14 NOVEMBER 1998, Page 69

High life

Unpoliced sexuality

Taki

New York Aas, for once I got it right. The Draft Dodger is here to stay, just as I predicted he would all along. It all has to do with morality. There ain't any, at least inside the Beltway, where it counts. Here is how things stand: the chief legal officer of the nation has committed felonies and is going unpunished. The idea of equal justice, and the grand American ideal that no one is above the law, has become a laughing stock. Ergo, it is acceptable for presidents to subvert the rule of law.

Clinton is said to have atoned and to be contrite. I don't believe a word of it because I know a congenital conman when I see one. He is as contrite as I am after a booze-up. Acts are supposed to have con- sequences, but, in the time of Clinton, peo- ple are not accountable for misconduct. As long as they're not conservatives, that is. With this kind of logic, the poor little Greek boy should never have served time. I was, after all, very sorry for what I did 14 years ago.

The Draft Dodger's defenders, starting with that arch pseud and fraud Arthur Schlesinger Jr, insist that the President's only important job is to oversee the econo- my and to legislate. And that his improper conduct does not constitute impeachable offences. Bull and more bull. Schlesinger was up in front of the judiciary committee this week raving that everyone lies about sex. In this he is right. But everyone is not president. Clinton has committed acts that, were he a college professor, a military offi- cer, a business executive, an editor of a newspaper, a pastor of a church, would have cost him his job.

The prestige of the office is now perma- nently tainted. It has now become the only job in the land in which one can engage in perjury and sordid cover-ups and get away with it. Toni Morrison, a black female nov- elist, and Nobel Prize winner to boot, has called the Draft Dodger the first black American president. By this she means he was born poor and brought up by a single parent. She defends his `unpoliced sexuali- ty'. Gee whiz! Maybe I, too, am black. I also suffer from unpoliced sexuality, but, sadly, I ain't the Pres. What she really means is an insult to blacks. That neither they nor Bill Clinton can be held up to the same moral standards as the rest of us.

And now for the best. The Draft Dodger fired his ambassador to Eritrea last year for alleged sexual misconduct. While Clinton was involved with la Monica, and receiving non-stop Lewinskys in the Oval Office, Ambassador John F. Hicks, a black man and a Clinton appointee, was accused of making sexual advances to two white secre- taries. Clinton fired him outright. Hicks admitted that he tried to kiss one of the girls, but only to show affection. Investiga- tors sided with the girls. Clinton turned him into toast immediately.

What I'd like to know is the following: is trying to kiss your secretary worse than dropping your pants, whipping it out and telling her to kiss it? Is it worse than lying under oath in front of a Grand Jury? Should a man like Clinton have the power to judge someone who has acted inappro- priately, but far less inappropriately than the judge? Of course not. If we are going to legitimise Clinton's ethics, then Hicks should be lightly reprimanded and allowed to keep his job. Perhaps even given a high- er post. In London, for example. The ex- short-order cook that is the present American ambassador, and a great Clinton buddy, shouldn't mind. As far as I know he's monogamous, and there is no place in the Clinton administration for people who don't lie and cheat.

But not to worry. Things are getting bet- ter by the minute. Last week Clinton and the bitch had a little get-together in the White House, and, for the first time ever, an openly gay couple were invited as man and wife. The dinner was in honour of the Colombian President Andres Pastrana. The gay couple were Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner and his handsome hunk Matt Nye. The latest issue of Rolling Stone had the Draft Dodger on its cover and was filled with anti-Starr stories. My spies were mum about rumours that Clinton and the hunk were overheard discussing oral sex. But when you think of it, and in view of the Draft Dodger's sexual proclivities, it would not be a bad way to go. After all, there are a lot of male interns working in the White House.

I'm standing in for Geoffrey Boycott.'