Jesse Jackson: Preaching forgiveness, practicing something else
By the Mencken standard, public virtue, then, is what we do when we know we're being watched and private virtue is what we do behind closed doors.
Fair enough. But the thing is, we've never decided exactly what is the relationship between private behavior and public performance. What is the connection between what a leader does behind closed doors and what she does when she's in the spotlight? We know that there is some kind of correlation, but we're not exactly sure what it is. Which brings me to the sad case of Jesse Jackson.
I'm not a big fan of the Rev. Jackon. I usually find that he's a bit sanctimonious and takes up too much air in any room that he's in. But what makes Jackson's case so piquant for people is that they see it as a salacious symbol of hypocrisy. Here was Jesse Jackson ostentatiously promoting himself as Bill Clinton's spiritual adviser during the Monica Lewinsky debacle when, at the same time, he was fathering a love child.
But does that make what he said at the time about sin and forgiveness wrong? By the same token, would it have made his spiritual advice stronger if he had been faithful to his wife? What bothers us, I guess, is what used to bother me when my father said, "Do as I say, not as I do."
In an odd way, the Ashcroft hearings also have been about this nexus between private behavior and public virtue. No one is claiming that Ashcroft himself is anything but a paragon of virtue in his private life. Judge Ronnie White, the black jurist blocked by Ashcroft from ascending the judicial ladder, says that he does not believe the man is a racist. But at some level, what irks Ashcroft's critics is that there is some discrepancy between his private virtue and his public life. He preaches tolerance in private but may not practice it in public. He preaches love of his fellow man in his faith but then doesn't seem to live up to it in his public life.
I won't get into the theological issue of whether grace can be achieved through faith alone, but let's say, for the sake of argument, that you can achieve grace through the good work you do here on earth. Does it really matter, then, if Nelson Mandela cheats on his taxes? (He doesn't, by the way.) Does it matter that Mother Teresa was nasty to her kid brother? (I'm making that one up, too.) The idea here is that if you perform great and lasting public service, perhaps it doesn't really matter what the heck you're like in private.
Hitler loved his dogs. Does that make him any less of a monster? (I'd argue it makes him more of one, by the way.) But you see what I'm driving at. If you are responsible for great evil in your public life, I'm not sure it matters how decent you might have been in your private life. You can't tell me anything good that Joseph Stalin did in his private life that would make me say he was anything but evil.
It seems that the American public makes a similar kind of distinction when it comes to its leaders. Take President Clinton. Just contrast his high poll numbers for his job performance and his low numbers for his character. People matter-of-factly assume that his public performance is a lot more important than anything he does in private.
But I'm a little old-fashioned. I think there ought to be some congruence between one's public life and one's private life. Obviously, the ideal would be if a president were a paragon of virtue in public and in private. (See George Washington as the prototype.) I also believe that one's private conduct is a useful and important measure of one's public character. Washington would have agreed. I suspect he would have regarded Clinton's lack of control in private as an ominous indicator for his public behavior as president.
Plutarch described great leaders as embodying "virtue in action." That virtue ought to be evident in both their private and their public lives.
But when there's a choice, public virtue always trumps private rectitude.
And Jesse, you've got some repenting to do on both counts.