Washington, D.C. -- In one of those little coincidences that makes satire difficult, last Friday morning, while
the world was awaiting the release of the Starr report over government Internet sites, a House subcommittee on
telecommunications was holding a hearing about online smut. Not even a third-rate comic novelist would try
this if she were making up a story.

I promise I’ll change the subject, but right now here in Washington there is no other subject. Having
struggled mightily for years to become the constant center of attention (if not the center of the
universe), President Clinton can hardly complain that HMO now stands for "Hold My Office" (or "Help Me Out");
social security refers to the status anxiety among the New Class Clintonistas who have so much invested in
Clinton; and campaign finance reform . . . well, better not go there at all.

In the klieg lights of the moment it is hard to see very far ahead, but already the outline of the
historical import of the moment is coming into view. A month ago in this space I noted the similarity to the
famous Hiss case, which turned on the legal point of perjury. Back then the Left wanted to excuse Hiss for
his perjury on the grounds that even a misguided "youthful idealism" didn’t merit prosecution. The Left
came to see the Hiss case as a trial against New Deal liberalism itself. Although for most ordinary people
the case was simply about espionage, the Left was in a sense correct, in that the fallout from the case
reflected badly on the cast of mind that not only could be attracted to Soviet communism, but also excuse such
a betrayal. Moderate liberalism recognized the repugnance of the Hiss faction, and emerged stronger
for it over the next generation by renewing its commitment to anti-Communism.

Today the cultural Left wishes to excuse perjury because it is "only about sex," and in the fullness of
time will begin to view this controversy as an inquisition of Baby Boom/1960s liberalism. Once again,
the Left will be correct in a vital sense. It is appropriate that the flash point of Clinton’s political
crisis should be about sex, because the sexual revolution--and its derivatives such as feminism--is
the most potent legacy of 1960s liberalism, and it is mostly a cultural, rather than policy, legacy. The
nation has turned away from 1960s-style liberalism in civil rights, economics, welfare policy, and foreign
policy. But cultural liberalism has continued to advance unabated.

Ten years ago Sen. Pat Moynihan wrote: "The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics,
that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and
save it from itself." This is one reason why Moynihan describes the present moment as "a crisis of the
regime," and why an impeachment process will force the nation to confront the axioms of cultural liberalism
about sex, privacy, and veracity. And this moment is shaping up as a turning point against the cultural
Left. Even if the public lets Clinton off the hook, public sentiment is clearly crystalizing against the
premise of the cultural Left that personal character is a quaint or obsolete virtue. Another Clinton victory
for conservative principles.

--By Steven Hayward