Where I Stand -- Brian Greenspun: Real danger of Clinton-Lewinsky scandal lies in aftermath

MONICA LEWINSKY and other weighty matters.

I have turned over a new leaf -- again -- by committing to those interested in my health an effort to spend a few hours a week in the workout room at the Sports Club Las Vegas. That means that I'll be looking svelte in a few months and feeling better than ever. It also means that I've found a brand-new audience for my thoughts, a not insubstantial benefit for the effort I will be making.

Tuesday, my first day of doing some not-so-heavy lifting, coincided with the latest news in L'Affair Monica in which the special prosecutor, Ken Starr, granted the long-sought immunity that Monica had been seeking for herself and her mom. The question posed by those pumping the big iron was: What will this mean for the country in the future? It is one of the better questions I have heard.

Most people who are willing to discuss this matter -- which includes practically everyone able to take a breath -- speak more in the present, showing a concern for the future of President Clinton with little thought given to the longer-term consequences that may result from this entire sordid affair. I guess when you are focusing on power lifting, the weightier matters of the day take precedence.

For what it is worth, here's how I answered the question. First, of course, I admitted my bias. The president is my friend, so it is not only my prerogative but my responsibility to believe him when he says nothing happened. I know that puts me in a very distinct minority of Americans, but it is a place in which I am comfortable because that's what friends do for each other. They believe.

Having said all that, it is apparent that Starr gave up the full extent of the immunity laws to Monica in exchange for something he wanted to hear. It remains to be seen whether she admits to a sexual relationship of some sort or something worse, an overt effort to obstruct justice by President Clinton or his friends. Since I don't believe for a second that the president would have stepped into that trap, I'll deal only with the likelihood that she'll admit some sexual liaison. True or not, it is a cheap way for her and her mom to get out from under whatever wrongdoing they may have committed.

So that leaves us with a "he said, she said" sex story. And that leaves us -- as citizens -- with a decision to make about what level of involvement we want to have in the private lives of those we elect to lead us. So as I look out over the next few years and the effect this issue will have on politics and government in America, what I see is darker days ahead.

The public has already made a judgment, no matter whether President Clinton's detractors want to admit it. And the judgment is that they are not particularly interested in what they believe is the private sex life of two adults, however disconcerting it may be to think that one is the president and the other an intern. Those who want to pooh-pooh the public-opinion polls, which suggest that almost two-thirds of the American public believes Clinton is doing a good job, say that a good economy alone is responsible for the numbers. I have a different view.

Sure, a good economy has traditionally been responsible for the election and re-election of many of our national leaders. People hate to change horses in mid-stream or mess up a good thing. This case, though, is different. There has been a bad aftertaste in the mouths of most Americans ever since the demise of the political life of Gary Hart, the diminishment of Camelot since the rumors turned to fact about President John F. Kennedy and the slandering of the great and good name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt for not being as faithful as an adoring public would have wished him to be. Not to mention the rumors swirling around the sex lives of some more recently elected presidents.

I believe the American public has awakened to the fact that there are some areas of our leaders' lives that should be off limits, and that is what is driving those poll numbers. We all know neighbors, co-workers and friends who are somewhat overactive in some sexual matters -- the kind that they wouldn't want their spouses to know about. We deal with that kind of knowledge every day, and we put it in a place that almost always has little or no effect on the way we deal with that colleague or friend. In short, we believe those matters are best left at home for the people involved to work out.

And that is what I think is causing poll numbers that say Americans believe something sexual happened -- which means they don't believe President Clinton's denials -- but that they are putting that information in the same place they put similar information about their friends and colleagues. That doesn't mean they have to like it, just that it doesn't rise to a level of significant concern in their lives. And that should tell us all we need to know about the future of President Clinton.

More importantly, though, is the aftermath of this whole mess. No matter who is the next president or the one after that, a new level of political earth-scorching has been developed. Don't think for a minute that the Democrats haven't learned from their GOP friends all the new and innovative ways to undo that which the voters have done. Civil lawsuits filed within minutes of an inauguration, sexually charged allegations that will titillate a public hungry for distraction and depositions designed to harass and harangue those in elected office will be the order of the day. And life will get uglier.

And the excuse for such continually abhorrent behavior? Paybacks are a bitch!

And who will pay the price of this political tit-for-tat (please excuse the expression)? We the people. The cheapest part of that price will be the millions of dollars of wasted investigative money and the billions of dollars in lost time and efficiency. The hard price that we'll pay will come in the diminished respect all Americans will have for their institutions of government and the people who give themselves to public service.

And that, my friends, is just too much to pay for learning all there is about the sex life of the president, however exciting that may be.

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