Lungren Raises a Welcome Debate on Character Issues

Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren may be behind the times, his values stuck in a bygone era. He may be ahead of the times, far in front of some morals pendulum. But polls indicate that he is not with the times.

Lungren has this unconventional notion that character and virtue are important, in a person’s public and private life. He doesn’t understand how the two can be separated.

“I don’t compartmentalize my life,” he says. “I don’t think most people do. To suggest you can be honest in one significant part of your life and be dishonest in another and that one side never affects the other, I don’t find it possible.”

And if Americans really don’t understand that, he says, “we’re in for a sad state of affairs. Because we will not have enough cops, enough prosecutors, enough prisons to take care of our young people if, in fact, they believe that character does not count. . . . That if you can get away with it, it’s OK.”

Lungren was touting morality--and the responsibility of public figures to be role models--long before allegations erupted that the president of the United States had an affair with a 21-year-old White House intern.

Five years ago, the Republican--a sports junkie--began scolding pro football players for trash talk and vicious hits that he asserted feed America’s “culture of violence.” He soon added to his list the violence portrayed in movies, music and television.

He plans to keep on pounding away at all this during his campaign for governor.

“We don’t talk enough about character and virtue,” Lungren says. “I think there is a tremendous yearning for spiritual values now. And I think it is unarticulated and unfilled.”

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The attorney general gave what he calls his annual “state of the public safety” address Monday to a Sacramento civic group, the Comstock Club. And by far the best delivered--and most applauded--lines were ad-libbed discourses about responsibility, morals and character.

“Maybe somebody someday can explain to me why San Francisco, which is the most anti-tobacco community in America, is the most pro-drug community in America,” he said.

As for music albums and video games that glorify violence: “How can they possibly do this to our children? Do they really think we’re going to buy the argument that everything they put in front of our kids has no impact? Sure, that’s why advertisers spent $1.3 million for a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl, because they knew it had no impact on conduct.”

Pro athletes: “ ‘I’m disrespected because I’m only getting $6 million a year. If they don’t allow me to break my contract, I’m not going to play. I can’t get motivated.’ Well, for God’s sake, what if people in uniform said that in Bosnia? How are we going to tell kids about honor, about commitment, the validity of a contract?”

The “culmination” of basketball players’ trash talk, he asserted, came Dec. 1, when Golden State Warrior Latrell Sprewell choked his coach and threatened to kill him.

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Lungren didn’t mention President Clinton’s sex scandal during his speech, but afterward he was asked about it by reporters. Why do so many people say the alleged affair is unimportant?

“I’m not willing to give up on the American people,” he replied. “Some may be saying, ‘Look, we don’t want a defeated president.’ ”

I later asked whether he personally thinks the allegations are important. Lungren noted that his sister had been an intern and his wife an employee in the Nixon White House. Recently, his daughter was a congressional intern.

“All I can tell you,” he said, “is that if I had thought anybody was taking advantage of my sister, my wife or my daughter at their age, the last thing that person would have had to worry about was impeachment or losing their job.

“I mean, honest to God, why doesn’t somebody just say that? That’s how I feel as a father. Why should I feel differently as a politician?”

Even if the intern were the pursuer, Lungren said, that’s “irrelevant” because a president--or any boss--shouldn’t be taking “unfair advantage.” That’s pretty much a standard no-no throughout corporate America, anyway.

As governor, he could do little about any of this with new laws. But as Lungren told the applauding Comstock audience, he could use the office as a bully pulpit to “interject a notion of shame in our society.”

Lungren runs a risk here of seeming too preachy, of playing not just to his strength, but to his weakness. He tends to come across as a bit self-righteous, which could cause many women to worry about his lifelong opposition to abortion.

But if he insists on having a public debate on “character”--especially the character of politicians--we should welcome it. Because it’s due.