Guest Editorial
Stop Defending Clinton
...because there's a better way to win arguments with Clinton haters
by Chris Andersen

Feb. 20, 2001 (APJP) -- Here is an all-too-common scene played out these days on the major TV pundit-fests:

(1) An accusation is leveled against Clinton ("He stole stuff from Air Force One!", "He is bilking the tax payers in order to work in a ritzy downtown New York office!", "He pardoned a fugitive for money!", etc.).

(2) The talk show host, along with the usual cast of right-wing think tank spokespeople, rant and rave over this accusation.

(3) The brunt of this ranting and raving is born by some poor schlub Democrat who is present only as a token appeasement to "fair And balanced" journalism.

(4) The Democrat, even if he puts up any kind of defense at all, spends half his or her time accusing Clinton along with the rest of the guests.

(5) End result: Clinton is GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!

I have given up watching the pundit shows -- not because they are hosted by right-wingers and dominated by right-wing propaganda, but because the Democrats are such wimps when it comes to responding to this crap.

My blood pressure, as well as my marital bliss, are done no favor by the screaming this induces in me. I dream of the day when Democrats will stop trying to "win by losing" -- which was Dick Gephardt's deliberate strategy during the impeachment hearings -- and start "win by winning."

The Democrats have spent too many years being the "nice guys" in this struggle -- in fact, they have lost the ability to fight.

And it's not that I can really blame them: "Defending Clinton” can be a very tedious task. I derive no joy from it. And I imagine most poor Democrats don't much enjoy it either. After all, "once burned, twice shy". No one in Washington wants to be caught saying, "He didn't do anything wrong" -- only to find out that he did. Besides, many of these same Democrats don't really like Clinton all that much anyway.

Thus my advice: stop defending Clinton.

First of all, Clinton is an adult. He can take care of himself.  He's been through this crap for ten years, and if he hadn't learned a few things about how to deal with it by now he would have been left behind as political roadkill.

Second, the Republicans understand -- if not consciously but on a more subtle level -- that it is much easier to prove guilt than it is to prove innocence. Consequently, the minute a Democrat is put into the position of having to prove Clinton's innocence, 90% of the battle is already won.

And third, stop defending the guy -- because defending Clinton is not what this fight is about.

Clinton is just the convenient patsy for a coarsening of our political dialogue. He is a demagogic target used to distract attention away from real issues (such as, for example, what Junior is doing this week to destroy the progressive policies nurtured over the last 75 years).

When the Lewinsky brouhaha broke three years ago I can remember getting into several online arguments in which the following pattern would repeat:

(1) A Clinton hater would make an accusation against Bill;

(2) I would ask for some evidence to back up that accusation;

(3) Said Clinton Hater would accuse me of defending the man (and defending Clinton is, naturally, inexcusable);

(4) I would end up spending half of my time arguing that I was not a "Clinton Defender".

What got lost here is a very basic principle of a civil society: judgment of guilt should be based on the preponderance of the evidence, not the preponderance of the accusation.

Yet this is the kind of thing we see all the time on the TV these days.

Just last week Howard Kurtz accused Joshua Marshall of "appearing to be a knee-jerk Clinton defender" simply because Marshall made the simple request, in a column published for Slate, that the press corps not publish accusations of trashed White House offices before they investigate whether it really happened. We live in a world where practicing this basic journalistic principle has become justification for dismissing a skeptical voice in the wilderness.

So I say don't waste time trying to think up defenses for Clinton. He and his hired guns can do that quite well.

What we need to do is demand evidence. Here are some steps you can take in doing this:

(1) When you hear an accusation, demand evidence.

(2) When evidence is given, if it is given, look for weaknesses. If it is weak, say so.

(3) If the response to a request for evidence or the response to a claim of "weak evidence" is "you're just defending the guy", you know you have already won the argument. You just have to convince the audience of that fact. Convincing the audience requires pointing out that you are not defending behavior but simply asking for evidence of said behavior. Most people will understand this if given the chance, especially if you personalize it for them (I think this is what helped Clinton the most during the Lewinsky scandal).

Remember that when we ask for "evidence before guilt" we are not defending the accused. What we are defending is the following simple principle:

GUILT SHOULD BE JUDGED BY THE EVIDENCE, NOT THE VOLUME OF THE ACCUSATION!

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