By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, www.originalsources.com
October 23, 1998
Greta Van Susteren, perhaps CNN's most dedicated Clinton apologist, said yesterday, "Democrats Keep Asking: Where's the Standard?" Nothing better describes the Clinton problem than that statement by Van Susteren. Finally faced with the fact that Sixties Generation values have brought the nation to its present state, at last the question is at least being asked "Where's the Standard?"
Of course, what Van Susteren was referring to was the "standard" of impeachable offense. We know the Constitution say an impeachable offense if "high crimes and misdemeanors." We also know that, at the time the constitution was written, a "high crime" was a crime committed by a person of high office - such as a president, vice-president, or judge. Today, liberal Democrats claim that a crime, such as lying, abuse of power, or obstruction of justice, if used to cover-up any kind of misconduct with a woman, is not "sufficient cause" to impeach.
But, how does that standard compare with the standards expected of leaders in days gone by? Is it true that personal immorality has been acceptable for leaders? Is it true that immorality does not prevent a person from being a "good leader?" In effect, this is the issue now before the American people. Does lying not matter if it pertains to a sexual immorality or sexual depravity?
Aristotle dealt with this issue 2300 years ago in the Nicomachean Ethics. "Virtue, then, is of two kinds, intellectual and moral. These virtues we acquire by first exercising them ...whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it: men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players, by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; by doing brave acts, we become brave...
"How we act in our relations with other people makes us just or unjust. How we face dangerous situations, either accustoming ourselves to fear or confidence, makes us brave or cowardly. Occasions of lust and anger are similar: some people become self-controlled and patient from their conduct in such situations, and other uncontrolled and passionate. In a word, then, activities produce similar dispositions. Therefore we must give a certain character to our activities...In short, the habits we form from childhood make no small difference, but rather they make ALL the difference."
That brings to mind the cold anger of William Jefferson Clinton on August 17, 1998, when he spoke to the American people after a day of testimony to the Grand Jury when he learned that his occasions of uncontrolled lust were revealed. His response was an all-out attack on the person who had found out about his uncontrolled lust and was asking questions about it to determine whether of not he had lied to the court. In fact, later, in Starr's report to Congress Clinton was charged with lying even to the Grand Jury.
This will be the legacy of William Jefferson Clinton, regardless of how the impeachment inquiry comes out, that children of America will learn about when they study the history of the 1990s. They will learn about his evasion of the draft in his youth. They will learn about his being chosen for a Rhodes scholarship, but using the funds to protest against the Vietnam War, rather than attending class.
Contrast that with the legacy of Abraham Lincoln or George Washington, both of whom known for their honesty in private life that spilled over into honesty in public office. Abraham Lincoln, as a clerk, became known in his youth as "Honest Abe." The following story was told about Lincoln in Horatio Alger's Abraham Lincoln, The Backwoods Boy, published in 1883:
One day a woman came into the store and purchased sundry articles. They footed up two dollars and six and a quarter cents, or the young clerk thought they did. We do not hear nowadays of six and a quarter cents, but this was a coin borrowed from the Spanish currency, and was well known in my boyhood.
The bill was paid, and the woman was entirely satisfied. But the young storekeeper, not feeling quite sure as to the accuracy of his calculation, added up the items once more. To his dismay he found that the sum total should have been but two dollars.
"I made her pay six and a quarter cents too much," said Abe, disturbed.
It was a trifle, and many clerks would have dismissed it as such. But Abe was too conscientious for that.
"The money must be paid back," he decided.
This would have been easy enough had the woman lived "just round the corner," but, as the young man knew, she lived between two and three miles away. This, however, did not alter the matter. It was night, but he closed and locked the store, and walked to the residence of his customer. Arrived there, he explained the matter, paid over the six and a quarter cents, and returned satisfied. If I were a capitalist, I would be willing to lend money to such a young man without security.
Nothing is more revealing about the nature of our dilemma than Greta Van Susteren's question, "Democrats Keep Asking: Where's the Standard?" Abraham Lincoln didn't have to ask that question when he discovered he had added wrong and overcharged his customer by six and a half cents. His was an internal moral and intellectual standard, cultivated, as Aristotle said, through practice. It was not a standard that had to be forced on Abe Lincoln by a magistrate or judge. Van Susteren and others have tried, on several occasions, to equate Newt Gingrich's lawyer's error in writing up a legal paper for the House Ethics Committee that was inadvertently wrong, and Gingrich signing the 90 page document without first reading it with William Jefferson Clinton lying about an incident in which he had deliberately and with forethought tried to deceive a court of law in order to cover up an immoral sex act with an employee half his age.
If anything good can come out of our current national debate, perhaps it is the opportunity to help people like Greta Van Susteren and the Democrats understand that, for many Americans, there IS a standard. Even though often on her program she, and other liberals claim that "everyone does" what Bill Clinton has done or at least, as one of her guests once said, "All 435 members of congress do the same thing" - that is not true. All politicians DON'T do what Bill Clinton has done. In fact, most of the founding fathers would be dumbfounded at the thought of a person in a position of such great trust doing what he has done.
Actually, we don't even have to go back that far. Ronald Reagan so respected the Oval Office and what it once stood for that he never removed his suit jacket. HE would be horrified at the thought of a president removing not only his jacket, but his pants in the Oval Office.
Perhaps it's about time that the public, many of whom have been too embarrassed to even discuss the Clinton scandals, take the time to ANSWER Greta's question. What IS the standard you believe is the minimum standard for a president of the United States to remain in office and are you comfortable with that standard also applying to employers in business, military instructors in basic training, school principals and your doctor?
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com. We will forward your e-mail to Greta Van Susteren at CNN.