European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 21, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Monday november 21. 1994 commentary the stars and stripes Page 15 Ress gets Nee to direct nation Anthony Lewis Why do we want to kill our presi dents a doctor asked me that the other Day and left me wondering whether there is something about the american system or the american psyche that now makes the presi Dency a hopelessly vulnerable institution. With the exception of Rea Gan who was Sui generis he said we have Cut off every president for nearly 30 years Johnson Nixon Ford car Ter Bush. Now i looks As if the same will happen to Clinton. We Don just say they failed at this or that. We say they failed As human beings and we seem to get satisfaction from that idea. There s almost a glee about it boy he really was terrible " with each of those presidents one can find a fault that led to his undoing. Lyndon Johnson dug us into the disaster of Vietnam. Richard Nixon was responsible for the lies and abuses of watergate. And on and and watergate moreover had lasting effects on the institution. Deceased to believe presidents to assume their Good Faith. The press became hos tile and has remained so. It did not give Bill Clinton even a Brief honeymoon. President Clinton too has inflicted Many wounds on himself. From Zoe Baird to Lani Guinier from Bosnia toe Rayer in schools he has repeatedly filed to stand on principle. But the doctor s Point was that some thing larger is going in. Whatever the mistakes of this president or that we want to find some fundamental personal flaw in the Man. Is that so what is undoubtedly True is that we expect far to much or the Federal government now Adays. In this vast country we thin Washington can and should prevent local Street crime. We expect it to repair family life and make sure our incomes Rise. And the president is the great Symbol of the National government. We Lay on him almost the personal burdens that King Henry v Felt the night before the Battle of Agincourt in Shakespeare s play upon the King let us our lives our souls our debts our careful wives our children and our sins Lay on the King at least since the new Deal behave had this romantic notion of what presidents ought to do for each of us. Asking for the impossible we Are bound to be disappointed. Who the planned Republican measures fulfil our expectations rep. Newt Gingrich has taken some Welcome procedural Steps such As shaking up the House seniority system. But what about the substantive problems the Rise in illegitimate births especially among teen agers is one. Will a denial of welfare benefits to illegitimate children the i by idea being discussed by republicans solve the problem will poor teen age girls change their sexual habits if the government takes their babies away and puts them in Gingrich orphanages or crime. Longer sentences and More prisons have not affected the level of crime noticeably so far. Will even More Savage policies turn the growing population of Youngmen without Hope into Good citizens the Economy is the problem causing the most profound discontent among Ameri cans. Real per capita income has been stagnant or declining for years. The Rich have grown dramatically Richer while the Middle class struggles to keep afloat. Some of the Gingrich economic ideas Are appealing the $500 tax credit per child for example. But the huge Cost of the various proposed tax cuts would make the deficit balloon or require cuts in social Security medicare and like entitlements on a similar scale. Will such a package ease american frustrations the concern is not an Idle or a partisan one. Frustrated expectations can in time exact a heavy Cost in politics. They can turn people against the whole idea of representative government. Unless political leaders begin to talk honestly about the limits of what they can produce the pre sent cynicism and anger May become dangerous. C Neyo Fitim i despite news there s a a i am up to my elbows in thanksgiving prep when the phone rings. There Are macadamia nuts to the right of me pecans to the left. Flour and eggs Are wrestling in my mixing bowl. I reach for the phone cradling it Between my ear and my shoulder and hear the voice of a television producer. She wants to know whether i might be available to comment on the decline and fall of the american family. A Story for the season. Fas i stand there covered in Batter she rattles off the horrific list of stories that make her Case. The sout Carolina Mother who drowned her children. The 19 toddlers found in a squalid Chicago apartment without food or clothes. The Pittsburgh couple who took off for two weeks without warning abandoning three kids to teen age baby Sitters. I listen to this familiar Litany with an equally familiar sense of gloom and then i decline. I m sorry but this afternoon i promised to visit my Row the cousins Are coming from California one next Day is our wedding anniversary. Tuesday the Young adults we Call the kids Are arriving. And there is crisis in the care of an aged aunt. I hang up the phone wiping pastry dough from mohair and Savouring the irony that Flavoured this Exchange. The irony of being too Busy with family to comment on its breakdown. To. Folding in the last ingredients of my much too elaborate recipe the annual proof of Stewart s As in mar tha disease i wonder How Many of us live with this duality. We Are convinced that the great amorphous generic american family is falling apart. At the same time we Are occupied with family year i have heard a steady drumbeat of despair about family the overwhelming majority of americans agree 98 percent in one recent poll that other people Are not living up to their commit ments. Yet in the same poll Only 18 percent believe they re irresponsible i go when people talk about what they value the topic is their family. The Coin of the conversational Exchange Between friends and even strangers is Testate of their parents their Chil Dren their spouses. In our daily lives we work stand for family. At 4 o clock in the morning when we worry it s about our family. Today we have higher de mands on ourselves As the parents of growing children an longer demands As the children of aging parents. But every mor Sel of evidence of Success did you read that eight out of 10 High school juniors and seniors list parents As the people they Trust comes lost in a Survey of family woes. What do we make of this duality i wish the pro Ducer had asked me that. Some of it comes perversely from the very struggle to do a Good Job. The harder most of us try the angrier we Are at those who Don t and at the Price society we Are also reeling from something Akin to negative advertising about the american family. The Hor ror stories that make the front Page because they Are so extraordinary have slowly begun to be accepted As radio talk shows the Limbaugh and Lddys Ellen Goodman provide an endless Stream of anti government Mes sages. But the Jenny Joneses and Montel Williamss the Sally Jessy raphaels and Geraldon present an unbroken Stream of pathological families. On any Day we can Channel surf across this electronic byway from murderous mothers to husband stealing Sisters to proud mothers of teen age strippers. If nor Man Rockwell s thanksgiving family were on the air grandpa would be a child molester grandma a recovering drug abuser and the kids would Bear sexually transmitted diseases. The abnormal is the Norm. I m hardly a Pollyanna about family life. I know about the stress of the Sandwich generation trying to be All things to All Bosses parents children spouses. I know that every family has troubles. At some timer other in some Light or other we All look dysfunctional. But the fact is that most of us Are functioning. And Loving. Somewhere along the Way americans have lost a sense of proportion. We be come to believe that i m of but you re not and that thing called the Amer ican family is most certainly not. Thanksgiving Day has always been been More about family than food it s the time when americans trave through airports highways zip codes in order to squeeze around the family table and discover How Many adults can sit on a piano Bench. Standing in my Kitchen covered in Home baked proof of my Holiday excess i wonder if those of us who reconnected by Bonds of Dan marriage affection and above All else commitment can forget for a while that we re supposed to be falling apart. C Boston Globo
