When Is Presidential Behavior Public and When Is It Private?

JAMIESON, KATHLEEN HALL ; ADAY, SEAN

On February 27, 1998, the Philadelphia Inquirer quoted a hospital administrator who runs a Republican professional women's group in Louisiana as saying,

 Well, let me tell you about my dearest friend. Her son has a rare heart
 disease, and at one time she had a $160,000 medical bill because she
 couldn't get health insurance. So we're talking about the sex scandal, and
 she tells me, "Because Clinton's in the White House, I can get the
 insurance now." That's all she call come up with! This is a person with a
 big IQ. I wanted to say to her, "What about the fact that because of
 Clinton, our moral foundation is built on sand?"

There is a similar sense of bewilderment in press accounts. U.S. News and World Report, for example, asked on its February 2 cover, "Is He Finished?" and showed a stern Clinton dwarfed by a grainy, smiling Lewinsky. In that issue, columnist Gloria Borger's disbelief is evident in her hypothetical explanation for the voters' continued approval of Clinton's presidency:

 Look at it this way: Hillary Clinton's ability to separate her own personal
 anguish from the political anger she feels is not unlike Bill Clinton's
 ability to persuade voters to separate his private life from his public
 character. Most voters now even accept this notion that somehow one side of
 the brain doesn't affect the other.(1)

Where pundits predicted that the allegations would undercut public confidence in his presidency, the opposite seemed to be the case. Clinton's approval ratings stayed above 60 percent through May. When a reporter questioned whether it was healthy for the public to feel that presidents' personal lives are not relevant, Clinton declined to answer the question.

What explains this disconnection between the assumptions of reporters and the polled responses of citizens? The answer is simple: the public makes a distinction between private and public character and between the personal and the presidential. So, for example, 80 percent of a national sample reported in late February(2) that "In judging Clinton, we should focus on how the country is doing and his policies, and not on his private life." Sixty-five percent agreed with the statement, "The public has become more realistic and accepts that political leaders should be judged on their job performance not their personal life."(3) Sixty-seven percent told the same pollsters that the president "should be able to withhold certain private matters," and a majority (59 percent) found it "understandable [that] he would not tell the truth about his sex life."(4) Even if one supposes that Clinton did have an affair, 66 percent believe that that is "his business and has nothing to do with this job."(5)

Even when pollsters explicitly ask about ethics, the public-private distinction holds up, with 59 percent saying that it is "possible for Clinton to be unethical in his personal life while maintaining integrity as president."(6)

Why the distinction between the personal and the presidential? In part it is because revelations about the sex lives of presidents from Franklin Roosevelt through John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson have lowered public expectations about marital fidelity in the White House. Eighty-eight percent report that "other presidents have had equally bad private lives."(7) Similarly, three out of four say, "Clinton's faults are no worse than other presidents."(8) Based in part on the conclusion that some of the nation's great presidents have led less than exemplary private lives, 84 percent now tell surveyors that "Someone can be a good president even if you disapprove of his personal life."(9)

Also, it is possible that at least the 24 percent who say they can imagine "circumstances where you'd commit adultery"(10) have concluded that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. This conclusion is borne out by the finding that 51 percent think that Clinton's moral standards are the same as the average married man's, while 6 percent consider them higher.(11)

Nor do the allegations break an implicit compact that candidate Clinton forged with voters. As Democratic pollster Peter Hart observes, "You're assuming that the American public at some stage said that this is a person of high moral values. In truth, they've never believed that."(12) Fifty-six percent report that "before recent allegations," they thought that "Clinton had other affairs."(13)

Indeed, throughout the spring of 1998, polls showed a consistent public belief that Clinton and Lewinsky had a sexual relationship, despite the depositions of both to the contrary and despite the president's stern denial the first week after the story broke. From late March to late May, between 46 and 56 percent of Americans said they believed a sexual affair took place, while between 22 and 41 percent said they did not believe the relationship existed. Indeed, despite the dismissal of the Paula Jones suit and the damage to the credibility of Kathleen Willey, the strongest majority believing Clinton had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky was found in a May 20 TIME/CNN poll, with 56 percent believing the affair took place and only 22 percent saying they thought it did not. Yet, throughout this period, Clinton's support remained high, with 62 percent saying in a May 23 CBS poll that they approved of his performance.

