The death of outrage?

Bill Bennett is out with a new book, The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals (Free Press, $20). He recently talked to NR about the scandal, the public reaction to it, and what effects it is having on American culture.

NR: What do you think of the speech?

Bennett: I thought it was one of the most repellent, self-indulgent speeches ever given by an American President

NR: Why?

Bennett: Because it was a lie. It was a lie literally, in the sense of him not telling the truth and taking responsibility. But it was also a lie emotionally, morally. There was not candor. I don't know whether it was more like an adolescent getting caught doing something terrible and yelling at his parents. Or whether it was the ultimate in cynicism. Or whether it was both. It was ugly.

NR: What responsibility does the political community bear for all this?

Bennett: A fair amount. He, Clinton, is the most responsible party. But in drug rehab, they use the language of enabling. There were people who just shrugged their shoulders and said, "Never mind, we knew this about him." Havel has this great line about the greengrocers during the Communist regime living within the lie, people who knew it was a lie but mouthed the platitudes of a lying regime. To be specific and pointed, I remember being with Mario Cuomo on CNN saying, "Do you really like this guy? It will be more of the same and probably worse. He will be mired in this stuff in '97, '98, and '99."

Democrats waved him on. And Republicans were too polite to raise the issue. Remember there was a fight inside the Dole campaign? I was one of the co-chairmen saying we should take this on. But the public bears responsibility too. Sixty per cent of the people who voted for Clinton said in exit polls he was not trustworthy or honest. Well, he heard that and paid us back: "They don't care, so fine."

NR: What responsibility do Republicans have now?

Bennett: They have only one responsibility, and that is to do the right thing. You hear people say, "Well, it's a good opportunity for Republicans to be the party of virtue." Forget virtue, for a moment. It's the party of truth. Just be clear and consistent and say we're going to do the right thing.

NR: Should there be resignations?

Bennett: One wonders if there's not one honorable man or woman there. I followed Bill Cohen on Meet the Press Sunday and it was painful to watch him. I don't get it. I've talked to some Democratic senators whom I know and I've worked with. As Imus said, they're all in diving bells off the Marianas Trench. Unreachable. Moynihan gave us defining deviancy down; now we're defining Democrats down. Where's Lieberman? Where's Kerrey? Where's Bill Bradley?

NR: In a way, is all this just an argument about the sexual revolution?

Bennett: That's a big part of it. It's a false dilemma that we've had for six months: "It's about law. It's about sex." It's obviously about both. But there are people who just cannot get beyond the notion that anything consenting adults do is fine. This, however, is being gradually eroded by two different things. Larry King has asked everybody on his show, "If this was your daughter, how would you feel?" To a person, they have said, "Furious, out of control, vengeful." But the other thing that will test that proposition is this behavior itself. You're in favor of the general proposition? All right. As the facts are coming out we are getting examples of the specifics. How about these facts? Now, how about these? I hope eventually the American people will say, "Enough, we surrender, we don't really mean it."

NR: What is the source of the seeming complacency on the part of the public?

Bennett: Short answer: Good times are rolling; there's certain degree of cynicism about politics. Long answer: Solzhenitsyn and Walker Percy have explained the spiritual depletion of the West, the marginalization of the moral. The decline in the vitality of belief in the things that sustained this country. It's the difference between us now and the us of Saving Private Ryan. It's Saving Private Ryan vs. Seinfeld.

NR: If Clinton gets away with this will it cement that difference once and for all?

Bennett: I don't know if it's once and for all. Never underestimate the American capacity for self-renewal. We may have to really take our medicine, until we start to hear the echoes. Every perjurer is going to claim Clinton as his legal father. Every adulterer is going to claim Clinton as his moral father. When we see the spillover of this, in what kids say, in what becomes routine, then I think there may be a re-evaluation.

NR: Do you think there will be that kind of trickle-down?

Bennett: Unless you repudiate it in no uncertain terms. A resignation or impeachment will constitute a kind of cleansing. But absent that, it will happen. A friend of mine, a psychiatrist, tells me that he's hearing from the marriage counselors already that all the guys are invoking Clinton. Echoes. Echoes.

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