Infidelity and Politics
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Despite all the marital infidelities alleged against President Clinton in early 1998 his approval ratings soared higher and higher. When asked if infidelity (admitted, proved, or alleged) had any effect on Clinton's ability to govern, the majority of the American people seemed to have decided that it did not. His alleged actions, unless they constituted sexual harassment, were not crimes. The Special Prosecutor, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, did not accuse the President of being unfaithful to his wife but of committing perjury and encouraging another person to commit perjury. The charges of infidelity would, therefore, only diminish the President's ability to do his job if they caused a huge loss of confidence within his party, the government, and the American people. This has not happened so far--which may mean that people do not believe such actions are relevant to his duties. Or it may be that the public, satisfied with the progress of the economy, does not need the distraction of a scandal as a means of focusing economic or social anger. It may even be true that the public no longer trusts the media and/or the Special Prosecutor's Office and agrees that they are unfairly attacking the President. Whatever analysis is correct, however, Clinton's affairs (alleged or otherwise) and the public's response to them have raised many interesting questions about the role of private life in elected officials' public lives, the kind of moral distinctions Americans make i
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seemed to derive from Starr's office even though Grand Jury proceedings are normally strictly confidential (1998). "Ordinarily someone would be held in contempt for such an inflammatory and unsubstantiated revelation--but what to do when it seems that Starr's chamber is the contemptuous source itself?" (Williams, p. 40). But, no matter which approach was taken, most journalists assumed from the beginning that the administration was facing its worst crisis. And, according to one writer, "the atmosphere at the White House now is one of potential tragedy" (Remnick, 1998, p. 30).
Yet the polls taken since the revelation of the alleged Lewinsky affair showed that the President's ratings shot up. Rather than just remaining stable "these astonishing approval ratings" rose higher than they were prior to the revelations and remained high (Morrow, 1998, p. 29). And the approval of the President's job performance was clearly shown not to be contingent on belief in his innocence of the alleged affair. In one January poll, for instance, "although only 20 percent of those polled think the allegations of a sexual relationship with Lewinsky are untrue, 56 percent" approved of Clinton's performance ("Let slip," 1998, p. 29). And these ra
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Some common words found in the essay are:
White House, Vietnamese Nixon, George Bush, Kenneth Starr, National Review, Hosenball Isikoff, Rodham Clinton, Jordan Walsh, Village Voice, Judge Wright, 1998 29, 1998 february, independent counsel, 1998 april, white house, slip 1998, sexual harassment, kenneth starr, slip 1998 29, american people, village voice, 1998 april 6, village voice pp, 1998 april 13, hosenball isikoff 1998,
Approximate Word count = 2528
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)
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