The President and the Prosecutor: Three Views on Politics and Personal Life

IF BILL CLINTON were impeached or forced to resign over the Lewinsky case, the incident might force a national examination of how men in power treat female subordinates. The most important question his alleged behavior raises, after all, is not whether a little adultery hinders a man’s ability to make great and grave decisions; it surely does not. Rather, the question is whether a man—president, bank president, legal partner, department head, what have you—who sees women primarily as carrying cases for glands and hormones should be involved in running the world. If Clinton behaved this way, and if his ouster meant we’d end up with new ground rules, then it might be not merely necessary but salutary.

But one doubts ...