Despite the belief that an affair took place--and the implied belief that Clinton lied in denying it--polls have consistently found that people make a distinction between private sexual behavior and presidential conduct. Typically, about 60 percent of respondents say they do not think a president's sex life is relevant to his job; only about a third indicate otherwise. As long as the public judges the allegations a private rather than a public matter, high confidence in the conduct of the presidency can coexist with doubts about the truthfulness of a president's responses to the charges about what is perceived to be his private life.

Furthermore, when two-thirds (64 percent) say that it is very important for the president to provide moral leadership, approve of his work as president (66 percent), and say that he is hiding something about Lewinsky (67 percent),(14) one can plausibly conclude that the public-private distinction is at work here, as well. Voters are defining moral leadership as "understanding the problems of people like you," which 63 percent say describes Clinton. They are not, by contrast, defining it as having "high personal moral and ethical standards," a standard only 28 percent think Clinton meets.(15)

The public-private distinction works to Clinton's advantage in a second way when the public perceives that those raising and investigating the allegations have violated privacy rights. Note the high level of public disapproval of Linda Tripp's taping of conversations with Lewinsky (71 percent disapprove, according to a January 30 Fox poll), Kenneth Starr's requiring Lewinsky's mother to testify (64 percent disapprove according to a February 16 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll), and his request that Secret Service agents appear before the grand jury (53 percent disapprove according to the same poll).

Indeed, approval of Clinton's presidency parallels disapproval of special prosecutor Kenneth Starr and his investigation. In poll after poll, a solid majority thought Starr was going too far in his investigation (58 percent),(16) that he was principally concerned with hurting Clinton rather than finding the truth (56 percent),(17) and that his investigation was more partisan than impartial (52 percent on May 8,(18) 58 percent on May 23(19)). And from the beginning of the investigation, poll after poll showed that only about a third of respondents felt that the investigation should continue, despite their corresponding belief that an affair had taken place and that Clinton had lied.

There appears to be a public suspicion that the press has intruded on what should be private space, as well. What some in the press regard as investigative journalism seems to the person in the street to be simple voyeurism. More than two-thirds of those surveyed think that the media should stop reporting on the sex lives of public figures, holding that the sex life of a politician should not be a public issue.(20) Public opinion regarding the news media deteriorated dramatically in a short period of time: 50 percent of respondents in a March CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll said they felt the media had acted responsibly in covering the story; by April 14, a Marist College Institute poll found that only 32 percent said they felt the press were doing their job, compared with 68 percent who said they felt the news media had overstepped their role.

The public apparently disregarded the press frame. In a March 20 TIME/CNN poll that asked if Clinton should be impeached if "the evidence shows that [he] had an extramarital affair" with Lewinsky, 70 percent said no. Polls showed that a consensus in favor of impeachment did not even emerge when the question was framed in terms of Clinton committing perjury, with 55 percent telling an April NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that they felt the president should remain in office under that circumstance, and only 40 percent saying he should be impeached.

The polls suggest where the public draws the line between private and public behavior. While people overwhelmingly said Clinton should not be impeached or resign for having a sexual relationship with Lewinsky, and a majority did not even think that perjury would warrant his removal, a majority consistently favored impeachment when asked specifically about suborning perjury. A News Interest Index poll released April 3 found that when asked only about the sexual relationship, 40 percent favored impeachment; when asked specifically about the president committing perjury, the number climbed to 45 percent; but when the question was put in terms of encouraging Lewinsky to lie under oath, 54 percent supported Clinton being removed from office. This seems to indicate that the public believes private behavior becomes public when it extends beyond his personal behavior and creates incentives for someone to lie under oath. By this logic, if Clinton and Lewinsky were to lie independently of one another, the public would deem it a private matter. But if Clinton encourages her to lie, perhaps by offering a quid pro quo for a job, the public would judge it a public matter involving a conspiracy. Further evidence of the public's lack of tolerance for illegalities not related to sex is that Clinton's approval rating dropped in June amid reports that he may have broken the law regarding campaign contributions from Chinese donors.

