CLINTON-LEWINSKY--- THE RIVETING OF A NATION---

(SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER)

Victor Bloom MD

Monday night, August 17, 1998 was a culmination of a growing crisis in our government. Despite many people expressing disdain about the media preoccupation with the secret life of the president, they were drawn to consider every rumor, every leak, and all the guesses by assorted experts and pundits. Finally, the attention of the nation is riveted at ten o'clock and the president admits to lying, but denies perjury. And the president says it is time to move on. The question is, does he have the moral authority to determine when it is time to move on? Starr will eventually give over to Congress the accumulated evidence of wrongdoings, and it will be the Congress, after due consideration, which will decide when or if it is time to "move on." Our congressmen and women are o¢ur representatives in government. Their due consideration should not be influenced by trendy popularity and approval polls.

The president's four minute speech to the nation was part, 'mea culpa' but mostly attacking the prosecutor, who took four years and forty million dollars to get past the previous pattern of lying and evasion. Had Clinton come clean early on, this investigation would not have been carried on for so long.

We know that there is more involved than simply whether or not he did it or lied. What holds an unconscious fascination is the generation gap. Bill Clinton is old enough to be Monica Lewinsky's father. The fact that there was sex between them raises the symbolic issue of BOLD<incest>BOLD. Incest is one of the most powerful of taboos, which cuts across many, if not all, cultures. In Freud's "Totem and Taboo" he seeks to explain the origin of the incest taboo. His explanation continues toù be controversial.

Still, a great part of his theory is the Oedipus complex, based on the Sophoclean tragedy of King Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother. In the play, when Oedipus realizes what he has done, he blinds himself and howls. Audiences have flocked to this play for two thousand years and modern playwrights have voted it the world's most popular and powerful play. Here, the central theme is incest. Audiences have a fascination and horror of it. Freud insists that this fascination has to do with everyday life, where boys are attracted to their mothers and girls attracted to their fathers. Rarely, but surely, sometimes these drives lead to frank incest. More often, there is a subtle but powerful incestuousness within each family, more often described between fathers and daughters, less often between mothers and sons. It is hard to think of seductiveness between parent and child, ¬but it does occur.

A remake of Nabokov's classic, "Lolita" has been playing on the Showtime channel, and the next showing will be August 29 at 9PM. At 8:45 will be a discussion of the theme, also taboo, which is between a mature, middle-aged man and a young girl, a prepubertal 'nymphet'. He is her stepfather and her mother is killed in an accident. The story is about what happens to their relationship over time, considering that it is taboo, incestuous, perverted.

Freud's Oedipal theory was dismissed with the straw man being a mis-interpretation of his writings. He never said that a five year old boy wants to have intercourse with his mother. He did say, and I think all of us have experienced examples of the fact that a five year old boy would like to have mother all to himself and get his father out of the way. All this is but the tip of the iceberg. Most boys, for example, end up conceding to father, identifying with father, and wanting to marry a girl just like mom. "I want a girl, just like the girl, that married dear old dad." This is 'normal'.

As a result of the repressed Oedipus complex, which consists of the internal struggle of the child to love and keep both parents, we are drawn to incestuous themes, such as "Hamlet", another famous case of the Oedipus complex. Freud argues that Hamlet delayed in exacting revenge for his father's murder for unconscious reasons. If he had quickly and decisively dispatched the new king, there would have been no play. Freud thought that Hamlet's indecision and delay was the result of his realization that his motives were no purer than his uncle's. Hamlet himself wanted (on some level) to kill his father and have mother all to himself. If he would have killed the king outright, he himself could have proclaimed himself the king, but because of his guilt, he had a fear of his murderous impulses and a fear of success.

Bill Clinton says we have no business prying into his private life. But is it a private thing when the chief executive of the country, who we, the people, elect and hire, abuses his power in the White House, a government building which we pay for, and indulges in sex with the lowest-rung government office worker, an intern? This is sex-in-the-workplace, an abuse of power, and an incestuous one at that. A more discreet and sophisticated (read-- mature, reasonable) man might have indulged in a romantic relationship with a woman more his age in a quiet hideaway, far from the White House. Still, he might want to keep it a secret from his family that he has violated his wedding vows and family" commitment. What can Chelsea be thinking and feeling?

The citizens have reason to question Clinton's judgment and veracity more than ever from this time forward. Although Clinton is very savvy about manipulating the media and getting campaign contributions, he is apparently not smart about incestuousness and abuse of power--- most of all, about disillusioning the people. He may need psychiatric care for a possible sexual addiction.

Some people say he's only human; that goes without saying. But we evaluate and judge humans on their ability to control their drives and instincts for a higher purpose. If he is not to be trusted within his own family or in the White House or before a grand jury, how are we to trust him in the major issues in which he asks us to forgive and forget and 'mov"e on'? The commander-in-chief has access to the atomic button and security secrets. How can he be trusted? The people who continue to support him, and they still seem to be in the majority, are undoubtedly identified with this flawed man. They too have their precious secrets, which at bottom, may be incestuous.

Dr. Bloom is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State University School of Medicine. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is a member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and corresponding editor of their quarterly journal, Academy Forum. He welcomes comments and questions at his e-mail address: vbloom@comcast.net