Have Hart, Miami Herald Really Behaved Themselves?

Did the Miami Herald behave unethically in having its reporters stake out Gary Hart’s Washington townhouse, looking for evidence of a sexual liaison with a woman other than his wife?

The Herald defends its conduct by saying that allegations of philandering had become an issue in Hart’s presidential campaign and that Hart himself had challenged reporters to “follow me around.”

“The womanizing issue . . . raises questions concerning the candidate’s judgment and integrity,” said Heath Meriwether, executive editor of the Herald.

Well, yes--and NO.

“Womanizing” may raise questions about a candidate’s “judgment and character,” and if I were a psychiatrist I’d be wondering if Hart has a death wish--or at least a subconscious wish to fail, a deep-seated, if not consciously acknowledged, realization that he isn’t fit to be President and therefore must do something to bring an end to his campaign. How else could one explain his relationship with Donna Rice?

Given the womanizing issue, even if Hart and Rice didn’t indulge in sexual activity--and both insist that they didn’t--how could Hart allow himself to be in his townhouse alone with any woman between the ages of 15 and 65? How could he go to dinner with her and another couple? How could he go to the Bahamas with her on a private boat?

In politics, as in so much in life, appearances can be as important as reality; Hart’s actions only invited further speculation on his extramarital activity, and on his judgment, as even he seemed to concede on Tuesday.

But if his judgment is as poor and his character as weak as this incident suggests, surely those weaknesses will manifest themselves in other, more important and more relevant, arenas. I’m not minimizing philandering, but such rumors have circulated about many of our Presidents--John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Franklin D. Roosevelt come immediately to mind--and I don’t recall anyone charging that Roosevelt’s liaison with Lucy Mercer Rutherford raised serious questions about his ability to lead the United States through the Depression and World War II. Or that Eisenhower’s relationship with Kay Summersby rendered him unfit to lead Allied forces in the D-Day invasion. And what of Kennedy? His dalliance with Judith Campbell Exner--who was also dating mobster Sam Giancana--showed an appalling lack of judgment, but did that lack of judgment carry over into his peaceful resolution of the Cuban missile crisis or his support of the civil-rights movement?

In our society, alas, some men still think of women largely as sex objects. Some men have little self-control when in the presence of an attractive woman. Some men, especially men of wealth or power or celebrity, think that sex with any available attractive woman is their birthright. Some women are only too happy to oblige.

All this is lamentable, even--under some circumstances--sick (all the more so if the man is involved in numerous casual affairs as opposed to a serious, long-term one). But it doesn’t necessarily follow that a man who can’t keep his fly zipped can’t govern the country. After all, neither Richard M. Nixon nor Ronald Reagan ever had to worry about rumors of philandering, and--as Watergate and the Iran- contra scandal clearly show--their judgment on more important matters was somewhat less than Socratic.

Yes, we hold our politicians to more exacting standards than we used to. Some of that change is born of the skepticism bred by the Vietnam War and Watergate; some may have to do with a greater maturity among members of the press, a realization that womanizing and drinking and gambling may not just be harmless fun among the boys--a realization that has probably been helped by the presence of a growing number of women in the press corps. All that is to the good. A more vigilant, demanding, self-confident press is, by and large, a better press. But vigilance can become vigilantism; self-confidence can become self-righteousness. A demanding press can become a demeaning press.

If there is a connection between a politician’s private life--his sex life--and his political judgment and character, the aggressive scrutiny that the press gives each presidential candidate will reveal it sooner or later--probably sooner. That’s what the press should look for. That’s what the press should write about--not about whether a candidate might have spent the night with a woman other than his wife. That isn’t journalism; that’s scandal mongering--and inefficient scandal mongering at that, given the Herald’s subsequent admission that its reporters didn’t watch both doors to Hart’s townhouse during all the relevant hours.