News
and Opinion
Virtue,
Character and the Presidency
Forrest Church
September
1998
According to the
virtue doctors, America is suffering a massive soul attack. With full
knowledge of our president's moral failings, two-thirds of us still
stand by him. How can that be?
Bill Bennett targets
our lack of moral outrage, the Christian Coalition, a breakdown in family
values. Hundreds of editorial page editors are calling for President
Clinton to do the right thing and resign. He has diminished his office.
He can no longer lead. That's what the pundits say. The people don't
agree. What's wrong with us?
Our problem is
a simple one. We are Americans. Our heroes don't embody virtue, they
show character. They fail and then recover. On a foolish bet they loose
the farm, risk their family, hunker down, scrap back, rout the bad guys,
and then retire to a thousand acre ranch.
For better and
for worse, in both literature and politics our heroes are not pious,
they are plucky. Some are sinners who repent and then are saved. All
are fighters who refuse to go down for the count.
Start with Tom
Sawyer and Huck Finn. Both were delightful scoundrels. Americans love
scoundrels who turn out to be heroes. We love bad boys who surprise
us by doing more good than we had any right to expect. We forgive confidence
kids who fool us into whitewashing their own fences. We celebrate sinners
who amaze us by saving Jim from getting lynched.
And how about those
bigger than life western types? Daniel Boone, a land speculator and
vagabond, he surely had our mythic stuff in him. So did Annie Oakley
and Kit Carson. Not a role model among them. Just imagine how Pat Robertson
would have fulminated against Andrew Jackson's White House or Ulysses
Grant's Union Headquarters, both dens of perdition, each an oasis for
our roguish American dream.
Neither Jackson
nor Grant was a presidential hero, but in our folklore each came down,
and rightly so, as larger than life. In contrast, our two most completely
pious presidents, Calvin Coolidge and Jimmy Carter, could hardly fill
their presidential shoes. It's not that we believe that only bad men
can be good presidents, but, when given the choice, most Americans prefer
our leaders to be strong than to be good.
Most of the world
is bewildered by this president's troubles. Nelson Mandela recently
said that we are isolated from the world, suggesting that we ought to
examine our conscience and good sense.
About our conscience,
I disagree. I want my president both strong and good. There's nothing
wrong with people who care deeply about their leader's morals. After
all, we care about our own. When the French say that only public not
private affairs matter, they are mistaken. Every one of us who has sinned
knows how much our personal behavior matters, both to others and for
the sake of our own soul.
So it's fine to
promote a high public standard. The more vigorous our public moralists
are, the less likely our leaders will be tempted to sin. Even when hypocritical,
these strictures can be helpful. After watching our president in action,
anyone who still thinks that an affair would be fun is clearly a fool.
Where the pundits
are wrong is that they take a two-dimensional view of public morality.
To be a good leader, private morals are almost always less important
than a larger moral vision. We celebrate our great presidents, from
Jefferson to Kennedy, for public not private reasons.
President Clinton
may not be a great president, but a majority of Americans stand by him
because he consistently has demonstrated the kind of resilience that
we admire. Never has this been more evident than over the past three
weeks.
Just when it seemed
that our president should resign, either for his self-admitted moral
failings or for his inability effectively to execute his office, he
has risen in the saddle. From his speech to the United Nations on terrorism
to uniting Yasser Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu on a road to peace,
from ever more persuasive expressions of contrition to blunt and effective
calls on his Republican opponents to return to the nation's business,
President Clinton has demonstrated true grit.
He's the boxer
on the rope, knocked down twice, who gets back up and wins the round.
He's the drunk who quits the bottle just in time to save not only himself,
but also the city.
We Americans love
that. We love to cry at the end of movies. And who knows, if President
Clinton manages to supplement his public character with a little private
virtue, at the end of this one we may even be able to cheer.
© All Souls 1998
