KINDER'S COMMENTARY: ASK LEOPOLD STUDENTS ABOUT THE SCANDALS, AND THEY'LL TELL YOU

At Leopold High School this past week, it was my pleasure to deliver a Senate resolution honoring the Lady Wildcats' state championship in Class 1 girls volleyball. So proud, so enthusiastic were those youngsters, it was wonderful just to be among them.

I agreed to submit to questions from the assembled student body. Some students had prepared questions: What is your position on abortion? What is a typical day like when you're in session? One girl rather timidly asked me, "This may be a personal question, but what do you think of the situation with President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky?"

With the entire student body grades 1-12 listening, and having no idea what would be their reaction, I unhesitatingly replied: "I think it's an utter disgrace. Our president has degraded the office he holds, disgraced himself and our country, and I can't wait until we have a new president."

At that, to my astonishment, the 120 or so students broke into loud, sustained applause and stomping of feet. It would appear that the national pollsters haven't canvassed the Leopold precinct of Bollinger County, where a remarkable degree of good, common horse sense can be said still to prevail.

No matter what those polls show this week, or next, all Americans must surely know, at some deep level, when you listen to that still, small voice inside, that we will be years scrubbing off the stains that this Arkansas crowd has left in the highest office in the land, and on all of us. This will be the legacy of the toxic waste spill that Bill Clinton has for a personal character.

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As Tailgate drags remorselessly on, amid oddsmaking over whether President Clinton will or won't finish out his term, one unmistakable fact emerges: the utter, complete discreditation of the reigning leaders of American feminism.

It goes beyond mere hypocrisy to a breathtaking pack of lies, lies especially to themselves. (My personal favorite was an Op Ed piece in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch penned by Harriett Woods a month ago, blatantly saying that leaders of the women's movement were making a conscious choice to look beyond the allegations because Bill Clinton is "good on our issues.")

Now comes columnist Barbara Amiel of the Daily Telegraph of London to dissect the new totalitarians of modern feminism:

"In the new matriarchy, when a man is charged with a `gender' crime, any attempt to defend himself against the allegation is itself a crime. What feminists never anticipated was catching one of their own. Their rules were designed to trap a [former House Ways and Means chairman] Wilbur Mills or a Clarence Thomas, not a Bill Clinton.

"Then there is Kathleen Willey. Previous accusers of the president were American parodies. Paula Jones is of a class American feminists have never seen. Monica Lewinsky has the appearance of a spoiled Beverly Hills girl. Ms. Willey, on the other hand, with the right sort of fine lines in her face and a minimalist style of dress, is central casting's ideal victim ...".

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.