The disparity between what a large majority of American citizens believe to be a fair punishment for President Bill Clinton (censure) and the views of their elected leaders who set in motion the impeachment process, is a result of a "confusion" in American life caused, in part, by "two gigantic forces" that have left the nation unsettled, the president's former press secretary, Mike McCurry, told a packed Law School auditorium on Feb. 2.

These two forces -- the end of the Cold War and the "Information Revolution" -- have made collective decision-making about national issues much more difficult and complex, contended McCurry, whose campus visit was sponsored by the Knight Journalism Fellows at the Law School.

Without an adversarial superpower, it has become harder for Americans "to come together as one nation to assert our own national interest," he said. In contrast, when America had a clear enemy during the Cold War, "we couldn't afford the dalliance of a sex scandal involving the president of the United States because the odds were too great," McCurry stated.

The ability of Americans to access more information "than we ever knew what to do with before," has also played a role in creating in the political culture "a moment of incomprehension," McCurry told his audience. The barrage of information has made it difficult for Americans to separate the "real from the imaginary and the important from the less consequential," he remarked. Issues which should have loomed large in the minds of the nation's citizens -- such as Kosovo, events in central Africa or the souring of the Asian economy -- were overshadowed by "things that all of a sudden became mesmerizing -- certain dresses with certain things on it," he added.

The increasing concern of news organizations to make profits has also affected how the media filters the news Americans watch or hear, stated McCurry. "So what do you do [to make profits]? You create or keep going a story that's easy for people to understand; you add additional plot units, additional units of coverage, additional commentators on Monica, all night all the time, to keep the audience riveted, paying attention, to hold your market share."

The result, he said, is that "[w]e get our opinion, we get our analysis, very often before the central facts that help us understand what's going on."

Swamped with all this information, the public has come to "live comfortably with two sets of decisions about the politicians we elect, and certainly the president we elected twice," McCurry stated. "On the one hand, as individual citizens we come to private judgments about behavior and character. ... Then as citizens, as members of a larger community, we come to some public judgments and we make a collective decision about what's good for our combined self-interest." Thus, it is not surprising that the president would have favorable job ratings "at a time when most people find his personal conduct reprehensible," McCurry commented.

The majority of Americans came to a "reasonable judgment" about a fair punishment for Clinton, McCurry believes. "I think they wanted to extract a pretty harsh punishment," he explained, referring to the everlasting "stain" of censure that will be recorded in history books. He added that Americans' historical perception of the presidency has also changed. "We no longer put our presidents on pedestals; in fact, if anything, we strip them naked," McCurry said.

Now a consultant for a Washington, D.C. public relations firm called Public Strategies, McCurry left ample time during his Law School visit for what he described as "the fun part," fielding questions from his audience. He had also spoken to students at a Morse College master's tea earlier in the day.

During the question-and-answer session, McCurry joked about his ability to dodge questions but was candid about his ambivalence toward Clinton, whom he described as "a fine fellow, but [one who] comes best in tolerable doses." On the subject of Hillary Clinton, McCurry was more flattering. "My affection for her and my respect for her grew mightily after August," he said of the First Lady. "I've come away from this a huge fan of hers. I'd walk across hot coals for her."

McCurry, who served as White House press secretary for four years before leaving the post in October, also lamented the current state of national politics. "We've lowered the bar for what constitutes scandal but have not found a way to reward those [political leaders] who are doing a good job," he said. "We need to find a way to cut people some slack, let them be human, and reward them for taking time on tough issues."

-- By Susan Gonzalez