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Article: Public Purposes and Private Pursuits: Questions about Bill Clinton.
- Article from:
- Presidential Studies Quarterly
- Article date:
- September 22, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Center for the Study of the Presidency. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Some years ago, I appeared as a guest on the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour to discuss the moral expectations Americans have of their politicians. One of the other guests had written a book about the hypocrisy of political men who pretended to be good husbands and family men but, in fact, cheated on their wives, and so on. She wanted the bastards publicly exposed. I disagreed, saying that private life should be left alone. My maxim was that the character flaws that matter for politics are those that politicians show in their public lives. Private life should be off limits. She won and I lost that debate. The First Amendment and competitive media saw to that. However, I have ...