The facts of the Lewinsky story plausibly support both the private/sex and the public/legal frame. The question is, how can we know which frame the public is adopting? One clue seems to lie in the fact that Clinton's approval ratings remain high. This suggests that people do not think he encouraged Lewinsky to lie, since in that circumstance a majority supports his removal from office. Furthermore, when asked a generic question, such as "Based on what you have read or heard, do you believe that President Clinton should be impeached and removed from office," 71 percent said "no" in a March 20 TIME/CNN survey; 76 percent said "no" when the question was asked again in an April 10 poll released by the same organizations. These numbers are similar to those elicited when people were asked if Clinton should be impeached just for having a sexual relationship with Lewinsky. They are far removed, however, from the majority or near majority that supported his removal in the event that he suborned perjury. This suggests that, left to frame the question on its own, the public is casting the allegations in terms of sex and that people do not think that a president's sex life is relevant to the job of chief executive.

The Lewinsky story exposes a dramatic difference between the public on one hand and the press on the other when it comes to framing and understanding the personal behavior of the president. American citizens may be interested in the salacious details of political sex scandals, as attention to news reports in the first few weeks of the story suggests, but they are not necessarily making punitive judgments based on that information. Although reporters openly questioned Clinton's ability to avoid impeachment for what appeared to be at least perjury and at most suborning perjury, and Republican congressional leaders said to varying degrees that impeachment proceedings might be warranted, the public did not see the alleged activities in legal terms.

This raises three important points. First, the American people are capable of absorbing large amounts of information from the press without losing the ability to think for themselves. The press, although certainly interested in the more tawdry aspects of the case, initially applied a public/legal frame to the Lewinsky story that was largely disregarded by a public that reframed it in terms of private behavior. Second, this difference in framing suggests that the press is out of step with the public over how to judge individual politicians. The public seems more concerned with job performance than personal proclivities. Finally, the public has a line it does not expect politicians to cross, and that line is drawn at obstruction of justice. The polls suggest that support for Clinton would drop dramatically were it shown that he had tried to induce others to cover up his alleged indiscretions. At that point, private behavior would become a matter of public censure.

Notes

(1.) Gloria Borger, "The Clinton's Marriage," U.S. News and World Report, February 2, 1998, pp. 30, 32.

(2.) Harris poll, February 25, 1998.

(3.) NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, March 5, 1998.

(4.) New York Times/CBS poll, February 23, 1998.

(5.) ABC/Washington Post poll, February 19, 1998.

(6.) Los Angeles Times poll, February 1.

(7.) Harris poll, February 25, 1998.

(8.) CNN/USA Today poll, February 1, 1998.

(9.) CBS/New York Times poll, February 23, 1998.

(10.) Fox poll, February 20, 1998.

(11.) TIME/CNN poll, January 30, 1998.

(12.) Dan Balz, "Willey Gets a Shrug; Public Seems to Divorce Clinton from Shadow; New Allegation Rates a Shrug from Public," Washington Post, March 19, 1998, p. A14.

(13.) Los Angeles Times poll, February 1, 1998.

(14.) CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, February 16, 1998.

(15.) ABC/Washington Post poll, February 19, 1998.

(16.) TIME/CNN poll, March 30, 1998.

(17.) Washington Post poll, April 5, 1998.

(18.) CBS poll, May 5, 1998.

(19.) CBS poll, May 23, 1998.

(20.) Fox poll, January 29, 1998.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON

Dean, Annenberg School for Communication, and
Director, Annenberg Public Policy Center
University of Pennsylvania

Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the dean of the Annenberg School for Communication and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Her most recent book, coauthored with Joseph Cappella, is Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good.

SEAN ADAY

Ph.D. Candidate, Annenberg School for Communication
University of Pennsylvania

Sean Aday, M.A., Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, is a Ph.D. candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication. He is a former reporter who received his undergraduate degree at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.