Commentators have suggested that hadrnPresident Clinton been accused of twornor five indictable or impeachable acts, hernwould not today be President of thernUnited States, but the 250 or so offensesrnof which he is suspected both deadenrnthe imagination and protect the President.rnMore important than their number,rnperhaps, are the banality and tawdrinessrnof his administration’s allegedrncrimes and misdemeanors; bank and realrnestate fraud, money laundering, and influencernpeddling; illicit fundraising, perjury,rnand the subornation of witnesses;rnadultery, fornication, solicitation It isrnthe stuff of cheap novels, bad movies,rnand worse television concocted by small,rnconventional, and unimaginative mindsrnfor the enjoyment of still lesser intelligences.rnEven a public titillated by Hollywoodrnand numbed by the national newsrnmedia becomes jaded. The banality ofrnthe Clinton presidency is less the banalityrnof evil than it is the banality of venality.rnSo who cares? Life is short; and thernlives of ordinary Americans are filledrnwith banalities and venalities of theirrnown.rnUnfortunately, the world—in particular,rnthe political worid—is full of banalrnand boring things that we ignore at ourrnperil. Such are the scandals of the Clintonrnadministration. For the incumbentrnWhite House gang, scandal has becomerna policy of sorts, conveying the assurancernof continuity. Like the Little Rascals orrnPenrod Schofield, the Clintons are perpetuallyrnin the soup—which might seemrncute or endearing of them, were it not forrntheir status as the nation’s First Adults.rnLike so many of their generation, thernFirst Couple are children at heart, and sorntheir sequential response to being caughtrnout is childishness itself: “I did not!”; “Sornand so made me do it!”; “Don’t spankrnme! rilnever, ever, doit again!” (“Anyway,rnall the other kids do it.”)rnConfronted by such behavior, adults,rnhaving other matters to attend to, arerntempted to ovedook it. Yet, “Spare thernrod and spoil the child” is a fit maxim ofrnpolitical as well as of domestic life. Mostrnpoliticians, not just the Clintons, are essentiallyrnspoiled children: selfish, selfwilled,rnand vain, lacking self-control andrngiven to threats and tantrums, they arernlittle soft balls of unmolded Original Sin.rnIn the absence of discipline, children andrnpoliticians grow into tyrants. The majorityrnof America’s overwhelming troublesrntoday are the result of a failure on thernpart of Americans to pay attention tornwhat their politicians, and their children,rnare up to, and to call them on the carpetrnfor it. In an age of moral shortcutting,rnchildren, politicians, and lawyers—mastersrnof the short cut, all of them—requirernespecial scrutiny. Surreptitiously sellingrnthe Lincoln Bedroom as if it were a unitrnat the No-Tell Motel might appear like arnvenial sin, until one considers the politicalrnlegacy of its namesake. PresidentrnAbraham Lincoln was willing to cut allrnkinds of constitutional and political cornersrn(in addition to killing and maimingrnthree-quarters of a million men) in orderrnto win a war and save the union (evenrnif that union was largely a figment of hisrnimagination). Today, Lincoln’s successorrndoes not hesitate to circumvent everyrncampaign finance law on the books simplyrnto save his own job, even at the expensernof mortgaging Lincoln’s belovedrnUnion to Hollywood vulgarians andrnAsian dictators. The American Republicrnhas come a long way, morally speaking,rnsince the days of martyred Abraham.rn—Chilton Williamson, ]r.rnARCHBISHOP WILLIAM Levada,rnthe Roman Catholic ordinary of SanrnFrancisco, and the city’s leftist mayor,rnWillie Brown, squared off last February,rnand though the debate may continuernover who drew more blood, it’s clear whornwas left staggering at the bell. ArchbishoprnLevada sought an exemption for hisrndiocese from San Francisco’s new ordinancern(which takes effect next month)rnrequiring organizations and businessesrncontracted by the city to provide employees’rn”domestic partners” with benefitsrnequal to those provided employees’rnspouses.rnOur Sunday Visitor, in attempting torndefend Archbishop Levada, said the newrnordinance bound organizations “doingrnbusiness with the city,” whereas the SanrnFrancisco Examiner said it targeted “organizationsrnreceiving municipal funds.”rnFor the Roman Catholic Diocese of SanrnFrancisco, “doing business with the city”rnmeans taking over five million dollars annuallyrnto run hospitals and other “socialrnservices.” Anyone scandalized by thatrnfigure should know that the RomanrnCatholic Church’s principal agency forrndispensing social services in America,rnCatholic Charities, receives nearly threernquarters of its operating budget fromrngovernment coffers, rendering suspectrnsuch claims as “The Catholic Church isrnthe single largest provider of social servicesrnto women” (Helen Alvare, NationalrnCouncil of Catholic Bishops) or “Wernare the largest provider of HIV housingrnand services on the West Coast” (BobrnNelson, Cathohc Charities). Who, afterrnall, is actually doing the providing? ThernChurch or the State?rnIf the answer is unclear, it is becausernthe relationship between the two has becomernmore unholy than a “domesticrnpartnership.” The Church in the modernrnworld has grown so accustomed torntaking the king’s shilling that, when itrncomes time to do the king’s bidding,rneven though it is clearly immoral, thernmost the faithful can hope for is a facesavingrncompromise. Complete capitulationrnis more often the result.rnWhich is exactly what happened tornthe 340,000 Catholics in San Francisco.rnFaced with the loss of five million dollars.rnArchbishop Levada gave up the threat ofrnlegal action (presumably based on thernReligious Freedom Restoration Act, famousrnfor overturning the sovereign Staternof Oregon’s laws against dope smoking)rnand caved in, saying “An employee mayrndesignate a legally domiciled member ofrnthe employee’s household as being eligiblernfor spousal-equivalent benefits.”rnThen, to distract his flock from his semantics,rnhe held a press conference announcingrnthat he hoped to work with therncity of San Francisco to achieve universalrnhealth care. Read: “If only we had socializedrnmedicine in this country, Irnwould not have to be in the difficult situationrnof defending the teachings of myrnChurch.” Archbishop Levada expectsrnhis compromise will set the precedentrnfor other dioceses that run afoul of thernstate’s laws. Perhaps. But for a prince ofrnan institution that ought to be at oddsrnwith the modern state, it is an unusualrnclaim.rnIn fact. Archbishop Levada’s eagernessrnto make peace with the state is arnsymptom of a deeper problem in thernChurch. In researching why, for example,rncertain Roman Catholic hospitals inrnAmerica dispense artificial contraceptionrnat their pharmacies, I have been toldrnby Church officials that Catholic healthrncare is today faced with a “matter of survival.”rnAlas, to go to hell over a merernmatter of markets. One is reminded ofrnScrewtape lamenting the poor quality ofrnsouls coming into Hell these days: “Thernmunicipal authority with Graft sauce”rnbut lacking the least hint of the “brutalrnavarice such as delighted one of the greatrntycoons of the last century,” or the “luke-rn8/CHRONICLESrnrnrn