I guess it all started when I found I had used my last quart of Grecian Formula and Junky Jerry was too cheap to give me some of the Shinola he uses on his hair.

As a result, I was feeling my age and the need to take a break from the writing of an adventure/survivor book entitled My Quest for the Perfect Squid so I was trying to choose between watching TV and reading.

There were the usual TV choices such as I Was A Sex Slave For Doctor Kavorkian, I Spit On Your Grave! Survivors Learning To Live With Our Wild Friends In Nature: Snakes, Alligators, Tigers, In-laws And The Winos Next Door, and I Was An Alien Abductee Spy For Amazons From The Planet Playtex In The Victoria's Secret Galaxy.

Well, in spite of that last one having some artistic merit, perhaps a good book instead. They were beginning to stack up, books that were languishing while I had been writing. As a bachelor and always looking for easy cooking hints, one I really had meant to get to was a collaborative effort: Our Favorite Recipes by Jeffrey Dahmer and Anthony Hopkins. A medical science expose clamored for my attention: Guinea Pig Cured Of Alzheimer's And Biting His Nails!

But, alas, the National Enquirer won out. Being a real political buff, the screaming headlines of this worthy example of high-class journalism won the day.

Bill Clinton's legacy as President is assured. It will be defined by two words and one wisdom phrase: The words are "Sordid" and "Tawdry." The wisdom phrase is: You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. And you know what they say about successful men and the women that made them what they are.

Now that Hillary is using the "I" word instead of the "We" word, the mind reels since she has shown herself more than willing to top her husband's record ' Hillary wanted the silverware, Bill wanted the interns. Hillary has shown she has the "chutzpah" to pull off upstaging her (to be ex?) husband and she's off to a running start.

Born of the "good ol' boy" politics of Arkansas where the bodies of political "embarrassments and indiscretions" really are buried and the phrase is not a metaphor, and well trained to lie, steal, and cheat with the best of any backwater, third world nation, I find it somewhat amusing that Hillary is a senator for a state that thought itself sophisticated.

Well, it's about time New York got its comeuppance. Can you see Hillary on the cover of The New Yorker? Boggles the mind! Mad Magazine, maybe. Ah, if only Al Capp were still here to use her in Li'l Abner's Dogpatch. Now that would be appropriate. I can easily visualize Hillary and Mammy Yokum involved in many cultural pursuits of common interest and on the same level of sophistication.

But "sophistication" is not a word to be associated with either of the Clintons' or their relatives. Nor is the word "civilized." Though I thought it decidedly inappropriate for some pundit to say if he saw one more picture of Hillary's brother swinging a golf club he would puke! Or for another to say he didn't think the guy had ever availed himself of a salad!

As to Bill's brother Roger, well, I once had to bail my grandad out of jail in Redondo Beach. That's right next door to Hermosa. Cost me fifty bucks. He and some other senior citizens were busted for playing penny-ante poker. You don't have to tell me those South Bay cops are tough! But bubba Roger trying to imitate Elvis, well, that reminds me of what that pundit said about Hillary's brother Hugh and the golf club.

But to be fair, I think the thing about Hillary and her Jewish "constituency" was simply due to her watching Exodus, Fiddler on the Roof, and The Ten Commandments a few too many times. Maybe she just hadn't seen The Message or read the Koran?

And to be even fairer, I did a little straw poll here in the Valley on the question of the Clinton's credibility. Well, I tried to do a straw poll but I no sooner asked the question and no one could stop laughing long enough to give me an answer.

Well, déjà vu all over again. As Sam Clemens so eloquently put it: Judas Iscariot was only a premature congressman and an honest politician is one that hasn't had time to sell out.

 

AUTHOR

Samuel D. G. Heath, Ph.D.