Is Sex a Character Issue? Sometimes

Sex doesn’t matter. That’s what the public is saying, and it’s driving President Bill Clinton’s critics crazy.

“There are those of late who have been talking about whether or not a leader’s personal conduct and public life are related,” Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) said at the recent Southern Republican Leadership Conference. “Some argue they are not. I say they must be.” Actually, it depends on what kind of personal conduct we’re talking about. We’re talking about sexual behavior. Which most people consider a wholly private matter. Is it necessarily indicative of public character?

Conservatives insist it is. “How can you speak as a president with moral authority on a whole host of issues, whether it’s teen sex or the morality of the country, when you cannot keep the most basic vows to the closest people in your life?” one conservative commentator asked. But in a recent poll, nearly two-thirds of the public said they considered the Monica S. Lewinsky situation a private matter, not a public matter having to do with Clinton’s job as president.

In fact, most people believe Clinton probably did have a sexual relationship with Lewinsky. Aren’t they concerned the president might be lying? As former Cabinet secretary and current “minister of virtue” William J. Bennett put it, “ ‘A 21-year-old intern and a 50-year-old commander-in-chief lying about it. It doesn’t bother me as long as things are going well for me.’ Well, that’s a serious problem.”

Is it? “Let’s say the worst is true,” liberal commentator Bill Press said. “Are we really saying that a president of the United States ought to be brought down over some affair with a grown woman?” In the poll, almost 60% said it was “understandable” for Clinton not to tell the truth about his sexual conduct. People lie about things like that all the time.

Americans don’t care about private sexual behavior, but they do care about character. Aren’t they related? Sometimes.

Sex was a character issue for former Rep. Mel Reynolds (D-Ill.). He was accused of sexual intercourse with an underage campaign worker and ultimately convicted of statutory rape.

It was a character issue for Clarence Thomas. Anita F. Hill accused him of sexual harassment. In the end, however, her charges could not be proved.

Sex was a character issue for former Rep. Daniel B. Crane (R-Ill.). In 1983, Crane was censured by the House for having sex with a female page. He was defeated a year later. But it was not an issue for former Rep. Gerry E. Studds (D-Mass.), censured at the same time for having sex with a male page. What’s the difference? Crane was a conservative “family values” advocate. His behavior made him look like a hypocrite.

Voters make allowances for a closeted homosexual. They did for Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), whose roommate was running a prostitution service out of the congressman’s home. No straight politician could have survived such a revelation. But Frank survived because he could argue--and did, in 1989--that the man “was in a perfect position to take advantage of me.”

Sex became a character issue for Gary Hart. His behavior allowed the press to depict him as a hypocrite.

It’s hard to depict Clinton as a hypocrite. The first thing most people ever heard about Clinton, way back in January 1992, was a sexual allegation by Gennifer Flowers. A conservative commentator complained recently, “When you are deceitful in your personal life, in the relationship with the person closest to you, it is only to be expected that you will be deceitful when it comes to answering questions, for example, about campaign contributions or about Whitewater.”

But the person closest to Clinton has never complained. “We have a very strong marriage,” Hillary Rodham Clinton said in 1992. “We are committed to each other. We are just going to let the American people make their own decisions about these accusations.”

Sexual misconduct matters in most lines of work. Army Sgt. Major Gene C. McKinney is being court-martialed for it right now. Shouldn’t it matter even more in a president? “If this doesn’t matter in a president, then let’s bring back the army officers that harassed people under their command,” conservative activist Gary L. Bauer said. “Let’s tell our children when a basketball player beats up a girlfriend that it doesn’t matter as long as he scores 20 points a game.”

Character does matter in a president--to a point. When voters hired Clinton back in 1992, the economy was a mess. They wanted to know, “Can you fix it?” It was like hiring a plumber. The basement was full of water, and the house was in danger of falling down. That Bush guy had been working on it for four years without any noticeable results.

When you hire a plumber, you don’t ask about his love life. Does character matter? Sure. You want to know the plumber’s not going to rob the house.

When voters are asked, “Do you think Clinton is honest and trustworthy?” they’ve usually said, “No.” But when asked, “Do you think Clinton is honest and trustworthy enough to be president?” the answer has usually been “Yes.” That’s the plumber test: He may not be scrupulously honest in all his personal affairs, but he seems honest enough to do the job without causing a problem.

Americans voted for Clinton with their eyes wide open--and their fingers crossed. They never thought he had impeccable character. But they bet he could get the job done. And that his flaws of character were not serious enough to create a constitutional crisis. Bob Dole ran against Clinton on the character issue in 1996. Remember? “A better man. For a better America.” But Clinton was getting the job done, and his character problems had not become a crisis. So Americans stuck with their original bet.

Actually, it’s harder to discredit a president than, say, an army officer or a ball player. Americans voted for the president, so they’re inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. They know he has political enemies, so they’re inclined to dismiss a lot of the criticism as partisan.

And the penalties for presidential misconduct seem extreme. If it turned out that Clinton obstructed justice in the Lewinsky affair, what do Americans think should happen? Only a third of the public say he should resign or face impeachment proceedings, according to a recent poll. Most would demand no more than an apology.

Clinton defined the challenge clearly in January: “I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I’m going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time, never.”

Kenneth W. Starr has to prove the president was lying when he said that. The public already suspects it. But it doesn’t seem to bother them. Right now, for most Americans, this issue is still one of private sexual behavior, which doesn’t matter. Not public character, which does. There’s an investigation going on, but the American people don’t want to know. And they wonder why Starr is so obsessed with finding out.