Subject: Letter to the Editor

With Kathleen Willey's allegation of sexual assault, the feminist movement has been split between those who feel that, if true, Bill Clinton should be approprately punished and those who feel that, even if true, Bill Clinton really didn't do anything all that bad because he is a friend to the feminist movement. Frankly, it is the division between those who believe that the end justifies the mean, and those who don't. Gloria Steinem's published opinion states that Bill Clinton is too important as an abortion rights champion to worry about what he did to Kathleen Willey. In other words, the end of having an president who strongly supports abortion rights is more important than the mean of keeping a perjurer and sexual predator in the White House. This is the same argument of those who supported Mussolini (he made the trains run on time), or McCarthy (he was keeping America free from Communism), or Marcos (he was a good friend to America).

I don't think we should excuse a crime because of the beliefs of the person who committed it, whether we agree with those beliefs or not. Nor should we excuse a crime because the person is otherwise doing a good job. For instance, would you keep a lawn service whose employees were propositioning the neighbors, no matter how green they kept your lawn? No, you would fire them, and replace them with a service who kept your lawn green but left the neighbors alone.

In America, the power of the government is invested in the people, and the Constitution is our contract with our employees, i.e. Congress, the Courts, and the President. Here, we get the government we demand. If we do not demand that our employees follow the law, they won't. Instead, some are saying: You can do whatever you want, just deliver on our issue (abortion, healthcare, taxes, prosperity). Is this really the bargain we want to strike with our employees? What does it profit a woman to gain the world but lose her soul?


Kevin Murphy