The Long Goodbye: Floundering Father

SUPPOSE the love dress does not force President Clinton to tell the truth. Should he tell it anyway? Can he? Why do we want him to try?

The scenario of confession and repentance has been laid out for him by dozens of well-wishers, from gossip columnist Cindy Adams to Sen. Orrin Hatch. Come clean, tell all, be shriven. It is an old American, and an older Christian, script. President Clinton is certainly the best qualified, among current politicians, to pull it off—his greatest rhetorical gift, which conservatives habitually underestimate, being sincerity. Maybe he doesn’t have to be all that gifted: a dull slab like Sen. Kennedy gave a mea culpa after Chappaquiddick that persuaded the only audience he had to persuade—the voters.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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SUPPOSE the love dress does not force President Clinton to tell the truth. Should he tell it anyway? Can he? Why do we want him to try?

The scenario of confession and repentance has been laid out for him by dozens of well-wishers, from gossip columnist Cindy Adams to Sen. Orrin Hatch. Come clean, tell all, be shriven. It is an old American, and an older Christian, script. President Clinton is certainly the best qualified, among current politicians, to pull it off—his greatest rhetorical gift, which conservatives habitually underestimate, being sincerity. Maybe he doesn’t have to be all that gifted: a dull slab like Sen. Kennedy gave a mea culpa after Chappaquiddick that persuaded the only audience he had to persuade—the voters.