What is the quality that brings
to treason a distinguishing re-
pulsiveness? Or is it just the
hideousness of the punishments
so long reserved for it, exclu-
sively, that lends the trauma of
horror to its contemptibility?
People seem to remember how it
sounded, when ribaldry's Prince
Hal had become sovereignty's
King Henry V, and sent off his
most intimate peers to the spec-
tacle of treason's grisly des-
tiny in English law. I don't
sense we miss their ordeal,
but that we dread our part as
their passive spectator. Their
crimes are his, so indelible in
his own demented transcripts
that he poses no objection to
them, and freely scoffs at how
insignificant they all are, to
him. This repulsive dismissal is
what deprives our poseur of his
postures of leadership, as we
have only William Shakespeare
to recall to us from school days.
One therefore appraises his ad-
vances against our sensibility
with regret, and an overwhelming
sense of ignominy, in giving him
our government.
The information, as it is called,
of a Grand Jury's indictment, be-
gan its pending torrent today in
charges brought against the one-
time campaign manager of the Pres-
ident of the United States, for
various offenses against our laws
on behalf of Russian subversion
against Ukraine, and in the guilty
plea of an advisor to that Pres-
ident, for falsely denying deal-
ings with Russians on his behalf.
In a way, it lends dignity to
these proceedings to discover
how immeasurably beneath them,
the President's responses are.
Well, he should enjoy the prac-
tice of these occasions, to
exhibit himself to his fullest.
I haven't noticed any comment
in our media, since the Pres-
ident's cheering of Russian ac-
tivities against our democracy
first came to our attention, a
year or so ago, how the nation
is expected to expunge the dis-
gust it endures to confess to
his citizenship, much less to
his holding of office. I have
not seen any columns on the
reparations to be sought from
Russia, for its injury to our
country, albeit with his rabid
encouragement. I haven't seen
any computation of the damage
these unblinkable realities
have brought to our diplomacy,
worldwide; but more to the
point, I haven't seen anyone
remarking on the vicious abuse
they inflict upon legitimate
expectations of a generation
only beginning to exercise the
right Republicans oppose al-
most as much as free public
education, the right to vote.
But I remember the discovery
of Richard Nixon's crimes, as
an unpardonable devastation of
idealism, catalyzing an out-
burst of cynicism and material-
ism climaxing last November, in
the triumph in which we bask to-
day. As everyone agrees, this
was not the fault merely, or
even sufficiently, of the in-
formation which was revealed.
It was the fault of hiding it,
in plain sight. Second only
to all the crimes to be dis-
closed, is that we knew them.
Alexander Calder
untitled lithograph
1965
Joakim Heltne
untitled photograph
undated
