It is worth recalling, at this troubled point in our political history, why we have a president in the first place. There are many reasons; ours is a sophisticated constitutional design. But the simplest reason is among the most important: The president exists to be respected.
There must be “energy in the Executive,” in Hamilton’s famous words from Federalist No. 70. “A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of government,” and a vigorous executive implies power vested “in a single hand.” But in a democracy, executive power is ultimately an expression of popular will. And so, for the president’s single-handed authority to remain energetic and secure, the people must retain confidence that he is exercising it safely and honorably. Which is another advantage to having a solitary chief executive — a man who, as Hamilton puts it, “from the very circumstance of his being alone, will be more narrowly watched and more readily suspected.”
The president, in other words, is the necessary leader. And to protect his necessary leadership, he must earn the public trust and esteem that comes from constant exposure and inspection. He must be answerable, available. Especially when, Federalist 70 suggests, some “national miscarriage or misfortune” arises that can be solved only by “strict scrutiny into the secret springs of the transaction.”
Now, then. How well is our current president fulfilling this central executive mission — and thereby husbanding the indispensable prestige and potency of his office? He is not fulfilling it well. Because he is not fulfilling it at all.
More than 100 days have now gone by since the Monica Lewinsky story broke into view and the nation was presented with serious and overwhelming circumstantial evidence that its president has been involved in tawdry and criminal activity. On only seven of those days has Bill Clinton allowed himself to be confronted with questions concerning the matter. And he has never yet responded to a single one of them in a meaningful fashion.
In a series of interviews on January 21, the president simply issued a blanket assertion, without explanation, that he had not maintained an ” improper sexual relationship” with Lewinsky and “didn’t ask anybody to lie” about it. “And I think that’s all I should say right now.”
The following day, during a White House photo-opportunity with Yasser Arafat, Clinton allowed as how people “have a right” to inquire about Lewinsky and promised that “we” will answer those inquiries as soon as “we” can, “at the appropriate time.” How about right now, he was asked? “Thank you, ” the president replied. Nothing more.
Two weeks later, at a joint White House appearance with British prime minister Tony Blair, Clinton repeated his general declaration of innocence. He then announced that he had already “told the American people what I think it essential for them to know about this” — and that “I do not believe I should answer specific questions.” What about news reports that he had recently acknowledged, in a sworn deposition, having had an affair with Gennifer Flowers? “I am not going to discuss that.” What about Monica Lewinsky? “I’m not commenting.”
Five weeks after that, during an Oval Office picture-taking session with Thai prime minister Likphai Chuan, pool reporters again requested information or reaction from the president concerning Lewinsky and Paula Jones. Those reporters were promptly expelled from the room by Clinton’s press aides.
One month after that, on Air Force One flight back from Africa, the president sat for a pre-arranged interview with Time magazine. Halfway through the conversation, Time raised Kathleen Willey’s fresh allegations against him. Clinton cut the question off: “I’m not going to talk about it.” Does the president at least regret having placed himself in a number of potentially “compromising” situations? “I have no further comment on these things.” How does the president feel about Kenneth Starr’s ongoing independent-counsel investigation? “I won’t depart from my policy of not commenting on Mr. Starr.” On what grounds has the White House invoked executive privilege to block grand-jury testimony by Clinton’s top staffers? ” I’m just not going to talk about that.”
At his first solo press conference of the year, April 30, Bill Clinton stated flatly that he had “nothing to add” to public knowledge of the Lewinsky controversy. He said he thought it was “important” that he remain silent — that he was “in some ways the last person” who should come forward. Clinton said he was “not involved” in ongoing administration efforts to withhold potential testimony by members of his Secret Service detail, and ” should not comment” on those efforts. He said he “cannot comment” on White House assertions of executive privilege. Clinton similarly declined to comment on Kenneth Starr. And “I have nothing else to say.”
Finally, last week, standing next to the prime minister of Italy at the White House, the president listened to a brief question about executive privilege, and replied: “I can’t comment on it.”
Thus, in sum, we have the president as Melville’s Bartleby, the defiant cipher who blandly disdains to do precisely what circumstances most demand of him — in Clinton’s case, that he makes himself, in the midst of uproar about his behavior and the actions of his subordinates, publicly and transparently accountable.
America is confronted here with something more ominous than the desperate stonewall of an ordinary, cornered politician. No president is an ordinary politician; the Constitution does not grant him that luxury. The presidency, instead, must be both the primary engine of our government and the locus of national respect that is that engine’s fuel. This president, Bill Clinton, has explicitly forfeited such respect. When he was asked April 30 whether he was “willing to live with these questions hanging over you for the rest of your administration,” he responded with just one word: “Absolutely.” At that very moment, it seems to us, Clinton effectively recused himself from the fundamental responsibility of his office. The presidency is vacant.
In their prescience, the Framers worried aloud what would happen if executive responsibility were concealed in darkness — and thereby eviscerated. It would become nearly “impossible,” Hamilton wrote, “to determine on whom the blame or the punishment of a pernicious measure, or series of pernicious measures, ought really to fall.” And in the attendant confusion, even citizens willing to undertake that necessary but “unpromising” task of judgment would themselves unfairly “incur the odium” of scandal and controversy.
This, too, has come to pass. Kenneth Starr, mercilessly smeared by the president’s defenders, is now among the least popular of living Americans. Newt Gingrich, already unpopular, is now winning fresh and widespread opprobrium for his brave and intelligent criticism of constitutional dysfunction in the White House. No less an eminence than David Broder of the Washington Post, acknowledged “dean” of American political journalism, last week scored Gingrich for a performance equally “wretched” and ” repugnant” as the president’s.
This is not right. David Broder ought to know better. There is plenty of disgrace in the current scandal, to be sure. But just as sure, most all of it rests squarely with Bill Clinton.
David Tell, for the Editors
