching came from the left, came
from the President's supporters instead of the President's detractors.
What is doubly shocking for me on a personal note is having 2
children in Pensacola, Florida that I am always away from when I am up
here in Washington, and putting myself in the position of Chairman
Hyde, and I suppose since I am a Republican, he says all Republicans
should be beaten and stoned, I am surprised that Mr. Baldwin, who has
his own wife and his own family, who is very protective of that family,
who in fact has gone after photographers for coming too close to his
wife and his child when they were coming home, why he would say such a
thing about Henry Hyde, Henry Hyde's family, about Republicans and
Republicans' families.
When he got angry a few years back because his wife was coming home
from the hospital with a child and photographers were pressing in and
taking pictures and harassing him, I understood him getting upset. As a
father, I understood. So do we not think as fathers, as husbands, he
would understand? Apparently not. Apparently a lot of people do not.
Mr. Speaker, this process has been a brutal, brutal process over the
past year, past year-and-a-half. And it has, since I suppose Mr. Lewis
is correct, that moral absolutism in some cases is dangerous.
Now, of course, we can call right, right and wrong, wrong. We can say
safely that segregationists that abused African-Americans in the 1950s
and the 1960s who were simply trying to gain the same rights that all
Americans enjoyed are evil; and that Adolf Hitler, responsible for the
extermination of 6,000 Jewish human beings is evil; and Joseph Stalin,
who killed 30 million people, at least, in this century is evil; and
Mao Tse-tung, responsible for up to 60 million deaths in this century
alone, is evil. There are moral absolutes. But suggesting that somebody
like Henry Hyde should be killed, or that Henry Hyde and the House
managers are evil; or to suggest that Henry Hyde and the House managers
are Stalinists, as Mr. Hockenberry on MSNBC did; or to suggest, as
Geraldo Rivera on CNBC did, that these House managers are racists and
bigots and anti-immigration; to suggest that all Republicans are evil;
that as a member in this House suggested that Newt Gingrich and Trent
Lott represent the forces of evil; or to suggest that I, simply because
I switched from being a Democrat to being a Republican, because I
believed that the Democratic party veered radically left and became the
party of big government and high taxes; to suggest that because I did
that that I am evil, that I am a racist, that I support church
burnings, cross burnings, the brutalization of African-Americans; to
suggest that is demagoguery of the first order and it is wrong.
Mr. Speaker, it is my hope that in the coming weeks and months this
process can become more civil, and people can avoid such mean-spirited,
hateful personal attacks from not only the extreme left and the
Democratic party represented here in the House, but also the extreme
left represented on television shows that Americans are exposed to
every night.
I have quite a few, maybe less than I had an hour ago, but I have
quite a few Democratic friends, in fact I know I have quite a few
Democratic friends. It is my hope that they will come forward and
condemn the minority leader's home State Democratic party for
suggesting that all Republicans support cross burnings or support
church burnings. I hope they will step forward and
[[Page H654]]
have the courage to say we can move forward, we can win on the issues,
we can lose on the issues. We can win on whether we want a bigger
government and higher taxes, or whether we want a smaller government
and fewer taxes. We can win on the things and engage in the type of
debates that Americans expect us to engage in.
I think if that happens, then this horrible exercise of personal
destruction that started in 1987 with Judge Bork, continued with
Justice Thomas, and continued through this decade with Republicans and
Democrats alike, maybe, just maybe, we can go into the next millennium
and really talk about the future. Maybe we can talk about the future of
education, talk about the future of Social Security and how to save
Social Security, how to make Medicare stronger, how to protect
ourselves against the dangers that continue to explode across the
world.
If we do that, and if Mr. Lewis will step forward and attack the
moral absolutism and the extremism that has come from the extreme left
over the past year, then I think maybe America has a chance to have a
representative government in Washington over the next century that they
can once again be proud of.
____________________