In 2000, a book was published about a man whose life and repuation were unfairly destroyed.  This process
of destruction began with an allegation that was, on its face, senseless.  It was an allegation that a
9-year-old, presented with the facts, would dimiss as ludicrous and nonsensical.  It was, simply silly.

The books provides an almost complete portait of those who participated in the perpetuation of the foolish
witch hunt that this allegation spawned:
 
There were the obsessive harpies, whose motives can be best characterized as a projection of their own
insecure self-loathing amplified by an overpoweringlust for the object of their desire and venom.

There were those who supported the allegations simply out of envy and revenge.  He was better than they
were, and he made that all to clear.

There were those who failed to stand up and defend this man, even though they recognized the absurdity of
the charge and the inevitable punishment.  Many of those who stood by later claimed to have been mounting
a quiet defense.  However, the only defense that would have been necessary would have been a solitary
powerful voice to break the momentary national madness.

There were those who supported the allegations because of their anger about the ideals that they believed the
man had abandoned or about whom they mistakenly believed him to be.

There were those who failed to fight the folly of this destruction, even as the power of the allegation
harmed this man's also innocent wife.

There were those who watched and commented on the action as if it were simply a sporting match,
unconcerned with the wider ramifications or underlying pathological.

Most of all, perhaps, there were the vast majority of people, who were incapable of incomprehending why such
a trivial matter had its importance elevated to such heights by the so-called elites, when they struggled
with simply feeding their children.

Eventually, the sting of this allegation faded from collective memory.  However, in the end, the man whose
reputation had been irrevocably damaged was finally destroyed.  This was not, as many thought, because he
had received a blowjob, but by the vindictive rage that blowjob inspired.  He was destroyed by the
misdirected insanity and rage those who felt this man was the symbol of the government they felt
had wronged them and of those who they had lost.

After the fact, even those who wished to rehabilitate this man's lacked the courage to explore the ugliness
surrounding the events to uncover the truth.  Moreover, as the blowjob removes any doubt about the
validty of the original allegation, it justifies all that went before and purifies all those involved.

I read this book cover to cover in one sitting.  It is not, as you probably have been thinking,
The Hunting of the President, by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons.
It is in fact a book of fiction, The Human Stain, by Philip Roth.

When I had finished reading most of the book my wife, who was sitting next to me on the plane, turned to me
and asked what the book was about.  I replied, simply, "It is about the impeachment of Bill Clinton."
She gave me a sad little smile, perhaps having decided that my recent decent into madness was finally complete.
Recognizing her skepticism I showed her the back cover blurb which reads, "It is 1998, the year in which
America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president…"

I then turn to page 2, and show her a passage which says "1998 … in America the summer of an enormous
piety binge, a purity binge, when terrorism - which had replaced communism as the prevailing threat to the
country's security - was succeeded by cocksucking…".

On page 3, "It was the summer in America … when the smallness of people was simply crushing, when some
kind of demon had been unleased in the nation and, on both sides, people wondered "Why are we so crazy?"

Or, on page 293, in which an anonyomous email concludes "One is left to imagine just how heinous
where the crimes that he was determined to hide."

My wife was still slightly puzzled, as she had read reviews of this book and could remember no mention of the
relationship between it and the impeachment debacle.  I generally just skim reviews, though I also could not
remember a reviewer making this link.  I went back and found a couple from the New York Times. Of two
found there, neither acknowledges any connection more than the presence of it as a historical backdrop,
snidely dismissed by reviewiew Kakutani as gratuitous allusions.  This is despite the fact that in an interview
to the same newspaper the author described it as a visceral reaction to the events of 1998.

Reviewers have focused on the book's other themes - racial and gender politics in academia and the blurry
lines of race, to me these simply provided the plot devices.  It is a book about a slandered man who was
ultimately brought down by the insanity inspired by a blowjob.  It is a  book about the impeachment of our
last elected president.

I find it odd that the clear theme of this book seems to have been utterly ignored.  It may be because the
overtly political novel is out of fashion and that the only way to praise such a book is to de-emphasize
these aspects.  Or, maybe it was simply easier to ignore the elephant in the living room - that a well
respected novelist had become a social pariah, a knee-jerk Clinton defender.