TO ALL - Moral Turpitude and the Impeachment Issue
On reading the debate between Pezz and the rest of you, I was struck by something that I have noticed in similar debates that have arisen, over time, on this and other Clinton threads.
It is that just about anyone who expresses doubts about the impeachibility of the President on the charges in the Starr referral feels the need to stress that he/she is no way approves of the President's behavior. Why is that? Because he/she, at one point or another, has been accused of Moral Turpitude (not to speak of Total Boobhood) for merely expressing those doubts. In other words: you "support" an immoral President, therefore you too are immoral. (Or going further: we have an immoral President BECAUSE you are immoral.)
I am not suggesting that those who have been participating in this debate are guilty of such an ad hominem approach. On the contrary. The reason I addressed this post specifically to you, Michael, is, first of all, because you seem able to discuss the points at issue without impugning the other guys's character or intelligence. And secondly, because you may therefore be able to see that there is a subtext in this debate that you may have overlooked.
Once or twice I have seen you address a fellow-thinker with the remark -- "They still don't get it!" Well, perhaps they do get "it." But not the "it" you are talking about. The "it" they get is that someone (not you, personally)is trying to shame them into silence.
Let me approach this in a roundabout way.
There was an article in the New York Times Magazine this past Sunday on the intellectual elite of the "new" conservative (sometimes called the "theo-conservative") movement, written by a conservative of the "old-fashioned" conservative persuasion. The title -- "The Scolds" -- speaks for itself. The author points to what he calls a new theme among conservatives (exemplified by William Bennett's "The Death of Outrage"): "not simply a hatred of liberal elites, but a contempt for the mass of Americans."
He then proceeds to make what I think a penetrating observation: While the Old Left was accustomed to "Blame America First," the New Right tends to "Blame Americans First."
It is clear to anyone who has looked at right-wing publications that the Right, from the outset, has regarded the impeachment issue primarily as a moral one. And anyone who does not share that view is seen as morally suspect. Polls indicating that the majority of Americans, at this point in time, do not think the President should be impeached are seen as proof that the populace as a whole is in the grips of a moral decline, of which President Clinton is only a symptom. Needless to say, this general view has spilled over onto the SI threads.
But is it really true? Have Americans become indifferent to "values"? According to a recent survey, the results of which were reported and analyzed in a Washington Post series, the reverse may actually be the case. The first article in the series is especially relevant to this discussion:
washingtonpost.com
Let me quote some passages that bear most directly on the point I would like to make:
An in-depth study of the values Americans espouse, whose first
findings are being released by The Washington Post today, suggests
why President Clinton's extramarital dalliance with Monica S.
Lewinsky angers and upsets so many people – and why the country
has been so reluctant to punish him politically for behavior it
considers wrong.....
On one hand, Clinton has confronted the country with a sample of
what three out of four of his constituents see as a dangerous decline in
the values on display in the national culture. promiscuity.
At the same time, Clinton has become a test case of whether this
generation of Americans wants to sit in judgment on each other or be
willing to live and let live....
......The survey found that nine out of 10 Americans said an affair by a
married person is unacceptable....
The poll also showed that only one American in five thought Clinton
shared most of that person's values, with twice as many saying he
embodied hardly any or none of them....
Nine in 10 Americans agree that the country "would have many fewer
problems if there were more emphasis on traditional family values." At
the same time, nearly as many – 70 percent – agree that "we should be
more tolerant of people who choose to live according to their own moral
standards even if we think they are wrong."
...At a deeper level, the survey showed Americans sharply divided on
what to expect from a political leader. Half of those interviewed – 49
percent – say it is performance alone that counts in a president,
agreeing that "as long as he does a good job running the country,
whatever he does in his personal life is not important." ......
Delia Mohlie, 44, a married mother of two who works part time as an
assistant librarian, says she knows her attitudes toward the issues
involved in the Clinton scandal seem "very inconsistent." The
Waldoboro, Maine, resident is strongly against adultery, but at the
same time does not believe Clinton's marital infidelity is an important
issue.
Mohlie, a Democrat and 1996 Clinton voter, said, "Number one, it doesn't matter to other parts of his presidency. And number two, no
longer do Americans expect leaders to be lily white in their behavioral
patterns. . . . I can't expect perfection. It's not realistic."
So, we have here:
1) Not the absence of values, but conflict between competing values (e.g., disapproval of adultery vs. the virtue of tolerance).
2) Doubts about whether tolerance should extend to the President; otherwise put, about whether one should judge a President's performance by the standards of one's own personal morality.
There are other points that can be made, which this particular article does not directly address, including:
1) Judging that the President's Monicagate offenses are not impeachable does not mean one approves of the offenses themselves. The judgment is based on one's assessment of the purely legal aspects of the case.
2) Many people feel most politicians are guilty of stuff just as bad, and are reluctant to single Clinton out, especially if they distrust the motives of the gung-ho opposition to Clinton.
Etc., etc.
One more point of my own: Denouncing so-called "Clintonistas" for their imputed mental and moral deficiencies is no way to convince them you are right. In fact, this is likely to make them even more resistant to your arguments. Nobody likes to be hectored, especially for failings one does not feel one has.
Similarly, I might add, "Clintonistas" should not assume that anyone who publicly identifies himself/herself with the Religious Right, for example, is necessarily a wicked bigot and therefore wrong!
Any thoughts?
jbe
Life-long Straight-ticket-voting Democrat who cast a protest vote against Clinton in 1996
and,
of course,
Fine Upstanding Citizen :-)
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