May 13, 2007
Gary Hart VII Posted by Alexander Burns at 10:50 AM EST I have no desire to interrupt the exchange unfolding between Joshua Zeitz and John Steele Gordon. Just briefly, though, I’d like to respond to Mr. Gordon’s earlier post in which he writes that he is “interested . . . that neither Mr. Burns nor Mr. Smoler mentioned the 800-pound gorilla of American sex scandals, the Monica Lewinsky uproar.” I left it out of my post because I’m not sure it really serves as evidence of the kind of hypocrisy that I was arguing merits intrusion into a politician’s private life. There’s probably an argument to be made that Clinton’s behavior constituted hypocrisy. For example, it takes a certain degree of gumption to champion welfare reform designed to encourage responsible family behavior, while simultaneously wrecking your own family. That’s a more difficult case to make, though, than the one against Steve LaTourette. In his post, Mr. Gordon also says he doubts that “some latter-day combination of William Allen White, Edward R. Murrow, and Walter Lippmann could have brought himself to suppress” the Lewinsky story. Maybe so, maybe not. On the tail end of the Clinton impeachment affair, it actually came out that one mediocre reporter, no Murrow or Lippmann he, had been sitting on a hugely salacious story that arguably merited reporting even more than the Lewinsky news. Lloyd Grove, the author of the Washington Post’s gossip column, had known for some time about a rumored affair between House Speaker New Gingrich and a much younger aide, Callista Bisek. If one believes that the press ought to expose hypocrisy, then it would seem hard to justify keeping it secret that Bill Clinton’s most enthusiastic antagonist was carrying on an extramarital tryst of his own. Grove has never explained his decision in a terribly plausible way. The news of Gingrich’s affair came out, regardless of Grove’s discretion, and Callista Bisek is now what some former Gingrich staffers call “Wife No. 3.” If Gingrich decides to make his own bid for President, I suspect we’ll be hearing much more about this whole history. And if the former speaker expects everything to turn out well, he should talk to Gary Hart.
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