The Economist Magazine
09/15/98
ON SEPTEMBER 9th, at last, Kenneth Starr sent to Congress his report on Bill Clinton's actions and obfuscations in the Monica Lewinsky affair. It was, as expected, comprehensive: 36 white boxes in the
back of two black vans. As The Economist went to press, there was still no knowledge (though a mountain of speculation) about what it contained. But whatever Mr Starr may prove or fail to prove, the
damage is done.
What began as a trickle has become a flood. First, former aides wrote sad columns in the news magazines. Then candidates running for re-election in Maryland, Iowa and New York said they did not want the president to show his face in their districts. By last week, the list of the outraged and estranged included both California's senators, Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, Pat
Leahy of Vermont and-most strikingly-Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who delivered to the Senate a devastating account of how Bill Clinton had let America down. All these people are Democrats; all once
counted themselves as the president's friends. And all now see him as a liability both to his party and his country. It is not Mr Starr Mr Clinton should fear, but the supporters and sympathisers he has left
feeling betrayed.
Character issues
The American presidency is surprisingly vulnerable, checked on every side by the legislature, the judiciary, the press and the people. An American president has no power except his own moral authority, his ability to persuade and set the example. But these depend largely on his character. Inevitably, his private flaws have public consequences. By recklessly pursuing Monica Lewinsky and then emphatically denying it, Mr Clinton knew he was endangering the whole programme on which he
was elected. He went ahead anyway. That is why his friends in the Democratic Party are now so hurt. They supported him for his administrative energy and his huge political talents, hoping against hope that he would heed his own mantra of "personal responsibility". But he let them down, and did not even have the grace to make a decent apology.
Any president at the mid-point of his second term is in a weak position. His reforming ardour is exhausted, and attention is shifting to his successor. But this is not normal second-term weakness. This
is a president who has forfeited respect to the point of political impotence. Nowadays even Al Gore-First Friend and heir-apparent-is conspicuous by his absence. It would be hard enough even for a scandal-free Bill Clinton to persuade Congress that it should fund the IMF, approve fast-track authority for trade talks or reform Social Security. But he approaches Congress now empty of all credibility and
with no moral leverage to demand either sacrifice or restraint; for how much of either has he shown himself?
It is said that Americans at large do not care. This may well change. If Mr Starr's report does not nauseate them (as perhaps it may not), they may well be rattled by signs of downturn in the economy.
The president's high job-approval ratings have a fragile look about them. Other polls, measuring public respect for the president's character and his sharing of their values, are already dismally low. The public would desperately prefer the matter to be dropped; but that may be because they find it too painful to be reminded, day after day, of the character of the man who is their representative to the world.
Mr Clinton has been in deep peril before, and every time he has rebounded. Anger and defiance have re-energised him. After the blistering rebuke of the mid-term elections in 1994, he rallied against the Republicans and, within a year, had them on the defensive. Often over the past two years, when scandal threatened to up-end him, he escaped by lashing out at Mr Starr and the "vast right-wing conspiracy". But defiance will not work any more. Yes, the press and the prosecutor have hounded him, the prosecutor with a set of statutory powers never employed so fiercely against any other president. Yet obsessive and infuriating as Mr Starr may have been, he is not the man who has brought Mr Clinton to this pass. The president's own demons have put him there.
Some in his party-Mr Lieberman among them-think Mr Clinton may yet recover with a fuller and broader apology. It is hard to see how. First apologies are what count, and Mr Clinton made his through
gritted teeth. He has subsequently said sorry a bit more, but always under compulsion. Besides, since his lying was so sincerely done, why should anyone believe his most sincere apology?
The presentation of Mr Starr's report to Congress now raises the stakes. Congressmen, already convinced that the president cannot or will not make reparation by himself, must brace themselves either
for impeachment proceedings or for some form of official rebuke. Mr Clinton himself clearly hopes he can cling on. After all, he still sits in the White House, rides in the presidential limousine, shakes hands with Boris Yeltsin. Some world-shattering event, he supposes, may yet enable him to shine internationally and recover grace at home. That is quite possible. But clinging on for dear life is not governing. As markets zigzag, Russia crumbles and terrorism rears its head, self-pitying paralysis is not good enough. This newspaper has no wish for him to stay. And it is hard to see why America should, either. |
