What with the scandalous headlines recently made by former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, we are again confronted with an all-too-familiar scenario. Formidable, politically potent, uniquely powerful men yielding (or accused of yielding) to unconscionably sleazy, perfidious impulses.
Societal scorn abounds (although less so in France.) Feminists fulminate. Psychologists are practically on sound-bite retainers. And there are yet more reasons to recollect the dark sides of John Ensign, John Edwards, Newt Gingrich, Eliot Spitzer and–for a generation that has never heard of Donna Rice–even Gary Hart. And in what other context would you find Thomas Jefferson and Tiger Woods in the same sentence?
Those weighing in on famous men behaving infamously have pondered motives from hubris and narcissistic entitlement to raw, raunchy risk-taking and–your basic because-they-can. Some have noted the seeming incongruity of really smart people doing deplorably dumb stuff as if they are mutually exclusive when it comes to sex. Time magazine even ran a “Misconduct Matrix” that ranged from the “massively hypocritical” (Ensign and Edwards, for example) to the “doghouse”-warranting “just plain stupid” (Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, for example).
But let’s add a key subset within this category of egregious male misbehavior. Some actions are beyond selfish victimization. Beyond spouse betrayal. Beyond abuse of rank.
Former President Bill Clinton and his ironic role model, John F. Kennedy, define a singular paradigm. That of the president of the United States debauching his presidency DURING his term of office.
Holding the office of the president is not, by definition and common sense, a private affair. The ultimate office transcends its office-holder. Sitting presidents don’t have private lives. It’s part of the trade-off any person makes to hold the most powerful position in the world.
The presidency is bigger than any of its office holders. It doesn’t preclude playing power politics, of course, but it does preclude cheating on the First Lady. That’s because what Kennedy and Clinton did showed disdain and disrespect for more than Jacqueline Kennedy or Hillary Clinton. It diminished and stained the presidency.
But that’s not the worst part. It’s beyond the sordid and the unfaithful. It’s all of the scary national security ramifications.
JFK’s staff-procured liaisons, which frustrated and shocked the Secret Service, were carnal time bombs. Fortunately such drive-by hookups never involved those who brought disease, weaponry or a blackmail agenda to the trysts. And neither did the girlfriend, Judith Campbell, who Kennedy shared with Chicago mobster Sam Giancana.
As for Clinton, having an Oral Office affair with an intern a few years older than his daughter wasn’t the worst possible sin. Such presidential access, as it were, was a Damoclean security sword. That aspect of a presidential affair–a willingness to risk compromising the presidency– should have been impeachable. Much more so than misleading, calculatingly parsed testimony under oath. In the private sector, he would have been fired.
If anyone–other than Silvio Berlusconi–thinks this is a bit harsh on Kennedy and Clinton, I understand. They had their considerable accomplishments, especially the former. But you don’t disgrace the presidency and create a national security threat and then skate into history with just a flawed-judgment, presidential-peccadilloes footnote.