Scandals of '83

...What homosexuals do with each other is the state's business only to the degree that what heterosexuals do is the state's business, and that ought to be a mighty small degree This is a principle conservatives and liberals can share But aids is very much the state's business, as any killing disease must be-and the business is not to stigmatize, it is to save As for the people who are so ready to draw moral lessons from the pains and misfortunes of others, throw them to an ethics committee...

...The heavy play being given to the campaign incident, or alleged incident, is of course related to Watergate What was so dispiriting about the Watergate affair, however, was not mainly the initial breakin, gross though that was It was the ensuing revelations the cover-up, the plottings, the exposure of the low level at which our highest officials operated, the baseness of mind and spirit that characterized the Nixon gang By contrast, Ronald Reagan's response has so far been exemplary, and if one group in his Administration should use the occasion as a chance to unhorse a rival group, that would hardly be unprecedented in the American Presidency...

...Are my moral faculties more calloused than those of the editorial page writers who have been roused to indignation and lamentation...

...And if it's not the sporting field, then it's the battlefield...

...Crane's adultery is the business of his wife and his six children and possibly his God, not of you and me There is an amusing side to catching Daniel Crane in a fling In the description of the New York Times, he "has portrayed himself [in three successful campaigns for Congress] as a solid, churchgoing, family man, a conservative Republican who set himself apart from what he described as the fast-living 'Washington set'" Yet this sort of hypocrisy is innocent compared with some of the things that go on in Washington If the exposure makes it more difficult for Crane to play the holier-than-thou middle American arbiter of other people's morality and panderer to his constituents' prejudices regarding big-city sinning, that would be refreshing...

...Secret plans and surprise plays may add a zing to football games and they are indispensable in war, they do not enhance democratic elections The last-minute charge, the manufactured expose, the floating innuendo, the smart shot-these undermine a process already severely compromised by money contributions in expectation of later services I f we are treating elections as a sort of tennis tournament, then how about penalizing players for sneaky manners-not for stealing secrets but for having them in the first place...

...Granted, the Reagan information gatherers were not moved by a high journalistic mission They simply wanted to know what Carter would be doing so that the Reaganauts could do unto him before he did unto them Without doubt they had secret strategies of their own for the off chance that Carter would not succeed in defeating himself Had a Carter partisan managed to pry these out, that would have been all right with me, too...

...Sex and the Congressmen If we can stipulate that except for exceptional circumstances the way men and women satisfy their lusts ought not to be a matter of public concern, then the mortification of Representatives Daniel B Crane, Republican of Illinois, and Gerry E Studds, Democrat of Massachusetts, comes down to the fact that their consorts were 17-year-old Congressional pages The attraction that 17-year-olds hold for the middle-aged requires no Congressional investigation Whether the Congressmen were in some sense in loco parentis to the young persons with whom they exchanged favors is a real question...

...Perhaps the error, as Russell Baker has suggested with typical good sense, is our habit of using sports events as the central metaphor for the game of politics Sometimes it's boxing, sometimes racing or football, but we take for granted references to the Reagan "team" and the Carter "team " How would political writers survive without the language of field and turf...

...ADS and the Moral Majority The most scandalous behavior involving sex these days comes from the Moral Majoritarians who have taken to interpreting aids as a punishment from God Once again, the forces of religious benightenment have come out from the holes where they conduct their mumbo jumbo to reveal themselves in all their viciousness...

...As for Crane's committing adultery and Studds' practicing homosexuality, that the voters' business...

...would anybody have criticized him for spoiling the game if he published their secrets...

...Since the proteges apparently have not complained of being pressured, one may charitably assume that they found the Congressmen attractive and enjoyed some pleasure or benefit from the association...

...Personally, I have no trouble believing that every single Reagan operative-from the candidate himself down to the kids who ran the copying machines-would have accepted, and probably did accept, without a qualm any scribble proffered by a Carter operative So why do I feel no outrage...

...Instead of thinking of elections as athletic matches, we ought to treat them as trials-with the two sides required to participate in disclosure proceedings and open to each other the arguments they are planning to put forward in behalf of their respective candidates, thus permitting ample time for illuminating rebuttal Let the candidates battle it out in the open, with the public privy to everything That's what elections are for...

...Fair Game BY WALTER GOODMAN The Scandals of'83 Do you know anyone whose imagination is stunned by the possibility that members of the Reagan campaign team did not avert their eyes when plans of the Carter camp came their way...

...Suppose that a reporter had found a source within either camp willing to let him in on the tactics being concocted to trip up the opposition...

...In a House of Representatives where, at a modest estimate, half the members owe their jobs to cash from some well-padded source, there is something obscene about a committee on ethics making a commotion about the sexual behavior of Congressmen If our representatives are concerned about Americans being screwed, let them investigate defense contracts...

...By comparison, Crane's reaction was becoming He said he was "sorry" and "I only hope my wife and children will forgive me " That's right-only they have something to forgive All that he owes to the rest of his constituents is behavior in Congress that is in accord with the campaign promises that got him elected Of course, if he insists on courting votes by denouncing other people's sexual practices, then he has nobody but himself to blame for his predicament...

...Studds' homosexuality was by all accounts no secret in his district Had he been fooling around with a 17-year-old girl, that could have been construed as proof of misrepresentation As it is, all one can hope is that Studds, who, to quote the Times once more, "is known as forthright and honest and a hard worker and is generally respected even by those who oppose him politically," will resist the temptation to try to turn his little romance into an issue of principle In describing the episode with a Congressional employee 20 years his junior as a "mutually voluntary, private relationship between adults," he was indulging in more cant than candor Enjoy yourself anyway you choose, Gerry, but please spare us the propaganda...

...But let's get back to those secrets what place do they have in a political campaign that is supposed, after all, to be part of a continuing educational process for the citizenry...

...I seem to be blocked from an appropriate level of anger at the Reagan bunch by irritation with the high value placed on secret strategies Are our Presidential elections a kind of children's game, in which one side conceals itself with the intention of popping out at an unexpected moment and yelling "Gotcha1" at the other side...