another reason why i admire bill....

ok, so this piece from paul prather was the talk of sunday school.....

Posted on Sat, Sep. 22, 2007
From one naughty boy to another
Why it never pays to act holier than thou
By Paul Prather
CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST

Earlier this month, CNN talk-show host Larry King tossed former President Bill Clinton a lob: What do you think about Idaho Sen. Larry Craig's difficulties?

Clinton's response was amazing.

Craig, a Republican, ranked among Clinton's harshest critics during Clinton's 1999 Senate impeachment trial, which resulted largely from his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Craig once described Clinton as "a nasty, bad, naughty boy," New Yorker writer Hendrik Hertzberg recalled in a recent magazine piece.

In a classic example of "what goes around comes around," it has emerged that Craig, an outspoken political and moral conservative, was arrested in June in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport public restroom for allegedly soliciting sex from a male undercover police officer. Craig pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.

When news of his faux pas became public, he claimed he actually wasn't guilty, that his arrest had amounted to a misunderstanding between him and the cop.

He'd entered his plea, he said, because he was stressed over an Idaho newspaper's persecution of him. The newspaper, oddly enough, had raised questions about Craig's sexual orientation.

It's a weird coincidence, that an Idaho newspaper would question Craig's heterosexuality -- and that, hundreds of miles and several states away, an airport cop would then charge him with seeking random sex in a men's bathroom.

By the time King's interview with Clinton aired on September 5, even Craig's fellow Republicans were lined up at their podiums to disown him.

So King tossed Clinton, a Democrat, that aforementioned lob.

If Clinton had taken the opportunity to gloat, who could have blamed him?

Here's Craig, who attacked him unmercifully, now busted for misconduct many Americans would consider even more embarrassing than Clinton's.

Instead, to my eyes, Clinton looked genuinely sad. He replied that he "didn't feel any great joy" about Craig's predicament. He understood what it was like to be humiliated and ridiculed for your weaknesses:

"I just know right now he and his family have got to be hurting," Clinton said, "and I think the rest of us should just be pulling for their personal lives, and the politics of this will play itself out."

When King pressed him, Clinton said he'd learned from his own scandal:

"One of the things I did to get through that was to think hard about times in my past, when I had judged people too harshly because they had a problem I didn't have. And I promised myself I'd never do that again, and I'm trying to keep that promise."

King asked why so often those who bray the loudest against other people's sins turn out to be every bit as wretched as the folks they're condemning.

"I think maybe it's subconscious self-hatred, I don't know," Clinton said. "Maybe it's a desire to avoid being caught. Maybe it's just a desire to deal with what they perceive to be the social and political realities they find themselves in."

Clinton's generosity of spirit dumbfounded me.

Still, we should note that he chose to speak so humanely of Craig because Clinton now recognizes from harsh experience his own humanity.

He, too, once wagged his finger at people who messed up and fell from grace. Until he messed up and fell from grace.

Sad to say, that's how we learn compassion -- by finding ourselves in dire need of it. The central fact of human existence is that we're all knotheads, every last one of us.

Life has a way of coming back to slap us in the face.

Do you hate gay people?

Guess what. You're going to end up with a gay son or a wife who decides after 20 years of marriage she's a lesbian. You're going to find yourself lying in an intensive care unit where your doctor, the person you pray can keep you alive, is gay.

Do you deplore the way other people raise their children?

Look out. One of your children will become a crackhead.

Do you loathe adulterers?

You'll find yourself in a bad spot in your own marriage, sitting next to a comely co-worker you can't resist.

Do you think alcoholics are weak-willed losers?

You're going to end up addicted to Twinkies and weighing 350 pounds.

The best approach is to treat sinners gently, the way you'd like to be treated if you were in their shoes. Because sooner or later, you will be in their shoes.

Paul Prather, formerly the Herald-Leader's religion writer, is pastor of Bethesda Church near Mount Sterling. You can e-mail him at pratpd@yahoo.com.
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