Land of Oz with bad guys

By Kathleen Parker

Never has misanthropy held such allure. From Paula and the Supremes to Bill, Monica and Ken, I can't find anyone to like.

As we ponder the concept of sex in the Oval Office (while on the phone with congressfolk, with the door cracked, all the better to excite one, my dear), the unrealized pleasures of a cigar (a woman is just a woman, but a cigar is a smoke!) and the real and true meaning of sex, one flounders for meaning in the universe. How (as Dorothy might have said to Toto) the hell did we get here?

Oz, come to think of it, isn't a bad place to start as we try to untangle this sticky web. Nothing is as it seems. Poppies turn to poison as sincerest utterances turn to lies. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." Well, except for those 10 times ... did I mention that I'm sorry? Oh, yeah, and the phone stuff.

The road that brought us to this unhealthy place is long and pocked with lowlifes, upstarts and, scariest of all, do-gooders. Nearly everyone gets a share of blame for this day when young children ask, "What's oral sex?" and "What's the thing about the cigar, mommy?"

Start with Paula Jones, who, you have to admit, pre-surgery, bore a striking resemblance to a certain Oz character. Hint: "I'll get you my little pretty." Were Jones' claim true - that the then-Arkansas governor invited her to perform a Lewinsky - she should have smirked, thrown back her head and laughed shrilly. Instead, she filed a baseless sexual harassment lawsuit, which should have been ignored, but wasn't.

Back in Munchkin Land, the Supreme Court - apparently having trudged through a poppy field or two - ruled that Jones could pursue her civil case, thus setting a precedent for anyone to attack a sitting president on the basis of little more than a bad mood. The justices also set the stage, inevitably, for a level of prurience that has left almost no one unembarrassed.

Enter the Tin Man, Ken Starr. All brains and no heart or soul. Starr was supposed to investigate Whitewater and wound up instead listening to lurid tape recordings of some raven-haired hussy (Dorothy?) and her fiendish friend, Linda Tripp, chief of the wicked witch's flying monkeys.

Starr would get to the bottom of the Wizard's tricks no matter what it took. All he needed to make his case was a little DNA, graciously provided by Monica Lewinsky, the only woman in America who saves her stains. But that wasn't enough. Starr wanted to vent, to ruin, to humiliate, to titillate? Thanks to him, we're now privy to the president's sexual preferences, perversions and peccadilloes.

Did we have to go there?

Absolutely not.

Then there's dear, sweet Dorothy, who at any other time in history would have been properly labeled not the lovelorn lass but just-a-tramp. (Son, stay away from girls like that.) Who, pray tell, wears a thong to work? Who shows her underwear to the president of the United States at the earliest hint of a flirtation?

"Hi, I'm Monica. Wanna see my thong?"

"No, Monica, I want you to go home and wash out your mouth with Lysol." That, or something similar, is what the president should have said. How about this from any decent man: "Monica, you're adorable; I'm flattered. I'm also old enough to be your father, now git!" - as they say back home.

Instead, El Wizard unveils himself and plays kiddy courtship games in the corridors and cubbyholes of the White House. They, like, "accidentally" bump into each other in the hallways. She, like, brings him pizza and stuff. They like make out and, you know, fool around, only he won't go all the way cuz he doesn't trust me and everything.

Whom to blame? How about everybody. If there's a conspiracy out there, it's a conspiracy to make America stupider than dirt.

Victory noted.

We've traveled so far from the reality of what America once was, where values were understood and agreed upon, that we don't even notice when someone does wrong.

Clinton says he sinned. What Clinton did wrong was to be himself. From the beginning, he has been a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, weather-watching, wind-checking, poll-marking, please-yourself kind of man. All he ever had to do was keep his pants zipped and, failing that, tell the truth and say, I'm sorry - the first time, not after the polls said he wasn't contrite enough.

Had Clinton owned up to his actions in January when Lewinsky's name first surfaced, our nation wouldn't have suffered through eight months of humiliation. We wouldn't look like fools to the rest of the world. Our children wouldn't be discussing oral sex in fourth-grade civics; and most important, they wouldn't be learning that adultery and lying are OK, as long as you shed a timely tear and hang your head for the camera.

Everybody in this lousy movie has been wrong, and no one, not once, put the welfare of our country first. Ken Starr and Bill Clinton probably deserve each other, but America deserves neither.

As for the rest, may I just say, there's no place like home.

Go there.

Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.

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