Where I Stand -- Janie Greenspun: Release of video intended only to humiliate the president

SOMETIMES LATE AT NIGHT my husband and I get a bottle of tequila, put reggae music on and dance naked around the bedroom. After a few songs, when we are feeling happy and frisky ... Is this what you people really want to read? Is this National Enquirization of the news media what society has come to expect from journalists?

Outrage is what I feel these days. The decision by the House Judiciary Committee to release secret grand jury testimony by the president of the United States and 2,800 pages of salacious material gathered by independent counsel Kenneth Starr smacks of nothing more than a partisan, political, kick-a-man-when-you-smell-blood-and-maybe-we'll-get-elected-in-November ploy if ever one existed.

Party of Lincoln, my Aunt Fanny. Whatever happened to the spirit of fair play in our code of ethics and honor? The Republicans should be ashamed of themselves. Starr's report is one side of the story, the prosecutor's side. The flooding of this material on the American people's psyche is designed for one purpose and one only: to humiliate and embarrass the president until the polls start to move in their favor. The 30 or so percent who opposed the president before the scandal still do. The majority of Americans, the ones who support the president, want the assault to stop, and the undecided remain so.

I hope the Republican course of action to abolish all sense of fairness, justice and due process in this country backfires and the American people understand they are being held captive in a dangerous political game. Why is it that Clinton's sex life is fair game for smarmy prosecutors to examine, yet the moment a Republican's sexual indiscretions are revealed, everyone cries foul? Why are we so obsessed with each other's sex lives?

OK. So President Clinton engaged in kinky sex with a wild young woman. Already this is way out of the sphere of information I wish to know. I don't read pornography or engage in other prurient activities. Why must I be bombarded daily on TV, radio and print with details of someone's, especially the president's, private life? It's enough.

Years ago, I wrote a Hollywood gossip column for the Sun when I lived in Los Angeles. My brilliant father and publisher advised me to stay out of people's bedrooms. Private lives should remain private, he told me, unless it is absolutely relevant to the story.

While President Clinton's sexual appetite is apparently out of whack, it hasn't interfered with his ability to run this country. His family has suffered tremendously, and they alone should bear the pain. Their resolution of this terribly personal lapse in morality is for them to come to grips with, not us.

It is not my place to condone, excuse or forgive the president. Nor is it my duty to castigate him. Do I wish he'd behaved himself? Of course. What a fool he's been! Has he led the country well? This is the matter upon which we should be judging Clinton, and my response is a resounding yes.

Impeachment is such a serious matter. The continuous provocation of the American public by the systematic release of inflammatory material politicizes a process that must be thoughtful, impartial and fair. Not since Donald Segretti have Republicans engaged in such dirty tactics.

Look at the campaign being waged against Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. Perhaps no other person is more responsible for saving Nevada's natural resources than Sen. Reid. From the creation of the Great Basin National Park to the protection of Lake Tahoe and Red Rock Canyon, Sen. Reid has led the charge as a prominent member of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. Yet TV ads, paid for by the Republicans, make the blatantly false claims that he has, in some obscure way, cost Nevada millions of dollars earmarked for the protection of Lake Tahoe.

I pray the American people, and the citizens of this state, remain focused on issues of importance in our lives. The question Americans should be asking is, "Am I better off now than I was six years ago?" We are the strongest, most economically sound nation in the world, yet we are engaged in some sort of self-cannibalism at a time when other nations are looking to us for guidance.

By reducing our president to the status of a rock star, we have crossed a dangerous line in this country. Who among us is moral enough to withstand the brutal inspection of his or her private life? Will qualified men and women choose not to pursue careers in public service because they don't want details of their sex lives heralded on national television?

As my father told me, "Stay out of the bedroom."

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