REPERCUSSIONS OF THE STARR REPORT

Victor Bloom MD

I am not surprised by the huge response to the Starr Report. I had anticipated from the many media leaks, what was in it. I did not believe that Starr was the Grand Inquisitor, but he evidently felt the need to zero in on Clinton's long history of abuse of power and clever evasions of investigative efforts. Like Nixon, Clinton was surrounded with criminals who were his close associates, and he was supposedly clean as a whistle. It just didn't make sense. The only way that Starr could have nailed Clinton was to be persistent and relentless and use the most advanced prosecutorial methods in which he would obtain corroboration of events which happened in the White House.

As I have written before, I believe the intense media attention and general interest is because of the horror and fascination of a forbidden theme, the incesPt taboo. Although Clinton is not Lewinsky's father, in the unconscious of most people, the president is a father figure and Monica is a daughter figure. This underlying Oedipal, incestuous theme is the basis of high drama and low soap opera. Publication of Starr's report could well include a lurid cover. Imagine the anteroom off the oval office with the door slightly ajar.

I say this with the assumption that many of my readers have Internet access. It must be a landmark event that over 400 pages of the report, replete with footnotes, were downloaded in Washington and were immediately available to the online American people. At the same time, copy centers like Kinko were printing up copies and selling them for $14. People were lining up to get them and Tuesday copies are supposed to be available at bookstores. This goes beyond tˆhe media frenzy of the trial of OJ Simpson or the tragic death of Princess Diana.

There are two major divisions of reaction to the report. The president's lawyer, David Kendall, insists the report is full of unsubstantiated allegations. He says the president has admitted inappropriate sex and is sorry. By virtue of clever legalisms, he denies his client's perjury and obstruction of justice. Clinton says he is going to fight impeachment, and so there is a danger of a protracted impeachment process. Clinton supporters say in effect that he has suffered enough and that we should all do what the president has admonished us to do, wagging his finger, as if we were the culprits, to "move on". His supporters insist that the president's sexual behavior is within his 'private' life, which should not have been investigated in the first place. There are many fellow citizens who can identify with the president in having well-kept secrets and a private life they don't want anybody to know about.

Those sÔupporting Starr's work do not necessarily consider themselves to be part of a vast right wing conspiracy. It has taken Starr four years and forty million dollars to make a case against a clever and slippery defendant, who has successfully lied his way out of trouble his entire career. When the independent counsel was first established to investigate the Whitewater questions, he was suspicious of the Clintons being in the clear, just as the nation was suspicious of Nixon's contention that he knew nothing of the Watergate break-in, despite the fact that there were leads to the White House. Ultimately, Nixon was hoisted by his own petard as he admitted to tapes which recorded all the conversations. He said that the tapes would exonerate him, but instead they indicted him. It was a classical example of unconscious guilt leading to self-destruction. Only now has the bulk of his tapes, stored for decades in archives, been released to the general public, and by listening to them it was clear he was working long and hard for a coverup.

In the same way, Clinton is a sick man. Having never examined the man I can't say for sure what is his diagnosis. Similar histories lead to the diagnosis of sexual addiction, even manic-depression. Most of us know sexual stimulation is very pleasurable, but in a person with widely shifting moods, especially mania, sexual feelings are more intense than mainlining cocaine or heroine. The euphoria is so extreme, and everyday life so dull in comparison, that there is a unique craving for sexual experience. The orgastic feeling is considered heavenly, and in the throes of involuntary release, men are prone to mention the Lord's name. Imagine that feeling being multiplied ten or a hundred fold!

If Bill Clinton were not so intelligent and ambitious, he could have made sexual pursuit a fulltime job. But Clinton wanted it all. On one occasion that witnesses corroborated, he was talking on the phone in the White Housúe, during the government shutdown, eating a pizza, and being fellated by one Monica Lewinsky. This is a men's locker-room fantasy, not supposed to be acted out. Except in the case of our president, who wants to have his pizza and eat it too.

Clinton has been described as talking incessantly, being up at night with phone calls, some of them phone sex, and having irrepressible and ongoing energy. This is called 'mania'. Mania is usually treated with Lithium or Depakote. What is ironic is that the medical report issued before Clinton's last election campaign, as if to reassure the voters, said that there was no significant physical illness, and that the president never needed to see a psychiatrist. When I read it I wondered about this gratuitous addition. Never? Why not? He had problems, he had a 'rocky' marriage. He had been unfaithful long before. Why didn't he seek help? The answer is obvious, whicˆh I provided in my column called "The Last Taboo".

"The Last Taboo" says that most candidates for public office believe that seeing a psychiatrist is the politician's 'kiss of death'. That is, if it becomes known. If a candidate has ever seen a psychiatrist, he is considered unreliable, untrustworthy, not fully accountable or objective. Is Bill Clinton, with a clean mental record accountable or objective?

I hope this experience leads the American people to be more open about mental problems and take care of them before they become worse, especially when they are in a position of great responsibility and a symbolic role-model. Every parent is a symbolic role-model and in a position of great responsibility. Every child is a potential victim and learns values and morals within the family. Bill Clinton has tested limits like an adolescent for many years now. It is time for him to grow up, not for us to move on. Although I can't say for sure, I think he would be wise to undertake a course of psychoanalysis and appropriate medication, which might help him avoid inappropriate sexual behavior in the future. In order to get counselling, he would have to resign.

Here too, unconscious guilt feelings led to discovery, self-punishment and self-defeat. He needed to stop himself. Perhaps he has succeeded. He has been his own worst enemy; he played his version of Russian roulette one chamber too long. The Oval Office belongs to us, not him. It is the president who should move on, not us.

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 and on the editorial board of the Detroit Medical News. He welcomes comments and questions at his e-mail address: hyperlink. URL: victorbloom.com