Good Guys and Evil Deeds

I was listening to a radio interview earlier today and the guy being interviewed had travelled with former President Bill Clinton. He said, just in the course of conversation, "Yeah -- Clinton is a good guy."

This got my gears turning with thoughts about human nature versus human behavior. After a few miles of contemplative driving (and then getting snapped out of it by a panicked thought that I was extremely low on gas and had forgotten to stop with no more stations for miles, even though I actually had stopped and filled-up somewhere in the midst [and in the mist] of my little conceptual journey) the question formed itself: Can a guy who does heinous things be a "good guy."

This is one of those occasions on which I am sure someone will swoop in and explain to me that Cerebellus Maximus, in the third century, asked this very question -- but, so it goes. I guy can't have read everything, you know. (Someone once mentioned a book that I hadn't read and I told her I hadn't read it. "Aren't you, like, a literature guy?" she responded, aghast. Apparently, we "literary guys" are supposed to have read everything ever written.)

Anyway, old Bill is famous for lots of things -- like having been a not-so-bad-at-all President. He blew a mean sax, too. Unfortunately, he was also in the habit of keeping company with a certain infamous White House intern who had a similar talent, if you take my meaning. In short, the guy cheated on his wife. Or, more accurately, I think: he cheated on his family. That's the way I see it, anyway.