| Should We Not Judge Bill Clinton? |
Bob Rusbasan
September 6, 1998
I was browsing around on the web today, and I came across this statement:
Bill and Monica can do whatever they want, with whatever tools they want -- give 'em cigars, give 'em cucumbers, give 'em ICBMs for all I care. And if that bothers you, I'll be very happy if you'll shut the hell up about it.
Since the beginning of the Lewinsky scandal, I have encountered this sentiment over and over again: "Ken Starr has no business snooping around in people's bedrooms!" "Who are you to judge what Bill Clinton did?" "This is personal business that is none of the public's concern!" "Hillary Clinton has to deal with this, but the rest of us should stay out of it!"
In other words, shut the hell up about it. This is attitude is idiotic on so many levels, I don't know where to begin.
First of all, this is hypocritical. People making these statements are seemingly saying that nobody has the right to say what anybody else should do. Unfortunately, that position is self-contradictory. Bill Clinton can break his marriage vows, take advantage of someone that is basically his employee, and lie to the country about it, and that is just fine. If I say anything about it, though, I can be shouted down by people telling me I have no right to say those things. Clinton's adultery and public lying are protected, but my saying that those behaviors are disgusting is not? What kind of principle is this?
I have even had people say that nobody has any right to hold any of this against Clinton. That is frightening. What are these people thinking? Can we secretly hold it against him as long as we act as if we do not? Or do we have to actually not hold it against him? For those of us that have problems with that, will reprogramming centers be set up to help correct our thinking?
Clinton is free to paw the interns all he wants, as long as they do not object. If word gets out, however, I am free to think that his behavior is despicable. I am also free to say that. Hillary is free to leave him, to forgive him, or to stay with him without forgiving him because she has too much invested in the relationship (politically or personally). I am free to not follow her lead in my personal assessment of the situation.
Other people are free to decide that Clinton's sex life does not matter to them. They are not, however, free to force me to feel the same way. And they are not free to force me to bow down to them and worship them for what they believe is their superior open-mindedness.
Is any of this that difficult to understand?
I've been told that what Bill Clinton does in the bedroom is his business. Fine. I agree that nobody should make an attempt to find out what goes on between him and Hillary.
As I've said above, Clinton is legally free to mess around with the help if he so desires.
Here is the point I believe people are missing: Saying Clinton is free to do something is not the same as guaranteeing that his actions will be free of negative consequences.
I've been told that none of this should ever have become a public issue. Says who? Who decides what should and should not be a public issue? Who decides when a story should be stopped?
Bill Clinton decided to have an affair with an intern. She decided to tell people about it. One of those people chose not to keep it a secret. This is the chance that you take if you do something like this. Bill was free to do it. Monica was free to blab about it to Linda Tripp. Ms. Tripp was free to do likewise to other people. The press was free to report it. I am free to think Clinton is a cretin because of it.
Normally, despite what the public thinks, this would not have happened. The press would have decided that the story was mostly hearsay, with little or no proof. Unfortunately for Bill Clinton, certain events transpired that caused what would have been dismissed as rumors into acknowledged facts. Clinton was being sued for sexual harassment and was asked about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky under oath. He denied there was any sexual relationship. Lewinsky had decided to confide in Linda Tripp about it and then pressured Tripp to lie under oath about it. Tripp refused to do so and taped Lewinsky talking about the affair to ensure that she could back up her story. Tripp turned the tape over to Kenneth Starr, who was investigating obstruction of justice by the Clinton administration. It later turned out that Lewinsky had a dress with a stain. This stain was of such a nature that it could not conceivably have been created in a non-sexual relationship.
This, folks, like it or not, is a news story. Who should have stopped the press from reporting it, government censors?
Bill Clinton decided to have a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Unfortunately for him, word got out about it. He caused himself legal problems by denying it under oath. He caused himself public-relations problems by lying about it to the American people (when he could have just said nothing). Nobody forced him to do any of this.
And nobody's going to force me to feel that it doesn't matter.
Moral relativism has been all the rage for quite some time. In a nutshell, it means everybody should be allowed to decide what they consider wrong and right, and nobody else should try to impose their moral code upon anyone else.
I agree with this to a point. Legally, nobody should be forced to live a certain way, but only as long as they are not harming others. If you decide the highest form of morality for you is owning a pair of nice shoes, so you kill somebody to get their Air Jordans, I'm afraid society is going to impose their moral code on you and send you to jail.
Moral relativists say they do not want to force anybody to live a certain way. That's wonderful. I agree with that completely. Some of them pervert that lovely sentiment to something else entirely. In this form, nobody even has the right to criticize anybody else for any of their choices. I do not agree with that.
You can live however you want. I can think you are being stupid or immoral all I want. I can even say that out loud. If you run for office, I can decide not to vote for you because I do not believe you are a good person. Yes, that is judging you by my moral code. That is my right. You can do what you want, but when you ask for my support I can then do what I want.
Bill Clinton can do whatever he wants. Two times a plurality of the electorate, with some knowledge of the type of person he was, decided that they were not bothered enough by it to vote against him. That was their right. If they now decide to turn on him because he has finally, according to their own moral systems, crossed the line, then that is also their right. We do not have to judge Bill Clinton according to some arbitrary system of morality handed down to us by Friends of Bill.
