“Christmas In Washington” - Steve Earle
The 1996 presidential election did not inspire the electorate. Total voter turnout was slightly less than 50%, the lowest since 1924. The prior four years had seen a harsh and painful schism in the government. Politics had taken a decidedly nasty turn, and voters responded by staying home. Bill Clinton was a brilliant and capable politician, but his personal ethics were deplorable. His remarkable mind and political talents were too often overshadowed by his sexual infidelities. Bill Clinton’s political might have lacked his charm and talent, but their skill at mudslinging compensated sufficiently enough to enable them to poison the font of American democracy.
To be sure, the “politics of personal destruction” is nothing new is American politics. It is as old as the Republic itself. School children are taught to believe the Founding Fathers to have been untainted by ambition or personal defect. In reality, the men who created our nation were every bit as flawed -- perhaps more so -- than their distant political progeny, and they bickered like crabs in an overfilled bucket. In the election of 1800, both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams sullied themselves and each other by promoting falsehoods and half-truths designed to discredit one another. In 1804, Thomas Jefferson’s sitting Vice President Aaron Burr murdered fellow Revolutionary War hero, Alexander Hamilton, Constitutional Framer and engineer of the American banking system. But even before earning Burr’s fatal ire, Hamilton had become embroiled in the first major American sex scandal when Congress learned that he -- then George Washington’s closest adviser and Secretary of the Treasury -- was being blackmailed by his mistress’s husband. And, of course, no mention of early American political sexual misconduct would be complete without at least a passing reference to Benjamin Franklin.
Those who slept through their first level history classes often fall into the trap of thinking the politics of prior eras to be less corrupt, less hypocritical, less dishonest than than now. This thinking is a snare than entangles careless intellects of every era. I was recently speaking with a friend who repeatedly informed me, “Look at Abraham Lincoln. He never lied. What would he think of a liar becoming president?”
I had to suppress no small quantity of jaw dropping astonishment while answering,“Before I answer, can I point out a few facts about my favorite American president?”
Those who slept through their first level history classes often fall into the trap of thinking the politics of prior eras to be less corrupt, less hypocritical, less dishonest than than now. This thinking is a snare than entangles careless intellects of every era. I was recently speaking with a friend who repeatedly informed me, “Look at Abraham Lincoln. He never lied. What would he think of a liar becoming president?”
I had to suppress no small quantity of jaw dropping astonishment while answering,“Before I answer, can I point out a few facts about my favorite American president?”
But if the vitriol coloring our political discourse is perhaps less vicious than that of earlier times, it is no less real as well. Clinton was the first Democratic president to serve two complete terms since FDR, and many party activists innately considered the Oval Office rightfully theirs, a sentiment magnified by his failure to win a popular vote majority in either election. On 19 December 1998, the Republican dominated House of Representatives impeached President Bill Clinton on two charges -- perjury and obstruction of justice -- neither of which would likely have resulted in charges in a non-political setting. The nominal charges were actually vehicles to which Clinton’s opponents attached any number of unproven or even spurious claims, Clinton being a Soviet mole or he and his wife being mass murderers.
Many Americans, when confronted by the bitterness that has enveloped Washington for over two centuries, look back to a imaginary halcyon past, seeking to return to a time that never was. Perhaps I error in saying “many Americans.” We are all guilty.
And so it goes. Now for the music. Songwriter Steve Earle turns his doubtful glance to the 1996 post-election America.
It's Christmas time in Washington
The Democrats rehearsed
Gettin' into gear for four more years
Things not gettin' worse
The Republicans drink whiskey neat
And thanked their lucky stars
They said, "He cannot seek another term
They'll be no more FDR's"
And I sat home in Tennessee
Just staring at the screen
With an uneasy feeling in my chest
I'm wonderin' what it means
So come back Woody Guthrie
Now, come back to us now
Tear your eyes from paradise
And rise again somehow
If you run into Jesus
Maybe he can help you out
Come back Woody Guthrie
To us now
I followed in your footsteps once
Back in my travelin' days
Somewhere I failed to find your trail
Now I'm stumblin' through the haze
But there's killers on the highway now
And a man can't get around
So I sold my soul for wheels that roll
Now I'm stuck here in this town
Now come back Woody Guthrie
Come back to us now
And tear your eyes from paradise
And rise again somehow
If you run into Jesus
Maybe he can help you out
Come back Woody Guthrie
To us now
There's foxes in the hen house
Cows out in the corn
The unions have been busted
Their proud red banners torn
To listen to the radio
You'd think that all was well
But you and me and Cisco know
It's going straight to hell
So come back, Emma Goldman
Rise up, old Joe Hill
The barricades are goin' up
They cannot break our will
Come back to us, Malcolm X
And Martin Luther King
We're marching into Selma
As the bells of freedom ring
So come back Woody Guthrie
Come back to us now
Tear your eyes from paradise
And rise again somehow
If you run into Jesus
Maybe he can help you out
Come back Woody Guthrie
To us now
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