SPECIAL REPORT	FEBRUARY 9, 1998 VOL. 151 NO. 6
	Living by Different Rules The imposition of a new ethical code transformed America's political arena By DAVID BELL hy is it that, literally within hours, sordid allegations about President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky exploded into the gravest American political crisis since Watergate? Some European commentators have predictably suggested that the ultimate reason lies back in the 17th century. It is the rigid and prudish legacy of the Puritans, they say, that has left Americans incapable of taking a sensible, relaxed attitude towards sex and ordinary human frailty. This is not an argument that takes much historical reflection to disprove. Was America any less in thrall to "Puritan morality" 35 years ago, when elite universities expelled students merely for having members of the opposite sex in their dormitory rooms? (Today, those same universities require students to use co-ed bathrooms.) Yet in the early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy, without any danger of scandal, indulged in sexual escapades that make Bill Clinton's worst alleged shenanigans pale in comparison. Even if Kennedy had been caught lying, or advising someone else to lie, about a relationship, it is hard to imagine him facing possible impeachment or resignation as a result. No, the hysteria over L'Affaire Lewinsky has its roots less in the Puritan past than in the transformation of American society since Kennedy's death, and especially in some of the very causes long championed by Bill Clinton. When Kennedy was President, far more than today, real power in American government, business, law, journalism and the universities lay in tight-knit networks of mostly white, Protestant, wealthy men. They dealt with each other informally--a quiet word in the club, a spot of haggling in a smoke-filled room. In this cozy world, it was easy to keep prying reporters in the dark--but equally easy to keep the "wrong sort of people" (particularly minorities and women) out of desirable universities, jobs, and housing. Starting in the 1960s a succession of civil rights movements fundamentally challenged these arrangements, with Bill Clinton's enthusiastic approval. They used the courts, Congress and administrative agencies to set up formal barriers against discrimination, harassment and unfair influence, and imposed sweeping new codes of ethics. The result has been nothing less than the stigmatization, indeed often the criminalization, of much of what once passed for routine practice in the American workplace and political arena. This change has had the positive effect of cutting down on everything from the sexual exploitation of employees to the unchecked power of big city bosses. But it has also made it much harder for even well-intentioned Americans to avoid breaking rules, or creating the "appearance of impropriety." In America today, inappropriate words spoken in the workplace, classroom, or even bedroom can lead to ostracism, dismissal, a lawsuit or even criminal prosecution. It is a mistake to think of this development principally in terms of left-wing "political correctness." Since the 1960s, several groups have grown fat and powerful off American's new rule-consciousness, and in the process have effectively transformed the political arena into one great permanent floating scandal, from Watergate to Iran-Contra, Filegate, Travelgate, Whitewater, and so on. The most obvious culprits are in the media, where enormous competitive pressures have arisen to expose the misdeeds of the powerful, no matter how picayune. But don't forget those sleek, well-funded political attack machines that have mushroomed in recent decades. Every time a prominent politician is caught misbehaving, some "institute" is there to issue press releases, pay for negative ads, even subsidize lawsuits, so as to maximize the political damage (the Rutherford Institute, which is paying Paula Jones' legal bills, is a good example). And then there are the special prosecutors--handed such great power by Congress--who have made themselves into virtual inquisitors, searching everywhere for evidence of previously-unsuspected crime. When these groups are accused of making Greek tragedy out of trivia, they all respond, piously, that even slight misconduct, left unchecked, will breed uncontrollably, and that public figures must set good examples. In a world of 30-second sound-bites, the point is difficult to refute, and the consensus has yet to be challenged. And now, the Holy Grail of this perpetual quest has come within sight: potential evidence of criminal activity by the President himself. It was the Tripp tapes' apparent revelations of lawbreaking, more than the tales of adultery, or even lying per se, which sent the media into such convulsions. The speed at which the ensuing firestorm developed reflects the stunning acceleration of all these political trends over the past quarter century, as well as the obvious effects of new information technologies. To Europeans, it may well seem bizarre. But then, European political culture has changed less than its American counterpart over the past 30 years. Most European countries still have no real equivalent of special prosecutors or political attack machines. And in comparison with America, their cozy Old Boy networks are still very much in place. David Bell teaches European history at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. His forthcoming book is The National and Sacred in France published by Harvard University Press.
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