The American public is kind of confusing. Trying to figure out why they think what they think is like attempting to help Norman Bates pick out a birthday gift for his mother.

He’s telling the truth about what he’s saying, but it doesn’t really matter because he already knew what he wanted way before you even stepped into the mall.

In other words, Americans can be kind of hypocritical in general. With opening statements scheduled to begin today in the Clinton impeachment trial, politics is on a lot of people’s minds. However, most all of those people get paid to have it on their minds.

The rest of the country is busy answering poll questions and basically ignoring the whole circus. They sure as hell don’t care about what’s going on in Washington, though.

I haven’t heard anybody involved in a discussion about Clinton since the cigar angle grew old.

In the most recent USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll, published in the Des Moines Register, America proved once again that we are overall pretty dumb. According to the poll, 79 percent of the American public believes that Clinton committed perjury before a federal grand jury. Not so shocking because that seems pretty clear cut.

Also, 53 percent believes he obstructed justice and a whopping 55 percent of us doesn’t respect him as a person. That makes me wonder about the 45 percent that does respect a man who is a habitual liar and just down right slippery.

But mostly it makes me step back and say, “Wow! Americans must be whole-heartedly in support of his removal, then.”

Well, no, that’s not quite so true. In the same poll, 67 percent approves of the job Clinton is doing, only 35 percent thinks Clinton should resign (which is actually up five percent from last month), and 63 percent would oppose a Senate conviction and removal. I shall pause here to scratch my head and look very perplexed.

You might write this off to the fact that most Americans don’t interpret the constitution to read that crimes such as perjury are impeachable offenses. And many might say that they oppose a removal because they believe that an impeachment and removal process should be formed with a bipartisan effort.

True as this might be, I don’t think your average Joe is understanding what’s going on. I don’t think he understands what perjury means or what obstruction of justice means. He doesn’t realize how terrible it is to have the leader of our country lie under oath. I’m quite sure he’s not doing any Constitutional interpretation. And honestly, he doesn’t want to know anymore about the situation.

All he knows is that this whole thing started because Clinton was getting a little action with someone a lot younger than him, the classic middle-aged male fantasy. He knows that the economy is doing pretty good and that he had plenty of money to buy his kids a tickle-me-whatever for Christmas, and he isn’t buried in debt right now, so everything’s cool.

In fact, 89 percent of the country rates the economy as good or very good and 81 percent thinks it will be as good or better next year.

Of course, they give Clinton credit for the booming economy because he happens to be standing on a podium telling the world how he brought the American economy back.

That’s absurd, but when you’re getting paid and somebody starts messing with the man you think is responsible for your good fortune, you get a little peeved.

I think this, in part, explains the hypocrisy that is evident in these poll results. Nobody really makes any new revelations or learns anything truly new when they’re still in their comfort zone. As long as Americans are still doing well, Clinton will stay in office.

Mark my word, though, if the economy was to falter even slightly Clinton would be in trouble. If the stock market crashed next week, he’d be gone in a month.

I bet if you polled exclusively Iowan pork farmers, you would not find Clinton’s approval rating to be so high.

At least I hope this is what is going on. If I’m wrong, that means the American public either truly believes that you could have a bipartisan impeachment effort in today’s political climate (impossible in my opinion), thinks perjury is not an impeachable offense (ridiculous) or they actually are very dumb, and they actually do know what’s going on and don’t care.

Well, here’s hoping we’re just naive and not incredibly stupid.

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David Roepke is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Aurora.