Wages of Political Sin

From Wall Street to East Africa and the Kremlin, recent events demonstrate that the United States needs a strong, vigorous chief executive who is on top of issues and prepared to deal firmly with the next crisis. Unfortunately, we have a president who has been damaged politically by a sex scandal and his dishonest and clumsy handling of it.

Americans are personally torn over President Clinton and his personal and legal dilemmas, as was illustrated by the comments of middle Americans in York, Pa., in a Times report. Some on the panel of 12 said Clinton should not remain president if he is found to have lied under oath or obstructed justice. On the other hand, there was general opposition to any effort to force him from office now. “He should dig in,” one member said.

Dig in. That’s what Clinton needs to do. Not into the spin of Monica Lewinsky damage control--but into the job of being a president with a full agenda of domestic and world issues. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), an eminently fair person, says Clinton is clearly distracted and “there’s great uncertainty, which the president’s weakness reflects.”

For his part, Clinton has addressed the matter only vaguely since his Aug. 17 testimony to the Whitewater grand jury and his subsequent address to the nation--a grudging admission that failed to satisfy Americans or to put the issue to rest. As some of the York panelists put it, most Americans don’t particularly want an apology but they do want a sense that the president understands the gravity of his actions.

There had been talk that Clinton might deliver a second address in which he would make an outright apology, but that does not seem likely now and it’s probably just as well. A president pleading for forgiveness probably would be politically weakened even more. Clinton has no credibility left on the subject anyway.

He did make a speech in Massachusetts during his recent vacation in which he talked in general about forgiving and forgiveness. And in Moscow Tuesday, he said that he had “asked to be forgiven,” although it should be noted that he didn’t literally do so.

Regardless of what Clinton does, the scandal will continue to bubble on various fronts. An Arkansas judge is considering citing him for contempt on the ground that he lied to her court in the Paula Corbin Jones lawsuit. Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr is writing his report, which may go to Congress soon. The report should finally give Congress and the press and public a set of facts that will help determine whether this whole sordid affair has further implications in terms of law and governance.

The stench of this mess continues to spread. Those upset by what they see as the moralizing of Sen. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) on the Clinton-Lewinsky matter no doubt are pleased by the reports of past domestic troubles in the Burton household. Why does it matter, and yet wasn’t it inevitable that the hunters would become the hunted?

Although the uncertainties of the stock market could change things, most Americans still credit Clinton with doing a good job as president and seem willing to separate that from his personal behavior. In public appearances, the president looks distracted, exhausted and, it seems to us, embarrassed. That stands to reason. But Clinton must, as they say, “get over it” and work harder than ever to demonstrate that he is still capable of doing the work required of the nation’s chief executive and the world’s foremost leader.