President BILL CLINTON: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.ABERNETHY: After that strong denial, the State of the Union address, with no mention of Lewinsky and a generally cordial reception by Congress. The next day in the Midwest, enthusiastic receptions, and by the week's end, the president's job approval ratings were at an all-time high.
So what are the questions now about the presidency and how we look at it, and about the press and whether all the news really is fit to print? E. J. Dionne is a political columnist for THE WASHINGTON POST, who writes from a clear, moral perspective. He's also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of, among other books, WHY AMERICANS HATE POLITICS. E. J., welcome. Day after day for the last 10 days or so, there's been a flood of sleaze in the news. Allegations, denials, and the president's job approval rating is now at an all-time high. What's the message there?
E. J. DIONNE (THE WASHINGTON POST): In some ways, I think we're making too much of the message. There are a lot of Americans who still say they believe the president, therefore, they don't hold this against him because they don't think he did it. I think there are other Americans who just are waiting to make their judgment. And then there are a handful of Americans who have basically said to themselves, "I don't care if he has some sort of affair in the White House -- if that's what it turned out to be." A lot of people look at this as saying we Americans are somehow morally indifferent, that we somehow have reached some moral state of indifference. I don't think that's it at all. I think that -- Reinhold Niehbur, the great theologian, once said that "Original sin is the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian Church." By which he meant the human frailty rarely surprises us. So I think we're a more forgiving people than we're given credit for, and I think President Clinton plays on that.
ABERNETHY: But there's also, isn't there, a distinction made in minds of many of us between personal behavior and job performance -- whether one's personal behavior is one thing and the job effectiveness is the other.
Mr. DIONNE: Well, we've had a big debate in the country for a number of years over who should be a role model. How should they be a role model? How does their work, whether as a president or basketball player or football player, relate to how they live their private lives? I think that at one level, most of us want public leaders to be role models, and we would like presidents to live up to a higher standard. But I think it's also true, and it's become truer as more information about the personal lives of other presidents -- all the stuff that's come out about President Kennedy, where Americans say, "Okay, the first thing we judge him by is how he does his job for us, and then if he has some personal flaws, we may let them go."
Mr. DIONNE: Well, I think at this point, Al Hunt, I guess it was, had a comment in the WALL STREET JOURNAL saying that, you know, no one really looks good in this process. The press doesn't look good, the special prosecutor doesn't look, the president doesn't look good. I think, for now, that's helping the president, because he's had some public enemies to hang out there and have people blame this on. In the end, I just think we are going to feel like we need a long shower and bath. And what I worry about are people who will just totally turn off to public life again. We just got to the point where we had confidence -- a little bit of confidence that public life was a good thing. I'm afraid there's going to be another turnoff after this.
