A L S O__T O D A Y
The other woman Secret lives of the Republicans, Part One
Lucianne Goldberg dishes on the Starr Report
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - A full list of Salon coverage on the Clinton/Starr sideshow |
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A CALL FOR MORAL RENEWAL | PAGE 1, 2 Some will object that this amounts to a witch hunt, and didn't we learn the dangers of that during McCarthyism in the 1950s? Others will say it's not sex but Clinton's lying about it that is the real evil here. But this is moral hair-splitting. It should be obvious that a person who lies about sex will lie about anything, including affairs of state. In any case, officials with no skeletons in their closet have nothing to fear and thus no reason to lie. So, where to start? The logical place, it seems to me, is Congress. After all, it is Congress that will sit in judgment of the president's actions during any impeachment proceedings, so it is vital that the citizenry be assured in advance of the moral standing of those running Capitol Hill. The recent outings of Reps. Dan Burton and Helen Chenoweth are a good first step, but they only suggest how much work remains undone. If some of the loudest critics of Clinton's skullduggery are themselves guilty of moral turpitude, how many of his congressional colleagues are similarly compromised? Since time is short, the media's first investigations should be aimed at the congressional leadership -- House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Majority Leader Dick Armey and Minority Leader Dick Gephardt; Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle -- as well as at each member of the impeachment committees. Committee chairmen must also be investigated, but there is time for that down the road. More urgent, I submit, is scrutiny of the other two branches of government. Since Clinton selected them, each member of his Cabinet and senior White House staff must be investigated. These individuals are expected to pass a security clearance, so why shouldn't they be vetted for sexual impropriety? As for the Judicial branch, the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong in this country. But how can its rulings command respect unless the nine justices are known to be beyond reproach in their private lives? Nor should we forget the most powerful, if unelected, official in Washington, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Money, almost as much as sex, makes the world go around, and Greenspan controls the money supply -- no room for sticky fingers there! Alerting America to sexual wrongdoing in high places is a nasty job, but somebody has to do it. The media has the tools and, judging from its all-consuming pursuit of Clinton, it also has the appetite. There's just one problem. Who, as the old saying goes, will police the police? Reporters hate to admit it, but the media wields enormous political power in this country, if only because it decides which issues and viewpoints are (and aren't) worth talking about. But in a democracy power is balanced by accountability. If reporters are going to insist that the sex lives of the nation's leaders are an urgent public concern, then they, as some of the nation's most powerful political voices, must be subjected to the same kind of scrutiny. Surely such outspoken defenders of moral rectitude as George Will and Cokie Roberts will be the first to recognize this necessity. For if not, they will stand accused of the basest hypocrisy and money-grubbing. "Money-grubbing hypocrites" is, in the eyes of many Americans, a polite phrase for today's media. But I have more faith in my fellow journalists than that. I'm confident that, after a bit of soul searching, they will rise to the occasion and probe each others' private lives as assiduously as they have President Clinton's. Let the inquisition begin.
Mark Hertsgaard is an independent journalist and author. His fourth book, "Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future," will be published in December by Broadway Books. |
