Dogging the Wag

When you first arrived at the White House eight years ago, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you weren't like me in thinking that you wouldn't last this long. I made a bold prediction that you would be removed from office before you were through. You, on the other hand, know better than anyone else all that you did in all the scandals that threatened to drag you under. You must have known you were on thin ice from the beginning. So we were both wrong. But now you are out of office, and I don't expect you'll be heading off to Disney World.

I'm writing with a suggestion for you, as to what you should be doing: Be yourself. Now I don't mean now that the spotlight has gone you can go out tomcatting and make up for lost time. I'd actually like you to be better than yourself. But I want you to be better than yourself. It's time to put aside all the smoke and mirrors, and start looking in the mirror to see if you know the guy looking back.

They called President Reagan the master communicator. You too have been able to touch the hearts of the voters, but a better term for you might be the master manipulator. You have handled the media with all the subtlety and supple-ty of a pinball wizard. Sure there were times when the mask slipped, when the dogs got a peek behind the curtain, when they caught you laughing at Ron Brown's funeral, when word leaked out about the screaming fights with Hillary in the White House residence, when Monica's literal dirty laundry became the topic of bubble-headed, beach blonde reporters. But like a top spun by the Energizer bunny, you just kept going. You even spun your spin, and made them love you for it.

Now there is no point. You have no legacy to make any more. You need not worry about re-election. And at this point no one will be changing their opinion of you. You're off the charts, yesterday's news. You have nothing to gain by continuing this masquerade, and much to lose.

The trouble with your technique is that the better you are at it, the harder it is to quit. Once you start fooling most of the people most of the time, you start fooling yourself. You play the role, and soon the role is playing you. That's your danger, that we will continue to see more and more of the fake, and that you will no longer recognize the real.

At this point it doesn't really matter who you are. If you're a genuine, zealous leftist, then stop pretending to be in the middle. Say it loud, you're a commie and you're proud. But if the pragmatist you is the real you, and the hippie history is so much mularkey, then stop pretending you care. Be a Gordon Gecko.

First then, find out who you are. And once you've done that, then you can begin to repent. Not to Hillary, not to the people, but to Him and Him alone, for it is against Him and Him only that you have sinned. And do it alone. Don't tear a page out of Swaggert's play-book. Just get on your knees before the Almighty and tell Him all that you've done. He won't be impressed with theatrics. He was never snookered by you Bill. That He let you stay in office, that He let you live, that wasn't because you fooled Him, but to give you time to repent.

He is the only one with the power to give pardons. He is the only one that can set you free. In fact, He is the only one that knows who you really are. That's the astounding part. Ken Starr doesn't know the smallest fraction of what the Almighty knows. And yet, if you repent, if you truly repent, and confess your dependence upon the work of Christ, it will be all over. That's what changes everything. That's the true power of the universe. You will be stripped bare, but then you will be clothed.

Last, lay low, until you are carried up on high. No announcements, no interviews, no photo-ops, no more chats with Bill Hybels. Do not go and start a prison ministry. Do not become a spokesperson for some poverty ministry. Just disappear. When the cameras are running you are running. You're like a drunk, and can't be trusted even on an infomercial. It's the only way for you to be free, to flee the sin of hypocrisy, of insincerity, of manipulation, like it was Monica herself.

Let the history books conclude you were nothing but a cad. Do not try to refurbish your image. Just let it go. If you repent then you will realize that it was all wood, hay, and stubble anyhow. If you will cling to the work of Christ alone, then you will know that your accomplishments, indeed your reputation are as filthy rags. Let your penance be that history will not record your rebirth. And have peace in knowing that it was recorded before the foundation of the world in the one book that counts. Let the right-wingers vilify you. For one of the advantages of never being yourself is that whatever it is they hate, it isn't you.

Mr. President, there once was another like you. He too was proud, and had no regard for the sacredness of God's image in all men, and thought he was the architect of his own success. But God in His grace brought him low, far lower than he has brought you and then lifted him up. And God in His grace showed all of us that His grace can extend even to the vilest offenders. May God grant the same grace to you, that you may see yourself as you are, see Him as He is, and weep first and then rejoice.

In the King's Service,

R.C. Sproul Jr