Pubdate: Mon, 28 Dec 1998
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Contact:  213-237-4712
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
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Copyright: 1998 Los Angeles Times.
Author: Ronald Brownstein

WASHINGTON OUTLOOK

THE RIGHT SWINGS THE WRONG WAY IN JUDGING AMERICA'S MORAL PENDULUM

Among conservatives it is an article of faith that Congress has to 
oust President Clinton to awaken a country badly in need of moral 
renewal. That argument has only two problems. One is that all 
evidence suggests that a moral renewal is already underway in 
America. The second is that the public response to the Clinton 
scandal--condemnation of his behavior bounded by opposition to his 
removal--embodies the new social consensus that's making this  renewal
possible.

During the House impeachment debate earlier this month, the principal
Republican argument was that removing Clinton was  essential to uphold
"the rule of law." But the underground spring  feeding much of the
fervor in this fight is the conservative belief  that America is
locked in a 30-year "culture war." To the right,  Clinton embodies
everything that went wrong with America in the  1960s. Forcing him out
is meant not only to hold him personally  accountable for his
duplicity, it's also meant to roll back the  "moral relativism"
advanced by the baby boom generation and reestablish bright lines of
right and wrong.

These themes suffuse conservative writing and thinking about the
scandal. In September, when independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr
released his report on Clinton's affair with Monica S. Lewinsky, the 
Wall Street Journal editorialized that Starr was "not just 
prosecuting Bill Clinton; he was prosecuting the entire culture that 
gave birth to what Bill Clinton represents." Rev. John Neuhaus, 
editor of the influential conservative magazine First Things, says 
that removing Clinton "would be an enormous emetic" (it is a word; 
you can look it up) and "would purge us" as a society. House  Majority
Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) brought this subtext to the  surface when he
declared that the struggle over impeachment was "a debate about
relativism versus absolute truth."       These arguments not only help
explain why conservatives have  been so passionate about removing
Clinton. They also help explain  why the rest of the country has been
so cool--if not hostile--to  that cause.

The right's problem is that while it sees the struggle against Clinton
as a critical moment in a long culture war, most Americans  consider
that war long settled. Conservative thinkers such as Robert  H. Bork
may worry that Clinton symbolizes a society that has lost  the
capacity to distinguish right from wrong, but virtually every  major
social indicator now shows Americans turning back toward more 
traditional views about family, self-restraint and personal 
responsibility.

In its latest issue, the conservative American Enterprise magazine
offers more than two dozen indicators charting what looks  much like a
cultural U-turn. Not all trends, of course, are positive  (teen drug
use, for one). But the overall direction is unmistakable.  Among
teens, suicide, sex and pregnancy are down (pregnancy to its  lowest
level in 20 years) and church attendance is up. For society  overall,
the rates of both abortion and out-of-wedlock births are  dropping,
crime and welfare dependency are plummeting, the divorce  rate has
been edging down since 1980, and charitable giving is up.

Yet even amid this return to more traditional moral patterns, there's
no sign that the country is simply trying to recapture the  past; it's
not as if everyone is trying to move into  "Pleasantville." Instead,
the evidence suggests that families today  seem to be melding the GI
generation's respect for rules with the  baby boomers' reverence for
individual choice in a classically  American pattern of amalgamation
and fusion.

The result is a pragmatic moral synthesis that accepts the need for
transcendent standards of right and wrong yet tempers that  conviction
with a '60s notion of tolerance for those who fail to  meet those
standards. As sociologist Alan Wolfe wrote in his recent  book, "One
Nation, After All"--an insightful examination of  middle-class
morality--Americans now "believe in the importance of  leading a
virtuous life but are reluctant to impose values they  understand as
virtuous for themselves on others." In a society in which questioning
authority has itself become  something of a traditional value, what
makes this morality work is  its willingness to make distinctions. As
Wolfe writes, many  Americans now recoil from "morality writ large":
oracular,  inflexible pronouncements from any institution (especially 
government). What they want is "morality writ small": a code of 
conduct that establishes clear expectations but also acknowledges  the
messy choices of daily life.

Nothing demonstrates that preference more clearly than the public
reaction to the Clinton scandal. In poll after poll, the  country has
unequivocally denounced Clinton's behavior. Yet, most  Americans have
rejected the conclusion that Clinton's offenses are  sufficient to
justify his removal--or even to erase the positive  attributes
(empathy, tenacity, vision) that they continue to see in  him.

In many ways, the argument over Clinton comes down to competing planes
of vision: morality writ large vs. morality writ small. Conservatives
want to focus on the underlying principle: He lied,  and that's wrong.
Most Americans, while accepting the principle,  continue to temper it
by looking at the particulars: He lied about  sex, not about a
fundamental decision of state.

In the end, this extended morality play may send out a different
cultural message from the one the right hopes for.  Clinton's critics
want to show that a society cannot function  without sharp lines of
right and wrong--and a willingness to punish  those who cross them.
But with this struggle unearthing the  adulteries of so many other
political leaders, the country may take  an opposite message: that
tolerance of human imperfection is as  essential to a society's
functioning as respect for absolute  standards.

That is actually a moral calculus more sophisticated and nuanced than
most of the Washington elite has applied to the Clinton scandal. The
capital is now obsessed with finding every politician's maximum point
of vulnerability and then bludgeoning him or her with  it. But the
public is insisting on judging its political leaders not  only by what
they've done at the lowest moments of their lives but  also by what
they can be at their best. That's not a sign of moral  collapse; it's
the mark of a society building a moral code both  demanding enough and
forgiving enough to unify the most diverse  nation on the planet.

Ronald Brownstein's column appears in this space every
Monday.
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Checked-by: Patrick Henry