Justice_ What's the Right Thing to Do_ - Michael Sandel [64]
His most memorable such denial came in response to reports that he had had sex in the White House with a twenty-two-year-old intern, Monica Lewinsky: “I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me… I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.”
It later came out that the president did have sexual encounters with Monica Lewinsky, and the scandal led to impeachment proceedings. During the impeachment hearings, a Republican congressman argued with a Clinton attorney, Gregory Craig, over whether the president’s denial of “sexual relations” was a lie:
REP. BOB INGLIS (R-S.C.): Now, Mr. Craig, did he lie to the American people when he said, “I never had sex with that woman”? Did he lie?
CRAIG: He certainly misled and deceived—
INGLIS: Wait a minute, now. Did he lie?
CRAIG: To the American people—he misled them and did not tell them the truth at that moment.
INGLIS: OK, so you’re not going to rely—and the President has personally insisted… that no legalities or technicalities should be allowed to obscure the simple moral truth. Did he lie to the American people when he said, “I never had sex with that woman”?
CRAIG: He doesn’t believe he did and because of the way—let me explain that—explain, Congressman.
INGLIS: He doesn’t believe that he lied?
CRAIG: No, he does not believe that he lied, because his notion of what sex is, is what the dictionary definition is. It is in fact something you may not agree with, but in his own mind, his definition was not—
INGLIS: OK, I understand that argument.
CRAIG: OK.
INGLIS: This is an amazing thing, that you now sit before us and you’re taking back all of his—all of his apologies.
CRAIG: No.
INGLIS: You’re taking them all back, aren’t you?
CRAIG: No, I’m not.
INGLIS: Because now you’re back to the argument—there are many arguments you can make here. One of them is he didn’t have sex with her. It was oral sex, it wasn’t real sex. Now is that what you’re here to say to us today, that he did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky?
CRAIG: What he said was, to the American people, that he did not have sexual relations. And I understand you’re not going to like this, Congressman, because it—you will see it as a technical defense or a hairsplitting, evasive answer. But sexual relations is defined in every dictionary in a certain way, and he did not have that kind of sexual contact with Monica Lewinsky… So, did he deceive the American people? Yes. Was it wrong? Yes. Was it blameworthy? Yes.44
The president’s attorney conceded, as Clinton had already done, that the relationship with the intern was wrong, inappropriate, and blameworthy, and that the president’s statements about it “misled and deceived” the public. The only thing he refused to concede was that the president had lied.
What was at stake in that refusal? The explanation can’t simply be the legalistic one that lying under oath, in a deposition or in court, is a basis for perjury charges. The statement at issue was not made under oath, but in a televised statement to the American public. And yet both the Republican inquisitor and the Clinton defender believed that something important was at stake in establishing whether Clinton had lied or merely misled and deceived. Their spirited colloquy over the L word—“Did he lie?”—supports the Kantian thought that there is a morally relevant difference between a lie and a misleading truth.
But what could that difference be? The intention is arguably the same in both cases. Whether I lie to the murderer at the door or offer him a clever evasion, my intention is to mislead him into thinking that my friend is not hiding in my house. And on Kant