We Should Rule That Cop-Out Clean Out

“They all do it,” the woman was saying. “Every president had girlfriends. Why are you so critical of Bill Clinton? Grow up.”

That was only one of perhaps 50 calls I received after a recent column on the Zippergate scandal.

For the most part, the callers were in line with my views - namely, that the vicious assaults on the character of Monica Lewinsky seem to be products of an orchestrated campaign to portray her as a nut or a slut and to absolve Bill Clinton of any blame in the incident.

Polls indicate that this campaign has been marvelously successful. It has been helped by the stony silence of women’s groups that were so appalled when a similar smear campaign was launched a few years ago against Anita Hill.

That seems to be because those groups like Bill Clinton’s politics. In short, a conservative politician who puts the moves on female employees is a pig. If a politician supports the feminist agenda, though, then he’s just a guy being a guy, and what’s the big deal?

Look, it’s obvious that Clinton did it. If you want to delude yourself that he didn’t, be my guest. But videotape is not necessary for reasonable people to arrive at the eminently reasonable conclusion that Clinton once again did what he’s been doing for years. So, let’s get real on that one, OK?

Now what? Should Congress throw him out of office? Overwhelmingly, the country seems opposed to that punishment for private, personal conduct. This is not, like Watergate, behavior that threatens the integrity of the democratic process. Also, a lot of people - guys, in particular - seem to be saying, “Way to go, Bill.”

Maybe they figure that if Clinton can get away with it, they might, too.

From the standpoint of impeachment, the issue isn’t whether Clinton had sex with a woman other than his wife or even whether he lied about it to the public. The details of this incident are sleazy and tawdry, and it comes after a bunch of other sleazy and tawdry incidents in this guy’s career. But he was democratically elected by a public well aware of his darker side.

The only issue is whether this Yale Law School graduate committed a felony - either by lying under oath about him and Monica Lewinsky in a deposition in the Paula Jones case or by urging Monica to file a false affidavit in the same case.

If the nation’s chief law enforcement officer did that - if he violated his oath to uphold the law - then the water gets a lot deeper. We’ll see whether Ken Starr’s grand jury makes that accusation when it comes out with its report. And what Congress does.

But, as to the issue of whether presidents are all adulterers, there’s good evidence that FDR had at least one affair and JFK apparently had more than anybody could count. Lyndon Johnson was a famous womanizer.

But not Harry Truman, not Richard Nixon, not Gerald Ford, not Jimmy Carter, not Ronald Reagan, not George Bush - although there were strong rumors during the 1992 campaign that Bush had carried on a long-term relationship with a staffer. Supposedly, Barbara Bush viewed it as something of a harmless hobby. Who knows?

Also, contrary to what has been portrayed on film, the evidence that a widowed Thomas Jefferson had a fling with a slave girl is extremely shaky. And, according to her book on the topic, Kay Summersby never had a sexual relationship with Dwight D. Eisenhower. They were in love, she wrote, but Ike never touched her.

So, sorry, but they don’t all do it.