Accuracy In Media

Accuracy in Media

Weekly Column

Clinton's Character Counts

By Reed Irvine

August 20, 1998

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On the morning of August 17, 1998, the day that President Clinton was questioned in the White House by prosecutors from the Office of the Independent Counsel concerning allegations that he had lied in sworn testimony he had given last January, The New York Daily News ran a remarkable column by Lars Erik Nelson.

Nelson said that if Clinton could again deny under oath that he had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky "his wounded, diminished presidency would continue and his critics would owe him an apology." But he went on to say this:

But if he now admits he had sex with her, as some of his aides have begun to hint, he is unfit to lead the nation and ought to have the decency to resign. If he lied to us about Lewinsky-staring so earnestly into the camera as he denied any improper relationship-who can ever believe him again? If he allowed so many of his most-trusted officials to defend him falsely for seven months, who can ever believe any of them again?

And if he had sex-no matter how you define it-with an intern, a low-level subordinate, he has betrayed not only his wife, but his daughter, the American people who look to him for leadership, the integrity of the government he professes to love, all of the loyal staff who followed him into government to carry out a progressive agenda, every parent who proudly and nervously watches a daughter go off to work and every aspiring intern who thinks the route to success is hard work.

What made this column remarkable was that its author is a liberal curmudgeon who has appeared frequently on TV talk shows defending President Clinton and attacking his critics. His column represented a significant crack in the ice on which Bill Clinton has been skating. The column is interesting for another reason. While most of Clinton's defenders in the media have repeatedly said that this scandal is trivial because it is about Clinton's private sex life, something that should be of no concern to the public, Nelsen labeled this "bizarre morality." He said, "To me, the supposed perjury is trivial; the sex, if true, unforgivable, and the lie to the American public, if it has been a lie, reason enough to howl him from office."

It is refreshing to see a journalist, or anyone else for that matter, who agrees with Theodore Roosevelt that it is just as bad, if not worse, for a politician to lie to the public as to lie under oath. But there appears to be a devaluation of truthfulness in America. Some polls have shown that approval of Clinton's job performance has risen as the percentage of those who believe he can be trusted to tell the truth has fallen.

One of the important roles of a President of the United States has long been to serve as a model of character and honesty. Two hundred years after his birth, George Washington's birthday was an occasion to teach children that Washington was a leader of stainless character whom they should strive