The following exchange is from Dialogue Group 3, Thread 1.

24. Introduction
Fri, Nov 13, 1998 - 3:28 PM/EST
SunBird

What strikes me about l'affaire Clinton is how well it illustrates our conflictedness as Americans. On the one hand, we are indeed obsessed with sex. One of the first thing that strikes visitors from other cultures here is how pervasive sexual references are, in our music, our movies, our literature, our fashions, our advertising ... and yet we don't want to talk about it.

That is, we don't want to talk about what real people really do, sexually. And when we find out what they really do, we're shocked. (So shocked, apparently, that we just can't tear ourselves away from the appalling scene.)

But we're also conflicted about our concept of justice, aren't we? Obviously, if we impeached every American president who ever lied to a government body or the citizenry of this country, Mr. Clinton would be just one of a long, long line of impeached presidents.

One of the reasons (other than historical lineage) we have a legal system based on case law, rather than a legal code (such as the Napoleonic Code) is that case law adapts to changing circumstances and the moral, ethical, and cultural grey areas that human beings are such wizards at coming up with.

Such as whether elected officials should lie. If they do lie, is it all right to lie only about national security? Or is it all right to lie about public affairs but not private affairs? Or vice versa? Or can they lie about anything they please as long as they're not under oath?

But I don't think that Bill's undeniably sleazy sex life or his lying about it is really what's infuriating so many Americans. I think they're angry -- and SCARED -- because our noses have been rubbed in very good evidence that Our President is not a Great Man. He seriously damaged an old but useful concept of the presidency, and to go forward we must reject either him or ourselves.

Until relatively recently, almost all classrooms in American schools contained two portraits, generally hung above the chalkboard at the front of the room. The teacher's desk was up front, too, so George Washington and Abraham Lincoln -- widely considered our two greatest presidents -- were within view of practically all American children for thousands of hours while they were growing up.

(George "The Father of His Country" and "Honest" Abe each had a holiday in February, too, when no classes were held. Those were combined into a single "Presidents Day" a few years ago, which is not a real holiday for anyone except government workers.)

They, and by extension all other American presidents, were considered Great Men. On the one hand, Americans were told that they were elected because they were the best America had to offer to lead the country at that time in history. On the other hand, they were held up -- literally and figuratively -- as models, embodiments of what Americans are.

"Any American boy can grow up to be president," children were told, and while that wasn't strictly true (never mind that it didn't apply to girls, either), it implied much about what it meant to be an American. Americans were noble, courageous, honest, compassionate, loyal, and devoted to all the higher ideals of humankind. George ("I cannot tell a lie") and Abe and all those other presidents were not just politicians, but ethical and moral leaders. America was the ethical and moral leader of the world, because of who we chose as our leaders, and was because of who and what we were as Americans.

Well, Vietnam and the American civil rights movement threw considerable doubt on our national ethics and morality. But despite increasing evidence that our political system is controlled by wealthy corporations, I think, we still want to believe that our president is a Great Man. Not perfect, maybe, but someone who represents what's best about the people of this country. Someone to look up to, the kind of person each of us likes to think we could be if we really worked at it.

Certainly, the kind of person we want to represent us to the rest of the world.

It's hard to imagine a Great Man like Abraham Lincoln, despite his marital troubles, having a young woman do, uh, you know, in his office. It's hard to imagine John F. Kennedy, for all his well-known dalliances, putting the make on an intern, a young woman barely out of school, with some obvious emotional problems, to boot, because Kennedy was a Great Man.

But that's what Bill did. Unlike other American presidents, who have in general exercised remarkable discretion in their extramarital affairs, Clinton's behavior was so blatant, so common, so just plain UGLY ... It was so disrespectful of his delicate role as a representive of the American people, that he destoyed his image as a Great Man, The Great Man who leads The Great People of this Great Country.

And he seriously damaged our image of ourselves. Is this what American children (boys AND girls) should grow up to be? It may not be just or expeditious to impeach Bill Clinton. But I don't think it will be possible for Americans to forgive him, because that would mean accepting his behavior as a representation of who we are.

Americans are, in general, quite terrified by all the ways that our traditional images of ourselves are changing. Our society and our economy are already reeling from demographic and technological changes. We don't know who we are; we don't know how to represent ourselves to the world, or what role we play in it. But we're pretty sure that we are collectively better than a man who was chosen to fill such a high office -- as the Leader of his nation -- and used it in such a low way. In order to move forward, we'll have to repudiate him somehow.

Sorry if that's a lengthy rant -- at least it's on the topic! But I really haven't seen any discussion of the symbolic value of the American presidency. We don't just elect the person who is likely to be the best adminstrator, or the best diplomat. We elect a president to REPRESENT us! And I think it's emotional elements of this symbolic representation that account for the extraordinary reaction to Bill Clinton's behavior.