Worse than a crime

National Review, Dec 14, 1992

IN RENEWING his campaign pledge of "immediate repeal" of the ban on homosexuals in the armed forces, President-elect Clinton proved that he is not always the canny politician of reputation.

The President of the United States must be, above all, a plausible Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. This role lifts him above the normal and somewhat disreputable level of "politics" and makes him an almost monarchical figure of national unity. The legitimacy of the Federal Government depends heavily on the popular faith that this government, for all its defects, is in the final analysis our defender.

Accordingly, any President's popularity is closely tied to his ability to play the role of Commander-in-Chief with authority, which is why war heroes have so often won the office and Michael Dukakis didn't. Harry Truman badly damaged his Presidency by firing a great war hero in Korea; Jimmy Carter shrank to risible dimensions when he seemed incapable of responding adequately to enemies abroad.

Mr. Clinton has obvious problems with this role, never having done military service and having, in fact, taken extraordinary steps to avoid it. Now, in his first public gesture as future Commander-in-Chief, he has shown a gross insensitivity to the soldier's life he was spared. The ban on homosexuality in the military is an entirely rational attempt to keep the explosive element of sexual desire out of the cramped conditions of barracks life, just like having separate quarters for women. As one wag has put it, President-elect Clinton seems not to understand that soldiers don't like to take showers with the kind of men who like to take showers with soldiers.

In taking this position, Mr. Clinton has antagonized the very men, from Colin Powell to the humblest grunt, whose unquestioning loyalty he would otherwise have enjoyed as a matter of course; he has politicized institutions whose virtues require exemption from politics; he has insulted a moral and virile code in order to introduce his generation's New Morality where it is likely to disrupt workable arrangements; he has underscored various questions about his own character which a fawning press had tried to squelch.

A man with better credentials might have been able to effect this "reform," assuming that such a man wanted to attempt it. In Mr. Clinton, however, it can only seem the presumption of a man for whom politics is all, and tradition nothing. It's surely a new sort of Commander-in-Chief who declares cultural war on his own troops.