Dear Abby,
I agree, painting Jefferson et al. with the same brush is absurd, and I think it serves the country badly to create this new mythology. Jefferson apparently did father at least one child with Sally Hemings. Some have suggested this makes Jefferson “more human.” But, since sex with someone who is your property can hardly be consensual, and since Jefferson left his own child in bondage, comparing a later president’s sexual behavior to that of our third chief executive does not make it look acceptable.
Cleveland fathered a child out of wedlock as an unmarried man, long before he entered the White House. FDR had an affair as a young man, and ended it to save his marriage. It is not even clear that he was sexually functional after he was stricken with polio. As far as we know, he did not cavort in bed with a mistress while in the White House. He spent his final days in Hot Springs with his mistress of the World War I era, whose company he found more agreeable than that of Eleanor. Eisenhower was rumored to have had an affair with his driver during the war, but both parties denied it and his best biographer thinks it never happened. In addition, none of these men lied about sex or anything else in a court of law.
For sexual predators in the Clinton mold, the only candidates are Harding, JFK, and LBJ. And for compulsive recklessness, Bill Clinton takes the prize. Gennifer Flowers nearly did him in 1992; a special prosecutor was already on his trail, and he was carrying on with an employee in the office after an expansive body of sexual harassment law created by his backers in the feminist left was in effect.
I agree that the efforts of reporters to tell us what the people of Los Angeles or someplace else are thinking are pretty worthless. But polls that purport to reveal what the typical American thinks about something like impeachment are also of pretty limited value. When about half of the public thinks that impeachment means automatic removal from office rather than a trial in the Senate, the meaning of their opposition is questionable. Furthermore, the polls don’t measure intensity of feeling, except very crudely, so majority opinion on some issues is politically irrelevant. Eighty percent of the public could believe that private ownership of guns should be outlawed, but if they don’t make the issue a litmus test when they go to the polls, it’s pretty unimportant. The intense views of a small minority will determine the politics of the issue.
But, yes, I’ll still take a good poll over the kind of story you are criticizing any day.
Steve
