Don Feder
You should care about Clinton's 'private life'
NOW WE KNOW why Bill Clinton is so keen on gun control. He wants to keep firearms out
of the hands of irate fathers and vengeful husbands.
It's hard to believe that there are those who saw Kathleen Willey's interview on "60s
Minutes" and remain unconvinced. Could a woman who was once an avid Clinton
campaigner be part of the vast right-wing conspiracy?
Could a then-married
woman in her late 40s be an infatuated groupie with an
adolescent crush on the president? A publicity-hungry bimbo? Trailer-park trash looking
for a windfall in a civil suit?
None of the innuendoes that the White House damage-control unit has deployed so
successfully in the past work with Willey. That hasn't kept them from trying.
On Monday, the smear squad released a series of letters Willey sent to the president
after the incident she recounted on "60s Minutes."
But during the Clarence Thomas hearings, weren't the same people, or their political
soul mates, telling us that it's not unusual for a woman to maintain contact with her
harasser -- especially if he's powerful and she desperately needs employment? Their
icon, Anita Hill, says she finds Willey's tale "credible."
Clinton operatives who try to rationalize away the latest allegations are actually less
ridiculous than ethics agnostics who tell interviewers or call-in talk shows that they don't
care about Clinton's "private life."
This nihilism rests on one of two premises, either: 1) Sex has nothing to do with
morality, or 2) They don't care if the president is a low-life, sleaze as long as the Dow
Jones average continues to climb -- that personal immorality has no bearing on public
performance.
Let's examine these positions in turn.
It is, of course, an organizing principle of modern liberalism that sex has no moral
dimension. In fact, sexual conduct is morality saturated.
How we express ourselves sexually is a reflection of our deepest values.
Do we view others as the objects of our desires (flesh-covered receptacles) or as
individuals like ourselves -- things to be used, or people to be respected?
According to his former state-rooper bodyguards, Clinton frequently referred to women
as "ripe peaches" and in other dehumanizing ways. That what is reported to be the
president's preferred sex act gives pleasure to only one party (him) is telling.
Sex also speaks to loyalty, trust and commitments. When we swear fidelity before God
and man, when we share life's most intimate moments (many outside the bedroom)
with one person, what does the betrayal of that person say about our character?
Elitists who spent much of last fall sneering at Promise Keepers must be red-faced
today.
Now, what of those who profess to be sublimely indifferent to what our
boy-president-in-a-constant-state-of-arousal does behind closed doors? They are
actually saying: I don't care if, as governor of Arkansas, the president sexually
harassed a vulnerable state employee -- the economy's good. I don't care if Bill Clinton
committed adultery in the White House with a woman half his age -- the nation is at
peace.
It matters not one whit that the leader of the free world committed sexual assault on a
distraught woman whose marriage and life were falling apart (on the very day her
husband blew his brains out) -- he cares about "women's issues."
And, most particularly, I don't give a damn if the president of the United States
repeatedly lied to the American people, lied under oath, is involved in a conspiracy and
suborned perjury -- he's working for peace in Northern Ireland.
It sounds a bit different when it's phrased less ambiguously. As for public performance,
it comes down to this: Does it make any sense to trust with the treasury and America's
nuclear arsenal a man you wouldn't trust with your daughter?
Thomas Jefferson said, "When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider
himself as public property." Apparently, Clinton believes that on assuming a public trust
he is entitled to treat others as his personal property.
By his persistent, hormonal antics, he has brought the office of president of the United
States to an all-time low. "South Park" and "Beavis and Butthead" are easier to explain
to our children then the current occupant of the White House.
If you don't care about that, you care about nothing.
Mona Charen