Over winter break, I was playing Pictionary with my 12-year-old twin brothers and one of their little friends. The word “president” was drawn. No sooner than the hourglass had been turned over, my innocent little brother started drawing a woman lying on a bed! I couldn’t believe it!

Right then, I said the game was over, and I tried to explain to Joseph why that was wrong. I tried to tell him that the trial wasn’t about S-E-X when I came to the realization that even kids know that this trial isn’t about perjury — it’s about sex, stupid.

Sex has pervaded almost every nook and cranny of our society. Every television show and film production is saturated with sex. Whether it’s blatant acts or the look and dress of the characters, it’s still sex.

Magazines, the World Wide Web, the music industry, the clothing industry, some weirdo religious cults and Washington, D.C. are all influenced by sex.

This impeachment deal reeks of soft porn. Did you know that when the Starr report was released on the Web it was the most visited site of the day? The problem is that people didn’t want to know how Clinton hurt the careers of Paula Jones or Monica Lewinsky. They wanted to know exactly what was done with that cigar.

And now we have the oh-so-dignified source of Larry Flynt doing his own investigative reporting. This pornography publisher has spent about $25 million in his personal attempt to “reveal the hypocrisy of those who have publicly denounced President Clinton’s affair while concealing moral failings of their own” (Newsweek, Jan. 18, 1999). Flynt claims to have “about a dozen” top dog Republicans on his “naughty list” but is awaiting affidavits and the proper time to release that information.

So far, Representative Bob Livingston from Georgia has resigned from his position as House Speaker after Flynt revealed that Livingston had lied about extramarital affairs. Representative Bob Barr has also been exposed as an adulterer. But this one is even better because he has also been proven a perjurer. It seems Mr. Barr lied under oath in a divorce testimony in 1986 about his second wife’s abortion.

I know, a divorce trial from 14 years ago is digging a little deep. However, these Republicans have been trying to paint a self-portrait of morality and honesty ever since the phrase “family values” spat out of Dan Quayle’s lips. So, if the law is the law is the law like they say, then it goes for them too, whether it’s a grand jury or a divorce court.

Here’s one that Flynt didn’t bother with (there’s no sex involved). Newt Gingrich, the guy everyone loves to hate, is as much a hypocrite as some members of the party he used to lead. In 1997, Gingrich lied 13 times to the House Ethics Committee (Rolling Stone, Feb. 4, 1999). He lied 13 times to a government body and broke the same law he’s condemning Clinton for. (And he did it 13 times.)

I’m sure that Newt isn’t so much against Clinton because he lied. He’s against Clinton because he, like many other top Republican officials, passionately hates Clinton. The theory of partisan politics was played out again when four Republicans who voted for impeachment then informed the Senate two days later that they “didn’t mean to do it” (Rolling Stone, Feb. 4, 1999). Representative Barney Frank said their actions were a display of their fear of the right wing.

This partisan game they played by impeaching Clinton in the House isn’t going to work in the Senate, where they need to get 12 Democratic votes in order to convict him of high crimes and misdemeanors. And they know that it’s not going to happen. I’ve heard countless senators on various CNN spots say that they probably won’t be able to convict Clinton, but they must carry out their constitutional duty.

So while they’re mulling over this sex scandal for the next several months, asking Lewinsky questions like “Where did he touch you and how?,” Social Security runs amok, the global economy continues its downward spiral and our educational system continues to rank just above Mexico in the list of industrialized countries.

What is going to come out of this circus is a laundry list of adulterous congressmen and administrators, billions of dollars wasted, a tarnished government and a long line of people registering Democrat before the next election.

Sarah Leonard is a senior in political science and journalism and mass communication from Lawler.