Mike Berman's Essays, Rants, and Ravings

3A. IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON?

I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row. I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru. Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge. I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me. I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations with the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me. I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis. But I have not yet gone to college.

Below is a list of phone numbers that I will NEVER dial. The reason is that "I'm not an idiot". I don't even care if well-respected and knowledgeable individuals in the telecommunications industry such as John Lithgow, Dennis Miller, and George Carlin tell me to dial them.

Dear Mr. President: It's not about sex. If it were about sex, you would be long gone. Just like a doctor, attorney, or teacher who had sex with a patient, client or student half his age, you would have violated the ethics of your office and would be long gone. Just like a Sergeant Major of the Army, Gene McKinney, who though found not guilty, was forced to resign amid accusations of sexual abuse.

Remember the Air Force General you wouldn't nominate to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because he freely admitted to an affair almost 15 years before, while he and his wife were separated? Unlike you, he was Never accused of having a starry-eyed office assistant my daughter's age perform oral sex on him while he was on the phone and his wife and daughter were upstairs.

If it were about sex, you should be subjected to the same horrible Hearings that Clarence Thomas was subjected to because of the accusations of Anita Hill. The only accusation then was that he talked dirty to her; he didn't even leave semen stains on her dress.

No, it's not about sex. It's about character. It's about lying. It's about arrogance. It's about abuse of power. It's about dodging the draft and lying about it. When caught in a lie by letters you wrote, you concocted A story that nobody believed. But we excused it and looked away.

It's about smoking dope, and lying about it. "I didn't inhale," You said. sure, and when I was 15 and my buddies and I swiped a beer from an Unwatched refrigerator, we drank from it, but we didn't swallow. "I broke no laws of the United States," you said. That's right, you smoked dope in England or Norway or Moscow; where you were demonstrating against the U.S.A. You lied, but we excused it and looked away.

It's about you selling overnight stays in the White House to any foreigner or other contributor with untraceable cash. It's about Whitewater and Jim and Susan McDougal and Arkansas, Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and Vincent Foster And Jennifer Flowers and Paula Jones and Karen Willey and nearly Countless others. It's about stealing the records from Foster's office while his body was still warm and putting them in your bedroom and "not noticing them" for two years. It's about illegal political contributions. It's about you and Al Gore soliciting contributions and selling influence at Buddhist temples And in the same Oval Office where Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt led Their countries through the dark days of wars that threatened the very existence of our nation. But we excused you and looked away.

It's about hiding evidence from Ken Starr, refusing to testify, filing legal motions, coaching witnesses, obstructing justice and delaying Judge Starr's inquiry for months and years, and then complaining that it has gone On too long. The polls agreed. Thank goodness that Judge Starr didn't Read the polls, play politics or excuse you and look away. He held on to the Evidence like a tenacious bulldog.

Your supporters say that you've confessed your wrongdoings and asked for our forgiveness. Listen, what you said on TV the night you testified to the grand jury was not a confession. Confession in the face of overwhelming evidence is not a confession at all. Not that it would make a lot of difference. A murderer who contritely confesses his crime is still a murderer. When your "confession" didn't sell, even to your friends, you became more forthcoming.

Maybe someday you'll confess more, but probably not. You've established such pattern of lying that we can't believe you anymore. Neither can your cabinet, the Congress or any of the leaders of the nations of the world.

When a leader's actions defame and emasculate our country as profoundly as yours have, it's no longer a personal matter, as you claim. It's no longer a matter among you, your family and your God.

By the way, I don't believe for a minute that Hillary was unaware Of your sexual misadventures, abuses of power and pattern of lying. She has been a party to your wrongdoings since Whitewater and Jennifer Flowers just as surely as she lied about the Rose law firm's billings and hid the Vincent Foster evidence in your bedroom for two years. Why? So she could share in The raw power that your office carries. The two of you probably lied to Chelsea, but that is a matter among you, your family and your God.

Remember the sign over James Carvill's desk during the l992 campaign? It said, "It's the economy, stupid! Place this sign over your desk: "It's about character, stupid!" No, it's not about sex, Mr. President. If it were, you would be long gone. It's about character; but we have to live with your filth, lies and arrogance for a while longer. Your lies, amorality and lack of character have been as pervasive as they have been despicable, so we have no reason to believe that you will quietly resign and go away. You'll count on half-truths and spin doctors to see you through, the country be damned .It has always worked before. We excused you and looked the other way.

No more, we've had enough. You betrayed us enough. You have made every elected official, minister, teacher, diplomat, parent and Grandparent in the country apologize for you and explain away your actions. Now go away, and let us show them that our country was not without morals. It was just that you were. Let us show them that America was not the problem. William Jefferson Clinton was.

Go away, Mr. President. Leave us alone. And when you leave, know That your legacy to the United States of America will be a stain on the Office of the President that is as filthy as the stain on Monica's dress. It will take a lot of scrubbing to make it clean again.