There is some value in judging someone by their own moral code. You may respect someone for living up to their own ideals, even if they do not correspond to your ideals. Bill Clinton fails in that regard. He has consistently claimed to value traditional American middle-class values when it comes to families. When the Monica Lewinsky story broke, he did not go on television and calmly explain that he and Hillary had an "open marriage" that allowed them to pursue other relationships. Instead, he angrily denied having an affair. He then later admitted he had had an affair, something he said was "wrong". The impression he is intentionally giving is that he and Hillary take their marriage vows seriously. If so, then he is a hypocrite for not living up to them, and people can look down on him for not being moral according to his own beliefs.
Clinton's supporters have lately been parroting the line from the New Testament, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." That's fine, but nobody has proposed stoning Clinton. Jesus did say that line, but he verbally condemns all sorts of behavior in other passages, so apparently "shut the hell up" was not the message he was intending to convey. After everyone leaves without throwing a stone, Jesus tells the adulterous woman to "go, and sin no more". Ironically enough, many commentators have suggested that is basically the deal the public struck with Clinton in 1992, in effect saying, "You probably did have an affair with Gennifer Flowers, but we're not going to hold it against you as long as you behave while in office." Finally, I could possible accept that there is some principle to be gleaned from this passage if somebody could tell me when it would stop being applicable. Or can Clinton do one rotten thing after another, each time having his supporters hit the talk-show circuit barking, "Let he who is without sin..."?
I honestly do not care who else has engaged in similar behavior. I personally find a lot of what Bill Clinton did to be wrong. I do not care if John Kennedy or anybody else did some of the same things. I also do not care if people hated the Reagan administration (this is brought up a lot by Clinton's defenders). They may have legitimate reasons for feeling that way, but that does not change anything Clinton has done.
I also am unimpressed by the argument that the media went easier on Presidents in the old days. Maybe so, but all Clinton had to do to avoid this whole mess was to not cheat on his wife. It's just that simple. When he did cheat on his wife, there was an honorable, if painful, way out of the mess. Instead, he went for the brass ring, gambling that he could lie his way out of his problems. It didn't work.
I have lost a great deal of respect for President Clinton since this relationship came to light. Let me explain why.
I believe marriage is an important institution in today's society. If someone vows to be faithful to their spouse and then cheats on them, I reserve the right to look down on that person (both for the pain they caused and for the fact that they broke their word). If they have a daughter or son, then I believe that makes it even worse. I will still consider the behavior wrong even if their spouse does not leave them over it.
Furthermore, Bill Clinton was in a position of authority over Monica Lewinsky. I certainly do not buy into the nonsense that a woman in her position cannot really say no and therefore cannot truly consent. (Amazingly, a lot of people who previously held that view are suddenly coming around to my way of thinking now that a Democrat is being accused.) I do think that Bill Clinton was aware that his position of President made him very attractive to many women, but I would hope that he, as a married man in the public spotlight, would not take advantage of that fact. But he did, and I am not happy about it.
I am also think the fact that he did this in his place of employment makes it even more despicable. Not many of us would still have our jobs if it came to light that we had been staying after work and having a sexual relationship in our office. In a sense, the American public is Bill Clinton's employer, and I believe his decision to do this shows his lack of respect for the job we sent him to do.
I believe that testifying truthfully under oath is an obligation every citizen has to society. I also believe in a basic right to privacy. If Clinton had refused to answer questions, I would have supported that decision. He instead chose to lie under oath. I think that is terrible, both for what it is and for the example it sets. If nobody felt compelled to tell the truth in court after they had sworn to do so, our system of law would break down. Bill Clinton has brought us closer to that with his dishonorable actions.
If you do something wrong, I believe you should face the consequences. Bill Clinton could have simply refused to answer any questions about his affair. Instead, he lied about it under oath, then his people engaged in a systematic effort to collect evidence against him. I think that is wrong.
There was no good reason for Clinton to go on television, exhort the American people to "listen to me", wag his finger at us, look in the camera, and lie. He did not have to address the country. If he chose to do so, he could have said he would respond to the charges because of privacy concerns. Instead, he coldly calculated that nothing could be proven, so he thought he could get away with a lie. I believe that says a lot about his character.
Finally, his "apology" speech was pathetic. He briefly stated that his actions were wrong. He did not explicitly apologize. He attacked Kenneth Starr for his investigation. He lied again when he claimed his statements under oath had been "legally accurate" (another lie -- for it to be true, among other things we would have to believe that he remembered having a sexual relationship with Monica but did not remember ever being alone with her, as he testified). He complained that these matters were private, when he himself had chosen to lie about them publicly. I felt this type of response was as "inappropriate" as his relationship with Monica. I am glad to see that the American public finally agrees with me, and that Bill Clinton felt the need to later say he was sorry.
I have many reasons for being very unhappy with Clinton's actions. That is my right. Some people may have their own reasons for not being bothered by any of it. That is their right. I can explain why I feel the way I do. Maybe they can explain why they feel the way the do. If, however, their best response to my reasons for being unhappy with President Clinton is that I should "shut the hell up", then perhaps they can't after all. Perhaps, the facts be damned, they just want it to all go away.
Copyright © 1998 Bob Rusbasan. All rights reserved.