Why It Hurts

By Richard Stengel

A man running for President has a weekend off. He spends part of it entertaining a part-time actress from Miami. A newspaper stakes out his home, reports his interlude, and overnight his private life turns into a public obsession. In the relentless glare of the cameras, he testily denies that he had a sexual affair with the woman and bristles over questions about adultery. His popularity slides. Stories surface of another liaison. The candidate, the clear front runner for the Democratic nomination, describes himself as a hunted quarry and withdraws from the field, denouncing the political process.

A retired Air Force general sits hour after hour behind a long table, recounting how U.S. officials created a clandestine network to ship arms to Iran and the Nicaraguan contras, conducting what in effect was a secret American foreign policy. In minute detail, he exposes the covert attempts of high officials to circumvent the law. Vinegary and unrepentant, he avows that he was carrying out the policies of his President in an appropriate manner. The President again claims ignorance, saying he is still waiting to find out what his own Administration did.

Democracy demands accountability, both in the policies of its government and from those who wish to make those policies. Sometimes it extracts that accountability unwillingly, uncomfortably, untidily. As the Gary Hart campaign consumed itself with dizzying swiftness and Richard Secord detailed his intricate web, the U.S. received a painful accounting of leaders. All week there was a sense of the surface of things being stripped away, the underside of public life being exposed to view.

There are many things that Americans do not mind. They are, after all, an indulgent people. Many do not care that their leaders skim the fine print of treaties or are sometimes forgetful. But pretending to be one thing while being another just does not wash. Like claiming not to be a womanizer and then getting caught in what resembled a tryst. Like declaring that America does not bargain with terrorists and then secretly seeking deals with them. In a democracy, hypocrisy is a mortal political sin.

Americans are also sentimental, some would say gullible. Year after year, they enter into a compact with their leaders -- and trust them. Yet in the past two decades, that trust has often been betrayed; each time, Americans are disappointed and disillusioned anew. Last week, as a general turned businessman discussed lucrative foreign intrigues and the evening news flashed pictures of a presidential candidate on a yacht called Monkey Business, it was easy to feel duped, hard not to feel cynical.

Americans think of themselves as tolerant, just as long as mistakes are admitted and explained, but are unforgiving of those who hide their errors behind a wall of indignation. Last week Gary Hart seemed to draw a curtain around his situation, rather than facing up to what was disquieting about his behavior. When asked in a TIME poll what would bother them more, only 7% cited extramarital sex, while 69% pointed to "not telling the truth." Likewise, as the Iran-contra affair has unfolded, Ronald Reagan has seemed to be evading the truth, rather than confronting it. When asked in the poll what bothered them most about Iranscam, a mere 9% cited sending money to the contras, only 25% cited sending arms to Iran, while 51% pointed to not telling the American people "everything that happened."

Underlying the discomfort at watching Hart and Secord is a renewed sense of unease about some of the country's practices and institutions. Once the private behavior of public figures was shielded from view. A conspiracy of croniness united press and politicians. But now all deals are off. The press can stake out the comings and goings of people at a private town house, as well as the takeoffs and landings of planes at unmarked Central American airstrips. But are there some realms of personal privacy and legitimate covert policy that ought not be exposed? Has the system for screening and picking leaders become so harsh and intrusive as to discourage the best from entering it?

A character flaw as old as Icarus was in evidence last week. Behind all the revelations lurked arrogance, a modern hubris. Hart dared the press to stalk him, as though no disclosure could wound him. Secord disdainfully asserted that he could run foreign policy better than those designated to do so. And all along, the President assumed that no one would find out he was sending arms to Iran and evading, rather than enforcing, the ban on aid to the contras. They all wrapped themselves in their own misguided certainty, believing they were immune not only from harm but from public accountability.