Wednesday, January 28, 1998

Men, women split on view of scandal

By Bonnie Erbe

Much has been said and written these last few days about the president's troubles. Precious little has been said or written about how women (as distinct from men) are reacting to the news of his alleged affair with a White House intern.

This is, in the words of Lewis Carroll, curiouser and curiouser, as women are not only the base of the president's electoral support (they voted for him over former Senate Republican leader Bob Dole last year by a 10-point margin) but they are also at the heart of this, shall we say, affair.

The president would not be in such deep trouble were it not for women. And at the same time, he probably would not also be in the White House.

The public, overall, is reacting less drastically than "Official Washington" or "Media Washington." The former is shaken only to the point where, according to a CNN/Time poll, the president's "favorable" ratings of 60 percent last week fell this past week to 50 percent. The latter is acting like Armageddon is approaching.

But perhaps the most interesting numbers to come from this poll are in response to the question, "Do you care about this matter?" to which the public replied "no" 59 percent of the time and "yes" only 36 percent of the time.

Equally interesting, however, and much less highly-publicized, is the split in opinion between how men and women view his travails. When asked by Rasmussen Research, only 42 percent of women in the Charlotte, N.C., area said they believe the president had an affair with intern Monica Lewinsky, while 55 percent of men said they did. And asked whether the president told Lewinsky she should lie about their relationship, 51 percent of men said "yes" while only 37 percent of women answered in the affirmative.

Why this seismic gender split? Perhaps the genders' answers are so different because men can identify with the president's situation more personally due to their own realm of experience than women can with theirs. A survey some years back showed that 75 percent of American men admitted to having extramarital affairs, compared with only 50 percent of women.

That survey always seemed to pose more questions than it answered, because the question came immediately to mind, with whom are the additional 25 percent of men having affairs, if not with women? Are men just being more honest? Are they bragging? Or are women being more discreet?

In attempting to explain the split between men's and women's opinions on the latest allegations, I believe it's because women are more trusting and less likely to rush to judgment.

But once women feel sure they have been wronged, well, we all know the saying about "Hell hath no fury ..." Perhaps another factor in women's hesitancy to desert the president is that more of them voted for him than did men, and those women do not want to admit they made the wrong choice.

As one who admires much of what the president has done on the legislative and programmatic front, it is crushing to witness him besieged by this most devastating of accusations. But even his supporters have to realize that at some point his continued tenure in office is more damaging to the causes he supports and the party to which he belongs than would be his departure.

Impeachment is not the answer, because it's highly dubious he did anything to violate federal law. And the process would damage the country and the political balance beyond imagination. But having endured a series of presidential fund-raising scandals, bad Cabinet appointment after bad appointment, accusations of sexual liaisons followed by more accusations of such liaisons, even some of his most solid female supporters are wishing that he would find a way to quietly disappear.

Bonnie Erbe is host of the PBS program "To the Contrary." Her e-mail address is 102404,3317@CompuServe.com.

Scripps Howard News Service