They just don't like him.

And Steam from Their Ears

By Rick Horowitz

Have you ever seen such disappointment?

Poor dears! There they were, ready to dig in to the meal of their dreams, the meal they'd been waiting for forever, and suddenly there was a sign on the kitchen door: "Closed. Come back tomorrow." Broiled Clinton, so close they could almost taste it - and then, all of a sudden, not. Not yet, anyway.

It was cruel, that's what it was! It just wasn't fair! Just when everything was going their way, and the votes were piling higher and higher and the train was rolling down the track and there was nothing in the whole wide world that could stop it -

He stopped it.

The main course in question - the grand prize, the great reward for their tireless efforts - remembered he was still commander in chief. He gave an order. The missiles flew. The momentum fizzled. Dinner would have to wait - a day, or maybe longer.

They were not happy campers.

What they were, in fact, was furious. They huffed. They puffed. They nearly blew the House down - the Senate, too. If faxes were flammable, fire trucks would have been rolling up Capitol Hill. Not that they weren't still convinced they had the votes to do the deed, not at all. (They may even have done it by the time you read this.) It's just that...

They'd been counting on it, that's all. They'd been looking forward to it. They'd written it on their calendars: "Thursday: Impeach him." Do you tell a kid on Christmas Eve that Christmas has been postponed? Of course you don't! Some congressmen are just the same way.

Iraq is irrelevant! a few of them cried. Let's get on with it! But they couldn't get on with it, not right that minute, not with the bombs falling and the pilots flying and the country rallying round. It wouldn't be right. That wasn't it: It wouldn't look right.

Of course, complaining about it didn't look right either, but they couldn't help themselves. They'd had their hands around his windpipe, for pity's sake - were they really supposed to stop squeezing? So they made angry noises instead, hinted darkly - when they even bothered to hint - about ulterior motives and political trickery. They'd hold off, they announced, but not for long. Nobody was going to play them for patsies.

They were trying to look like statesmen, but the blood lust was still in their eyes. They wanted him, and they wanted him now. How dare he delay them from doing him in? They were going to get him anyway, there was barely a doubt about it anymore - but that wasn't good enough.

They wanted him now. Before things changed.

They weren't sure what things, exactly. They didn't have to be sure; they didn't want anything getting in the way. The blood lust was still in their eyes, but the only thing stronger than their hatred for Bill Clinton and their mistrust of Bill Clinton was their fear of Bill Clinton. They'd seen the Houdini act too many times. They'd seen him wriggle free when nobody could possibly wriggle free. If they gave him a minute's respite, let alone a day or two, who knew what he might do to try to slip the ropes yet again?

He'd do...something. They were sure of that. They didn't know what it was, or how it would work, but they knew they wouldn't like it. So what if they came across a little too angry? A little too hungry? A little too single-minded? They could live with that - they had a job to do.

And nobody was going to play them for patsies.

Posted 12/18/98. Fresh stuff right here twice weekly!

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