Compartmentalization: That was the conventional Washington answer up to last week. Repeatedly we were told that a president’s personal life has no relation to his public activities. But a study of presidential history shows a link between lying about adultery and lying about other matters.

The dozen years between the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the fall of the World Trade Center in 2001 formed a hopeful time in U.S. national affairs. In 1992, though, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Webster decision smashed hopes of rolling back Roe v. Wade, and Bill Clinton gained election as sexual harasser-in-chief.

Six years later, I optimistically thought we could reemphasize the importance of character in leadership, and move beyond the equation of compassion and cash in poverty fighting. I wanted to explain these two ideas to secular audiences.

Two news stories provided opportunity. Early in 1998, in a nationally televised news conference, President Clinton said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” DNA evidence on a blue dress later showed that was a lie, but his liberal defenders said it didn’t matter. They said character was unimportant compared to Clinton’s policy positions and his appointment of pro-abortion justices. I delved into history to explain to business readers of The Wall Street Journal that sexual scandals are significant.

Late in 1998, Texas Gov. George W. Bush overwhelmingly won reelection and became the GOP presidential front-runner on a “compassionate conservative” platform. My task was to explain that it’s wrong to measure compassion by the size of federal welfare expenditures—churches and community organizations could help the poor more effectively. This was heresy to many New York Times readers, but its editors gave me space to explain.

Twenty years later, it’s apparent that I was overoptimistic.

Sex and the presidency

The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 26, 1998

Compartmentalization: That was the conventional Washington answer up to last week. Repeatedly we were told that a president’s personal life has no relation to his public activities. But a study of presidential history shows a link between lying about adultery and lying about other matters.

Woodrow Wilson is a classic example. Until age 50 he was an upright if slightly dull Presbyterian professor and long-married university president. Then he had an affair with Mary Hulbert Peck, which he covered up so well by paying her off financially that he was elected governor of New Jersey in 1910 and president in 1912, both times running as a candidate of private and public integrity. Adultery and its coverup contributed to a theological transformation in Wilson. He spent the rest of his life liberating himself from other commandments that he now regarded as suggestions.

The new Wilson broke faith with the American people in three ways. In 1916 he won reelection with the effective slogans “He kept us out of war,” while privately telling Cabinet members, “I can’t keep the country out of war.” One month after his second inauguration, Wilson led the U.S. into World War I.

Then he lost the peace by refusing to compromise with Senate leaders who agreed to adopt the League of Nations treaty only with reservations that would preserve American sovereignty. Finally, when Wilson had a major stroke that left him unable to exercise the duties of the presidency, he refused to step down. Instead he and his aides pretended that he was able to work, and his second wife was effectively the president during Wilson’s last year and a half in office.

Or consider the case of Warren Harding. His sexual coverup (he hid his affairs with Carrie Phillips and Nan Britton) presaged his administration, one of the most corrupt in American history. In contrast, Jimmy Carter’s faithfulness in marriage, so great that he needed to confess publicly that he had lusted in his heart, was also a marker: His administration would be open and above-board, even if not entirely competent.

Journalists and voters who do not scrutinize candidates’ sexual flings are negligent.

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