Reading about Herschel Walker and his “personal life” — to use a familiar euphemism — I thought of an antique word, and concept: “shame.” I’m not sure it has been uttered since Cotton Mather. Actually, it was uttered by Colin Powell in the mid-1990s, and thereafter.
A lot of people wanted him to run for president in 1996. Ultimately, he demurred, saying so in an announcement he made in November 1995. I was working at The Weekly Standard at the time. Many of us were gathered around a television, to watch the announcement. (That dates the thing.) Most of us were against Powell for president — maybe all of us were. We did not think he was conservative enough. Some of us were Gramm crackers (admirers of Senator Phil Gramm).
In the course of his remarks, Powell said that America needed to “restore a sense of shame.” It was stunning to hear this. An editor at the Standard — who had been opposed to a Powell presidential bid — applauded. He then said, “Run, Colin, run!”
As the years wore on, Powell returned to this subject of shame, at regular intervals. No one on the right today would consider him a conservative. He was certainly not a conservative in our current red–blue configuration. But in calling for the restoration of a sense of shame, he was deeply conservative.
In 1995 — the year of the speech I have mentioned — we were big on virtue and character and all that. We on the right, I mean. These were the Clinton years. We thought that Clinton and his coterie were shabby and shameful. (And this was pre-Lewinsky, mind you!) In 1993, William J. Bennett’s Book of Virtues had been a runaway hit.
A couple of memories from the 1980s, if you will indulge me. In mid-1987, Gary Hart had a little scandal involving a yacht named “Monkey Business.” Man, what a name! A gift to comedians, politicos, headline writers, and others. Hart was forced to withdraw from the presidential race (of the 1988 cycle). It all seems rather quaint now.
Later in 1987, Judge Douglas Ginsburg had to withdraw too. He had been nominated for the Supreme Court by President Reagan. But then it was revealed that he had smoked pot as an assistant professor at Harvard in the 1970s. That was enough to cook his nomination.
Can you imagine?
In the Clinton years — especially at their Lewinskyan apogee — Democrats lectured Republicans that Europeans — especially the French — were more mature than Americans. More mature where “personal” matters were concerned. Republicans tended to answer, “We don’t want to be like the Europeans. We don’t want to be like the French.”
President Clinton brazened out his scandals, showing that it could be done. You needed to be a very brazen politician — shameless — and you needed a compliant culture. But if you were brazen enough, and had a compliant culture . . .
Flash forward to the 2016 presidential campaign and Access Hollywood. There was the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, on tape, engaging in “locker-room banter,” as he would describe it. Sample: “I moved on her, actually. You know, she was down in Palm Beach. I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and f*** her. She was married.”
If Republican voters blinked, they didn’t blink twice. And Trump was elected.
Can a Republican presidential nominee pay hush money to a porn actress, and hush money to a Playboy bunny, and emerge unscathed? Emerge adulated? “Manifestly,” as Bill Buckley would say.
During the ’16 campaign, Colin Powell had a criticism: “Trump has no sense of shame.” By then, this was something like a foreign language, I think.
Herschel Walker has an extensive record: the illegitimate children, the abortion payment, the fabrications, etc.
Hang on a second: Speaking of foreign or antique words, such as “shame,” here is an antique expression, which I learned long ago from a woman born in the Taft administration: “There are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents.”
So, will Republicans blink over Herschel Walker? I doubt it. The wagons circled immediately. All over GOP Land, people “doubled down.” Senators Tom Cotton and Rick Scott will be in Georgia tomorrow to campaign for Walker. I’m not sure the revelations about the candidate will affect a single vote.
When you speak of right and wrong — to say nothing of shame — you are apt to be accused of “virtue signaling,” “moral preening,” and whatever else has shown up in the lexicon lately. But accusations are a dime a dozen, and if you can’t stand the accusations, get out of the kitchen.
I think the restoration of a sense of shame would be helpful in our society. I would not want to go the full Profumo. (Although I admire John Profumo tremendously.) I do not recommend hari-kari. If you required spotless records, you could not be able to people the government, or any other institution. Who ’scapes whipping, in this wretched world?
But a sense of shame is a societal asset, and I favor what Gertrude Himmelfarb called for, in a somewhat awkward phrase: the remoralization of society. Society, she said, had been de-moralized. So, remoralize it.