Independence Day

In addition to his regular column in the Boston Globe, my friend Jeff Jacoby writes a weekly newsletter called Arguable, sharing his always worthwhile thoughts on topics current and timeless. This week, he discusses a recent Gallup survey in which “an overwhelming 75% of Democrats responded that it was more important for the president to set a good moral example; only 19% placed greater emphasis on agreeing with the president’s views. Among Republicans, by contrast, just 30% stressed the significance of an upright moral character versus 60% who said it was more important that a president agree with them on the issues.”

So, Jacoby wonders, do Democrats place moral decency above politics, and Republicans vice versa? Not quite: He cites the responses when Gallup asked precisely the same question in 1999, when Bill Clinton had just been impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with his morally shameful activities. Seventy-five percent of Republicans said presidential morality was paramount; only 36% of Democrats agreed, while 57% considered his stance on the issues more important. In short, writes Jacoby,

most Republicans care about presidential morality only when a Democrat is president. Most Democrats only think moral leadership matters when a Republican is in the White House…. Partisan polarization divides Americans and embitters their politics, but that isn’t the worst of it. It also turns them into amoral hypocrites, who demand virtue and honor from leaders only when those leaders belong to the party they oppose — and who dismiss those values as irrelevant when it’s their own party that holds power.

A textbook example of this hypocrisy is Bill Bennett, the Republican former secretary of education who has written numerous books for adults and children on morality and values. In his book The Death of Outrage, he assailed defenders of Clinton, arguing that a “president whose character manifests itself in patterns of reckless personal conduct, deceit, abuse of power, and contempt for the rule of law cannot be a good president.” But, says Jacoby, “now that the president ‘whose character manifests itself in patterns of reckless personal conduct, deceit, abuse of power, and contempt for the rule of law’ is Donald Trump, Bennett’s view has flipped. His view today is that what matters ‘are the actions being taken by President Trump and Vice President Pence, and they are saving the country.’ ”