Leader? Lothario? We Must Find Out

While Bill Clinton huddled with his legal and political spinmeisters, plotting more splitting of semantical hairs, his place in history was being written elsewhere - by the standup comedians, the coffee shop tongue waggers and a horde of salivating journalists.

He’s in trouble. This time, not even his charm - possibly his downfall, as well as his strength - can save him. Only the truth can. The arguments in Clinton’s defense are these:

Lots of other politicians have been promiscuous slugs, so why should we let this one bother us?

The accusations strike the American people as plausible, but the people ought to presume him innocent anyway.

Both Clinton and his accuser have lied, but maybe she’s a bigger liar than he is.

Americans should disregard Clinton’s alleged behavior and get indignant, instead, about tactics of the special prosecutor who’s investigating him.

These arguments are a house of cards. They, like the administration, risk being swept away in a hurricane of public revulsion.

If most of the other presidents in our history had been accused of taking sexual advantage of a young subordinate scarcely older than their daughters, the response would have been immediate: Preposterous!

Knowing that, no young subordinate would have dared to make such an accusation. Unless it was true.

Yet times have changed. Bill Clinton helped change them. It wasn’t only the smoke and fire of sexual affairs, it was a lot of things. Renting the Lincoln bedroom to his sleazy Hollywood campaign contributors. Repeatedly reinventing his political principles to coincide with the latest polls …

Our low expectations are the real scandal, and they are in fact an undeserved slander on a great many presidents and politicians who served our country with sincerity and integrity.

It remains a possibility that Clinton is falsely accused. Perhaps the modern political climate encouraged his accuser. But that seems unlikely. Would a 21-year-old get an intern’s job in the White House and proceed to orchestrate one of the most outrageous, complicated smears in U.S. history against the most powerful man in the world?

On the other hand, would Clinton abuse his power and then try to cover it up? That question is so serious, Americans must contain their disgust until they get a convincing answer. Too much is at stake, to make the Oval Office a dirty joke.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board