Coping with the Politics of Scandal
1998; Wiley; Volume: 28; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1741-5705
Autores Tópico(s)Law, Rights, and Freedoms
ResumoThe crisis of the Clinton presidency is in many ways a reflection of a much broader and critically important phenomenon in contemporary American politics: the remarkable prominence of the politics of scandal. American politicians, journalists, and citizens devote extraordinary time and energy to controversies about matters of moral and legal propriety. To some degree, these controversies are the inevitable consequence of maintaining and enforcing strict standards of proper conduct. Nevertheless, the preoccupation with scandal has reached a point of pathological excess. Scandals destroy or threaten to destroy useful political careers, striking evenhandedly Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, elected and appointed officials. They distract attention and disrupt government, potentially distorting public policy or undermining the ability to deal with crises. They promote cynicism and alienation among the citizens. It is hard to credit the notion that the presumed benefit of punishing and preventing wrongdoing is enough to justify all of these costs. Moreover, the flood of scandals that has characterized our recent politics shows no sign of abating. Whatever the outcome of the various allegations and investigations that have created a crisis of the Clinton presidency, they are symptomatic of a chronic and frequently debilitating condition of the political system. The larger issue in Clinton's crisis is how to cope better with the politics of scandal. The Monica Lewinsky Investigation and the Politics of Scandal The investigation of President Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky by Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr, added to the several other loosely related investigations by the same prosecutor, is the reduction to absurdity of the contemporary politics of scandal. This is not because Clinton is innocent of all the suspected offenses. At the time of this writing, he is admittedly guilty of a sexual affair with a White House intern and of lying about it for seven months to all of Washington and the American public as well as his family. Judging from the published accounts, he is possibly guilty of perjury in his deposition in the Jones case. There remain credible suspicions of suborning perjury and obstruction of justice in the same matter, and there reportedly are issues of further and more serious perjury in Clinton's August testimony to the grand jury. Although Starr's investigations of other matters--Whitewater, the travel office, the FBI files, and death of Vincent Foster--apparently will not lead to formal charges against the president or Hilary Clinton, they certainly uncovered grounds for serious suspicion of lawbreaking, such as the belated appearance of supposedly missing files in Hilary Clinton's closet and the business assistance rendered to potential witness Webster Hubbel by friends of the president. Despite the special prosecutor's massively thorough investigations, it is possible the president or first lady have gotten away with crimes in one or more of these matters. Rather, the absurdity of Starr's investigations lies in the extraordinary lack of proportion between the resources expended and disruption caused, on one hand, and the seriousness and relevance to government of the suspected misdeeds on the other. The Whitewater case concerned business dealings that occurred a decade earlier. The travel office case involved an isolated violation of civil service and contracting regulations. Of the pre-Lewinsky matters, the FBI files case alone was both relevant to the president's conduct in office and potentially serious--raising the possibility of White House misuse of confidential FBI files to do harm to political enemies. But there was no substantial evidence of anything worse than incompetence among low-level White House staff. Setting aside issues of the president's personal and family life, the Lewinsky inquiry initially concerned possible perjury, suborning of perjury, or obstruction of justice in a private lawsuit--the matters that triggered the investigation--and subsequently has included similar offenses in the ensuing criminal investigation. …
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