Executive privilege: 'personal responsibility' applies to everyone but the Clintons.

• Author: Henderson, Rick

It's not clear if President Clinton will survive the allegations surrounding former intern Monica Lewinsky. Many partisan defenders of the administration have contended that the president has done no wrong, and even if he did engage in a dalliance, Bill Clinton's personal life is nobody's business. But it is certain that, through his own actions and those of his subordinates, Clinton has continually undermined the theme that has dominated his administration's domestic agenda: personal responsibility.

In 1992, candidate Clinton pledged to promote policies that help people who "work hard and play by the rules." Over the past three years, in radio addresses on topics as diverse as cracking down on deadbeat parents ("We need everyone to take responsibility, to give children the love and support they need and deserve"), welfare reform ("We have begun to put an end to the culture of dependency, and to elevate our values of family, work and responsibility"), targeted tax cuts ("a new covenant with the American people that offers more opportunity to everyone willing to assume personal responsibility for their own lives"), and praising U.S. Olympic athletes ("They took personal responsibility and did the hard work"), the theme of responsibility has remained the center of the Clinton presidency.

Even the allegations of an illicit affair with Monica Lewinsky and an associated cover-up didn't keep Clinton from speaking of responsibility in the State of the Union Address: "We are moving steadily toward an even stronger America in the 21 st century," he said. "An economy that offers opportunity, a society rooted in responsibility, and a nation that lives as a community."

It is an open question whether requiring grade-school students to wear uniforms - one Clinton recommendation - or bribing college students through AmeriCorps to do community service makes young people responsible or merely compliant. Regardless, as the current scandal reminds us, there's a serious disconnection between the administration's stated policy agenda and the actual conduct of Bill and Hillary Clinton in their professional lives: From Vincent Foster and Susan McDougal to the Travel Office staff and Monica Lewinsky, the Clintons have repeatedly evaded responsibility for their own shortcomings when it was more convenient to let somebody else take a fall. The president and first lady might have avoided a lot of trouble had they followed their own advice about personal...