LIMBAUGH COMMENTARY: CLINTON'S FAUSTIAN BARGAIN: OUR JUSTICE

Bill Clinton's presidency has been a very difficult time for conservatives. We have seen our ideas demonized and then shamelessly stolen, our ideals shattered, our values denigrated and our character impugned. Our entire worldview has been turned upside down.

But worse than all of this, our thirst for justice has gone unquenched.

It has all been a big lie, and he seems to have gotten away with it.

He talked like a centrist but governed like a liberal. He presided over the largest tax increase in U.S. history and tried to socialize one-seventh of the economy with his wife's health-care plan.

He has steadfastly opposed Strategic Defense Initiative, the only program that holds any promise for our future national security, while pretending to support it.

After twice vetoing welfare-reform legislation and only signing it under duress the third time around, he claimed authorship of the bill.

He tried unsuccessfully, to expand federal discretionary spending with his economic stimulus package, tried to block Republican efforts to streamline the budget and then took credit for the balanced budget.

Clinton has not only been a policy fraud but a personal fraud. He had sex in the Oval Office with a virtual child employee, committed civil and criminal perjury, obstructed justice, abused the power of his office and yet managed to dupe the public into believing that his court-appointed pursuer was responsible for all his wrongdoing.

Sorry, this just doesn't add up, and we're still scratching our heads in frustrated disbelief. Only if we view this sordid presidency in the context of a Faustian bargain will it begin to make any sense to us. And only then will we understand that the other shoe must eventually drop.

Metaphorically, Clinton made the devil this offer: If you will make me president -- and a popular one at that -- I'll give you my soul.

Of course the devil is nobody's fool. He knew a bad deal when he saw one. So he demanded something more: the nation's soul. Clinton readily complied.

To those who think I'm exaggerating, I urge you to read the Cox Report and open your eyes to the most recent revelations about what Clinton knew and when. We now know that as early as 1995, during his re-election campaign, top administration officials learned that China had stolen our most sensitive nuclear secrets. Instead of blowing the whistle, they covered it up so as not to jeopardize the free flow of communist campaign funds and Clinton's re-election.

Are we supposed to believe that Clinton himself was unaware of all of this? Quit insulting our intelligence! He's the one who had the most to lose by the disclosure and the most to gain by its concealment. Some subordinate may take the fall, but we all know that Clinton is a hands-on guy, particularly when it comes to campaign decisions. And through his myopic lenses, compromising our national security for Red China was not about national security but his re-election campaign.

Ironically, Clinton did not negotiate a good deal with the devil. He has always seemed to confuse politics with history. While he thought he was bargaining for a legacy, he only got short-term poll approval.

Even Clinton's idea of ensuring his legacy through the election of his handpicked successor, Al Gore, is wrongheaded. Gore's election would yield Clinton instant gratification but would contribute nothing to that long-term legacy he craves.

People demand justice. It is a fundamental precept of the natural law that is emblazoned on our hearts. We may see it sooner than we think, as Clinton's time in the Faustian sun is coming to a close.

Already, his approval ratings are on a steady decline, and his understudy Al Gore is getting trounced in the polls.

Despite the delusional pronouncement of said understudy, Clinton will not be remembered as a great president, wholly apart from his scandals. Just as nothing negative fully attaches to the slickster, neither does anything positive, because ultimately he is committed to nothing but himself. Despite all the hoopla, he has no great ideals. He is an empty suit, a man without convictions.

As to the scandals, everything is going to come out after he leaves office. The full truth about Clinton's corruption will be revealed by those close to him and in the press who will no longer have an interest in perpetuating the cover-up.

What goes around comes around -- even for Bill Clinton. When justice finally occurs, not just conservatives but all Americans will be the beneficiaries.

~David Limbaugh of Cape Girardeau is a columnist for Creators Syndicate.