Over the past week at least one friendly analyst and perhaps others have made a trenchant observation about the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

They argue it is part of the culture war in the United States, and those seeking Clinton's ouster are symbolically attacking what his generation represents. He is a stand-in, they argue, for the 1960s and everything bad the '60s meant for America: Draft-dodging and anti-war activism, drug use, bad music, free sex and antiestablishmentarianism.

Given Clinton's own history of draft-dodging, anti-war activism, drug use, his love for bad music (Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow by Fleetwood Mac comes to mind), free sexual activity and, well, antiestablishmentarianism, they are absolutely right.

And one thing that happened on impeachment day, during the 80-Democrat rally at the White House, proves the point. While the man who dropped his drawers for oral sex in the Oval Office prattled on about "decency" and "civility," his wife was by his side. The look on her face, a smarmy "Oh-I-admire-you-so-much-Bill" look, hid the hatred for America that courses through her veins.

With her impeachment mask set for the cameras, while Bill Clinton defiantly said he would not resign, you could imagine what was roiling in Hillary Clinton's mind: "No. He won't resign. But what do I mean, he? It isn't a man's world anymore. We won't resign. And we won't resign because we are going to finish the deconstruction we began 30 years ago in college.

"We undermined the war against communism in Vietnam, we undermined your Victorian sexual morals, we destroyed the Nixon Administration and the white, male establishment it stood for.

"Who says we should step down? The same people who belong to Nixon's party? Perhaps you've forgotten. We do not abide your rules and laws. Didn't you learn anything from the 1968 Democratic National Convention or from Woodstock? Haven't you learned anything at all? We will not be driven from office by revanchist Republicans.

"We brought down your president 25 years ago. We didn't come this far to allow your conventional morals and values to bring down our president. Perjury? About oral sex? Adultery? You must be kidding. So forget resignation."

Even if Hillary wasn't thinking such things, Clinton's refusal to resign, the argument that perjury does not "rise to the level of an impeachable offence," the vice-president's laughable declaration that Clinton "will be regarded in the history books as one of our greatest presidents," all make the same point; i.e., the deracination of traditional American values, such as the simple truth that perjury is not only a sin but also a violation of the law, is complete.

Bill Clinton is the apotheosis of the generation we saw burning draft cards and protesting on television: Egocentric in the extreme, without scruple, full of hatred for anything and anyone that would govern its infantile appetite. That Clinton has survived this long is evidence that his generation succeeded in the effort it began in the 60s and continues today in the White House. That generation did undermine the Vietnam War effort. It did destroy morals and values.

It did bring down a president. But not because he sent burglars into the Watergate building. It destroyed Nixon because he represented men and women the Clinton generation despised. Those men and woman are the Clinton generation's own parents, the hardy citizens who survived the Great Depression, won World War II and built the establishment the Clintonites abhorred because its values stood in opposition to their own. That same munificent generation bequeathed unprecedented material prosperity to the Clinton generation, only to learn what happens when you overindulge offspring. They perceive you as weak. Then they eat you.

One of the speakers at Clinton's post-impeachment rally at the White House, House Minority Leader Rep. Dick Gephardt, was right about one thing, but not for the reason he thinks. The impeachment vote was a "disgrace to our country and Constitution," Gephardt said. Yes, Clinton is a disgrace. But Gephardt was wrong about another. "The American people deserve better than what they've received over the last five months."

Wrong. We didn't deserve any better over the last five months, or the last five years of his presidency, or the last 30, since the Clinton's generation's parents indulged its national tantrum.

The American people created Bill Clinton, then they elected him president. They got what they deserved.

Kirkwood writes on U.S. affairs for the Sun.
Letters to the editor should be sent to oped@sunpub.com.