Presidential High Marks And Low Antics
Even so, between 57 and 59 per cent give him high marks as president. In their minds, Americans seem to have severed any necessary connection between morality and the presidency.
On each of these charges, the president faces formal judicial or congressional proceedings: the Supreme Court last week cleared the way for him to face charges that as governor of Arkansas he tried to compel Jones, a state employee, to have sex with him in a Little Rock hotel room. Whitewater, and allegations of a related White House cover-up, remain the subject of an extensive investigation by the independent counsel, Kenneth Starr. And Congress will soon hold public hearings on campaign finance abuses in the last election - including allegations the White House sold policy to foreign donors.
In the court of public opinion, the president has already been convicted of an array of character offences involving not just personal but public morality. He is not simply accused to trying to have sex with Jones, but of using his position as governor to compel her compliance; and charges of influence peddling in the White House imply real corruption.
But, apparently, it takes more than this to make American jaws drop. News of the Supreme Court judgment denying the president immunity from prosecution had no perceptible effect on his approval ratings.
A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll published earlier this week showed that 72 per cent think some incident took place in the Little Rock hotel room, but 62 per cent believe that is irrelevant to the presidency. Clintons approval rating held steady at 57 per cent.
During last years election, polls repeatedly showed Americans did not find Clinton either honest on trustworthy - just honest and trustworthy enough to be president. Perhaps the presidents approval ratings remain high because, in the market of public opinion, all Clinton character flaws are already fully discounted. Perhaps Americans have simply overdosed on scandal. So even the most titillating of stories - such as the Paula Jones affair, in which the plaintiff has offered to identify certain distinguishing characteristics on the presidential genitalia - cannot overcome a profound public uninterest in the affairs of national government. Americans have long been cynical about their rulers, but public indifference to politics seems to have reached new highs. Economics probably does much to explain this phenomenon. Politics ebbs and flows with economic growth: when economics is at high tide, Americans can afford to let politics slide.
The opposite may also be true: when economics wanes, politics may again rise to the fore. But there is little sign of economic downturn at the moment. So, with no economic or foreign policy crisis looming, Americans have turned their attention to hearth issues, such as education, teenage smoking, crime, and protecting children from pornography on the internet.
It is exactly these issues - many of them fundamentally moral ones - which their character-flawed president has exploited the most successfully. Opinion polls show high approval ratings - in the 80 percentile range - for issues Mr Clinton has proclaimed from the presidential bully pulpit: efforts to curb teenage smoking, install V chips to screen out sex and violence on television, impose youth curfews and fight smut on the internet.
Every presidential pronouncement is larded with saccharine sentiments about children and family. But though Americans know this implies a moral contradiction with the presidents private life, do not seem to care.
Critics of the president ask why he does not exploit his stubbornly high popularity to tackle some larger issues, such as ensuring the financial viability of Medicare (health insurance for the elderly) and social security. Six months into his second term, there is little sign the president will risk short-term approval of the polls to solve long-term domestic problems. He has campaigned for a place in history by expanding the Nato defence alliance, reforming welfare, and concluding a fragile agreement to balance the federal budget. But much of his campaign is waged on a far narrower battlefield: so far, not the stuff of which historic presidencies are made.
Few Americans seem to care if Cinton solicited sex from Paula Jones, writes Patti Waldmeir