The recent Clinton scandal is a timely illustration of how most Americans hover at that moral midpoint. On the one hand, they are eager to fight for the right to keep ones personal life private, on the other, they are swift to judge, condemn and burn at the Inquisitional stake any deviation from family values. Clinton is held captive, caught in the middle as a steady 70% of Americans give him his highest approval rating ever and at the same time, sabotage his presidency by gluing themselves to their televisions sets, thereby boosting media ratings, and forever fueling a moral tornado of judgments, debates, and analyses which keep private behavior in a continual public forum. Even staunch Democrats cannot help but chastise the inappropriate sexual behavior and condemn the public life. These seasoned representatives know it would be political suicide to take a postmodern stance - to refuse to acknowledge adultery and lying as morally wrong.

A CNN/Time poll found that half those interviewed believe the President lacks the moral character to be president, yet why then does his approval rating remain so high? Is it simply reflective of a healthy economy and low unemployment, or does this statistic instead expose our secret desire--to be card-carrying postmoderns? I suspect the latter.

I also suspect that the President is concealing more than interns and cigars. I suspect he IS a card-carrying--shhh! But he doesn't want anyone to know. Walter Truett Anderson writes, if one wishes to be President, one should not "be seen as too postmodern--(or) say in public that truth is socially constructed." Evidence reveals this may be Clinton's strategy. How is he a postmodern?

First, he is bi-partisanly criticized for engaging in the typically postmodern pastime of parsing words, reinterpreting meanings, redefining, deconstructing language. He attempts to dodge indictment and impeachment by reaffirming his untruths, mistruths, or half-truths, including his belief that "is" can have multiple meanings, "oral" sex is not sex at all, and "not alone" can simply reflect that there are others in the same building, city, or world at large.

Secondly, Clinton's ability to compartmentalize his life beckons us to the cut-and-paste character of postmodernity with its dispersions, differences, dismantlings, distractions, and segregated parts. "Modernity," on the other hand, is imbued with cohesiveness within its Hegelian-like world views and grand narratives.

Thirdly, the President is a baby boomer, and according to a 1993 study conducted by Wade Clark Roof, "60's children" embrace moral values on the basis of personal preferences, employing a decision-making process not so different from the purchase of an automobile, television, or stock. This subjectivism is said to be in part a reaction to Kennedy's assassination, Watergate, the Vietnam war, and other disenfranchising events.

Not so many years ago, Michael Dukakis balked at being identified with "L" word (he was accused, as you may recall, of being a "card-carrying Liberal); now Clinton can't own up to the "P" word. If he could, perhaps he could avoid the "I" word, and perhaps his deeply wounded legacy could be revived after an inspirational speech "I have not sinned" speech about how diverse  value systems make America great. But until Clinton accepts the "postmodern" label, I'm afraid his presidency will continue to wear a "post-mortem" toe tag.

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