WHILE THE TROUBLES may not be hurting the Clinton poll numbers a lick, respectable opinion has it that the scandal definitely isn’t doing The Children any good at all. As a result, parents are said to be struggling on two fronts: one, to shield their kids from the fouler aspects of the allegations, and two, to help them avoid becoming unduly cynical about democratic institutions. Because this scandal may stretch on for quite some time, these anxieties must be considered a threat to the mental equilibrium of one of the nation’s most vulnerable populations — boomer parents — and therefore deserve a closer look.
The good news is that most of this worrying is misplaced. The youth of America, as evidenced by my 12- and 16-year-old sons, are hardly treading unknown waters here. Quite the contrary. They know just what to make of all this, which is why they’ve taken to calling the president of the United States by the name Quimby. President Quimby. That’s not all bad.
The name comes from a character in The Simpsons: Mayor “Diamond” Joe Quimby. For those who don’t partake, Diamond Joe is a Kennedy-clone politician who walks like a Kennedy, talks like a Kennedy, and loves like a Kennedy with a fresh annulment under his belt. The Simpson family can hardly open a closet door without encountering the middle-aged pol having at a babe about half his age — right around 21, I would guess. His response to discovery is uniform: “Vote Quimby!”
The resemblance to our current president (known as the Nookie Monster among the Sesame Street cohort) does not stop there. Quimby also sways with the political tides, is fond of public-works projects, has a gift for gab as well as grab, and is beyond shaming. Quimby is, in short, an amiable sleaze, and much closer to Clinton than anyone in Wag the Dog whose art does not imitate White House life nearly as much as The Simpsons does.
The Quimby linkage will disturb some parents, especially Beltway dwellers, who point out that the current occupant of the White House, for all his abilities to amuse, also happens to be the only president The Children have known. Their kids may not be able to name a single cabinet member, but they do know the names Paula and Gennifer. This, these parents insist, is a calamity.
Well, to a point. Yet others of us (I write from 100 miles south of the Beltway — not far from Kathleen Willey’s place, as it happens) have a more refined view. We know that while President Quimby has his shortcomings, he is a pedagogue of the first stripe. We want our children to know that Washington has played a positive role in the world, and in fact continues to do good here and there. Yet we are hard-bitten, tax-gouged, clear-eyed realists who also want our children to understand that Washington is a place where lowlifes gather to exert power over the rest of us, often out of a misplaced sense of moral superiority. Lowlifes like President Quimby and his groveling courtiers.
This lesson is coming through loud and clear. Consider former journalist Sally Quinn, now a Washington fixture. Ms. Quinn went on television early in the scandal to tell my sons that the election of President Quimby proved America had “grown up” about philandering. That is, brazen family betrayal is fully acceptable, a message even Hollywood is hesitant to send in such uncertain terms. All but the most morally dense child knows this message to be false, for they see everywhere the damage done by family betrayal. Hearing a Washington throne-sniffer tell them otherwise teaches them a great deal about Washington mores. So a Gold Star for Sally — and heads up, Ben.
Quimby and Company have driven home another message parents pound into their children from an early age: The opulent clothing of power and prestige are often quite far removed from personal virtue. Or, to put it another way: A baboon can go around in a morning coat, but he remains a baboon. This point is made indelibly as The Children contemplate the likelihood that the president may have celebrated the unmatched majesty of the White House by engaging in bus-station sex just outside the Oval Office.
These days we often go to lengths to protect the interests of The Children: Not long ago, to give one example, a boy in our local school was suspended for 10 days after being caught possessing an Alka Seltzer, a reflection of the somewhat Islamic “no tolerance” form the anti-drug passion now takes. Similarly, “bad” role models, whether Joe Camel or the Budweiser frogs, are thoroughly demonized.
Yet we have twice put Quimby at the apex of national life, where he and his acolytes mock fidelity, integrity, honesty, and most everything else we tell children is important. Should our youngsters ask why that is, our only response may be: “Shut up and eat your vegetables.”
Dave Shiflett is a writer living in Midlothian, Va.
