Politics and venom

We have been privileged through many decades to reproduce the biting cartoons of Don Addis of the St. Petersburg Times. They have lightened and brightened our pages by highlighting often caustic comments. Our writers are vivid and intense in their effort to make a point. And Addis's pungent drawings with incisive comments enhance and deepen authors' meaning.

On this editorial page are two of Don Addis's art pieces that say for us what we think of the tasteless and ignorant and mean attacks on President Clinton's private life. The whole picture needs to have light, humorous treatment and that's exactly what Addis does so admirably.

We blush for a different reason than do the media. We are embarrassed when we think of our narrow immaturity in personal and sexual relations. Some first families openly acknowledge extra-marital affairs as in Italy and France. And we often do after death, as with JFK, FDR and Eisenhower. We need maturity! And we need a good measure of grace and kindness.

Our focus ought to be on performance in office. Bill Clinton serves and represents us well. As he told a recent press conference: "I've tried to depersonalize politics and take the venom out of it. And the harder I have tried to do this, the harder others have pulled in the other direction." As one columnist put it: "But when you are horsewhipped..."

Copyright The Human Quest Mar/Apr 1998
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