From Flem Snopes to Bill Clinton somehow we've been here before

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 7, 1998 | by Arthur Austin

The spectacle of the pundits chasing their tails trying to figure out why Bill Clinton remains popular in the face of weekly eruptions has gone from boring to tedious. In a frenzy to convince us to accept various political explanations they miss the obvious: Clinton is a Snopes. The Snopeses ravaged Yoknapatawpha County, Miss., in a series of stories that helped William Faulkner win the 1949 Nobel Prize for literature. They were the Deep South's worst nightmare, the curse of slavery and a decadent aristocracy chained to the damnations of the past.

The Snopes horde descended on the nation's capital in 1992 with gofers such as James Carville, Paul Begala and Lanny Davis -- none of whom can, or would want to, or should, choose between good and evil. It is not loyalty that motivates their vigorous and vicious defense of the president -- to a Snopes, loyalty is a weakness to be abhorred. The reason is Snopesian fear, and only a Snopes can comprehend the consequences of the wrath of another Snopes like Clinton.

Clinton's triangulation strategy was lifted from Clarence Egglestone Snopes, in his early 40s, fighting a weight problem and said to have the principles of a wolverine, who with infallible instinct became a Ku Klux Klan grand dragon. Assured of the redneck vote, he then picked up the young liberal professional class by denouncing the Klan who, nevertheless, as he knew they would, continued to support him with their Xs. Once ensconced in the state legislature, he captured the tenant-cropper vote by invoking the rhetoric of soak the rich even though there were damn few rich people in Mississippi to soak.

Challenged by the candidacy of a war hero, Snopes transformed his opponent's Medal of Honor into a liability. At first it appeared that a Snopes would do the honorable thing: Clarence praised his opponent's bravery and allowed as how it was time for us old folks to step aside for someone with "new ideas."

Having piqued the interest of the Xs, Clarence went on to praise the candidate for volunteering two times to command Negro troops and getting his medal for saving the life of one of his men. In an afterthought, he mentioned that one of the hero's new ideas was "lifting racial barriers." The Xs got the message.

It was another Snopes lesson plan for Clinton: Take your opponent's proposal, launder it with a negative spin and then get the Snopes apparatus to circulate the new gospel. When the Republicans proposed a list of budget cuts, Clinton morphed them into a plan to starve schoolchildren and kick the elderly off Medicaid rolls. Then the Republicans woke up one morning to discover that they, not the White House, had closed down the federal government. It was the Snopes version of George Orwell's Newspeak.

The Republicans are demoralized by the public's acceptance of Clinton's Newspeak. They do not comprehend how the public can swallow the notion that the president's sexual impositions are "personal" (whatever that means) and unrelated to felony allegations. Or how the character of the nation's highest official has been Newspeaked into irrelevancy. Again it is the Snopes factor -- specifically the Flem Snopes factor.

Flem is Clinton's dark side. He is Faulkner's metaphor for soulless materialism practiced by a man "with the eyes of stagnant water," who would cheat a blind man, never get caught dealing from the bottom of the deck and who stole from anyone foolish enough to deal with him. Everyone in Yoknapatawpha County knew that sooner or later they would get entangled in one of Flem's cunning schemes. It was an encounter as inevitable as the Mississippi summer heat. The only issue was when and the extent of the damage. Flem was dangerous because not only was he tolerated but, in some twisted and perverted way, he was esteemed for his skullduggery. As each scheme unfolded victims and bystanders, who had been and would again be victimized, were sucked into the vortex like flies to flypaper -- fascinated with Flem's cunning and united on one thought: Flem had pulled it off again!

Like Clinton, Flem liked to tease the law. In his most notorious flimflam -- described in Faulkner's "Spotted Horses" -- he was the silent owner of some Texas ponies that escaped during an auction, causing considerable mayhem. Sued by a sharecropper's wife for her husband's injuries, Flem's front man, a Texan and the auctioneer, disappeared, leaving Flem to face the heat. Flem pulled his own vanishing act: "Flem Snopes flatly refused to recognize the existence of the suit. .. `They wasn't none of my horses.'" The case ended when Flem's Carville, cousin Eck, testified that he witnessed the Texan receiving payment for the horses, exonerating Flem, who avoided entanglement by simply stonewalling the process.

In frustration the old judge cried; "I can't stand it no more! I won't. This court's adjourned!"

No one ever beat a Snopes, so the best advice to the Republicans is to get some Prozac, chill out and enjoy the devious machinations of Flem Clinton.