Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Clinton woes may reveal new U.S. openness

Scott Dickensheets

Saturday, Aug. 22, 1998 | 5:20 a.m.

IT'S ANOTHER gloomy day here in Subpoena Nation, home of the legally accurate but not entirely true. You read the news through squinted eyes these days. In Washington, the dog has been thoroughly wagged. Our national affairs have literally become national affairs, while our world affairs have turned explosive. It's a season for pessimism: Every cloud has a sulphur lining. The glass isn't merely half empty, it's also a urine sample.

Or is it? Isn't it possible that the opposite is also true? That President Clinton's frank sexuality, devotion to his own appetites and the between-the-lines defiance of his national address, are fomenting among us a new free-spiritedness -- a go-for-it openness, a cockeyed optimism? If a hefty percentage of us aren't bothered by the president's high jinks, isn't it possible that in feeling his oats, he's feeling ours as well?

For evidence, one need look no farther than North Platte, Neb., which has lately been plagued by the unchecked growth of its pet population. In confronting the problem, Mayor Jim Whitaker first weighed his priorities -- the humane treatment of surplus animals vs. responsible use of city resources -- then offered to march down main street in the nude.

He says if the local Humane Society receives $5,000 in donations by Sept. 12 (the city's Fall Fun Fest parade), he'll do it. You certainly didn't see that brand of free-spirited civic boosterism in George Bush's buttoned-down America! In a related display of optimism, the Humane Society is already collecting money to cover any citations the mayor is hit with.

This sense of license isn't limited to figureheadish officials of small Midwestern cities, either. In Spokane, Wash., the crew of an Air National Guard KC-135 refueling plane recently flew a mission stark naked. Why? No one's saying. I'd like to think it was a whimsical gesture of protest optimism: Drop trou, not bombs! As if to prove that the new openness hasn't seeped to every corner of the land, military officials may court-martial the crew.

The feeling extends beyond sexual politics. Consider the actions of a rambunctious advisory panel to the Arizona Board of Education, which recently recommended the breathtaking step of allowing science teachers to utter the word "evolution" in class. For fear of offending religious groups, the E-word was deemed terminology non grata in 1996; students were instead required to learn "how organisms change over time in terms of biological adaptation and genetics." In a word, evolution. It's impossible to imagine such institutional free thinking under the prim influence of the past couple of presidents.

There's certainly a sense of freedom in the arts. "The stuff I do is really violent and I have no qualms about it," comic book illustrator Tim Vigil said recently. As for linking violent pop culture to kids who shoot schoolmates and kids who kill other kids for their bikes, well, that kind of thinking is so Meese Commission. "We're always an easy scapegoat," said Chris Oarr, executive director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Call me a crazy dreamer, but maybe this new spirit will lead to a world where comic books and presidents no longer need legal defense funds.

Given its newness, this is a fragile spirit; perhaps it's just a phase the country is going through. Then again, thanks to Clinton, maybe it's the morning after in America.