Say It Ain't So, Mr. President

I've been a Clinton fan from way back. I worked locally on both presidential campaigns and voted for him in my first election. In 1992, I got to visit the West Wing, meet George Stephanopoulos and see the President wave at us on his way to his jog. I wasn't a groupie, but I came pretty close. Which is why I have felt ill ever since seeing the President apparently lie to us in last week's interview with Jim Lehrer and continue to lie to us throughout his subsequent four-day silence.

I've put the allegations on hold and started listening only to the President's response, or lack thereof. The answer is not so much in the evidence as in his face and on his lips. Even for a grammar-loving person like myself, it's a bad sign when you have to parse his sentences to get through his syntactical tap-dance to the truth. His answer to Lehrer's simple question about the scandal was disturbingly complex: "I did not ask anyone to tell anything other than the truth. There is no improper relationship." Note the indefinite pronouns, "anyone" and "anything". He's taken the question out of the personal realm and into the theoretical, where the President would never ask someone to lie. I won't even examine the usage of the present tense in his denial of impropriety.

The President has mastered the art of speaking precisely. But ironically--and sadly for the nation--that precision has left us with a great deal of uncertainty. My nausea was compounded by the President's delivery and facial expression in that interview. The President is not a convincing liar. We all notice how he bites his lower lip when he's saying something not completely true. This time, though, he didn't even bite his lip. He just looked at Lehrer...and apparently lied. There was no force in his delivery, just a tired playing of the pre-recorded answer. His eyes (in this case, absolutely the mirror of the soul) were empty. I had been prepared, until then, to give him the benefit of the doubt. But it was the silence that saddened me most. After the Lehrer interview (and three more guarded press encounters), and for four agonizing days, the President said nothing. Mike McCurry, his likeable press secretary, said nothing. The President is talking only to his lawyers (led by the very dislikeable Robert Bennett) and to Hillary, under the umbrella of confidentiality. Most alarmingly, until Monday, he was not talking to us.

Five days after the story broke, in a painful moment, the President shifted from a weak denial to a blustering one, demanding the nation listen to him this time (as if we had not been last week when he gave us a non-denial denial). The voice was stronger, but the tap-dance continued: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." Define the ambiguous "sexual relations." Note the Ciceronian use of the perjorative as well as demonstrative pronoun, "that." He then left the room, taking no questions. We are told he won't do so until all the information has been assembled. What information?

To me, it boils down to two questions, the answers to which are in his head and his head alone: Did you have an affair with an intern, Mr. President? And did you encourage her to lie about that affair? He's waiting because he doesn't want to deny anything which might later be proven true. A wise legal move. Unfortunately, it's a devastating ethical move. I don't believe him now. I wanted him to be honestly angry from the beginning, to deny the charges and dismiss them as the ludicrous fantasies of an imaginative young woman. But he did not, not convincingly, not until the pleas of his aides and the country forced him to say something.

There are countless other issues entwined in this mess of presidential proportions. Kenneth Starr might be praised in some circles for his role in uncovering the scandal. He shouldn't be. He extended the purview of his office far beyond Whitewater into the realm of a witch hunt. The Republicans, unusually quiet on this issue, may seem untainted by comparison with this disaster. Don't forget that their Speaker of the House prevaricated to the Ethics Committee about his shady book deals and that they have allowed their lobbyists to stand on the edge of the House floor, writing the very text of the bills to be voted upon. The Watergate comparison is inevitable. But while I consider the actions of the paranoid and plotting Richard Nixon to be evil, I think of Clinton's alleged actions as just plain stupid. He seems to have allowed his large personal flaw to get in the way of his job. Nixon condoned his flunkies' breaking into the office of the Democratic National Committee. And that was just for starters.

I've paid special attention to the words of Stephanopoulos, the man who gave me the opportunity to visit the West Wing. When I heard him say that, if the allegations proved true, the President would have to resign, I groaned. I still remember the thrill I felt when allowed to walk through the famous halls of power. As a loyalist, I am angry at the President and sad for his family, his supporters and the country. Reluctantly, I agree with Stephanopoulos and wish he would resign, if only to stop the bleeding. Though the evidence might not be there to force him to resign through the loss of public and political support, the damage has been done by his own reactions to the allegations. His remaining in office as the crisis continues will only cost the nation--and the Democratic party--all the good that he has done for the last five years. Additionally, a resignation would allow another proponent of Clinton's good policies--Vice President Al Gore '69--to step in.

The realist in me is scolding my naive desire to believe in our politicians and chiding my willingness to have overlooked the President's flaws for so long. Samuel Johnson said, "Hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are less dreadful than its extinction." The optimist in me still clings to the ideals President Clinton supported (and which made me support him) and hopes that they will survive this crisis intact.

Susannah B. Tobin '00, a classics concentrator, lives in Lowell House. Her column will appear on alternate Thursdays.