THE TRUCE BEHIND THE CULTURE WARS

Values: Shrill Clinton debate drowns out broad American consensus on
most issues.

NEW YORK--Looking at a map, you'd swear the west side of Houston and
the west side of Manhattan are both in the United States. But they
might as well be different countries when it comes to impeachment and
the culture wars raging in America.

"I hate Clinton. I hate everything about the man," says Harvey
Golden, a computer salesman drinking beer in a Houston sports bar. "I
hate him for dodging the draft, for not inhaling, for treating women
the way he does and for just being so damned insufferable. He's a
product of the '60s, and he has no sense of morality." On New
York's Upper West Side, writer Sidney Zion is equally intense: "You
want to know why the left swallows hard and defends Clinton?" he asks.

"It's because they don't want to give a victory to the racist scum,
the antiabortionists and the Christian right. That's who's trying to
bring him down, and that's what's at stake here." These are the
pure, venomous voices of America's culture warsa shouting match that
has become increasingly strident in the media and Congress during the
ClintonLewinsky scandal. But even though these sentiments echo through
the public debate, especially among the political and media elite,
pollsters and sociologists suggest that the clash isn't at all
reflective of what most Americans think. The real story, they say, is
that the majority has reached a broad consensus on many social issues,
ranging from personal morality to sexual behavior, and has
consistently ignored the more extreme aspects of the impeachment debate.

Full of apocalyptic sound and fury, the culture wars are nothing
new. Many historians view them as a continuation of battles dating back to
the 19th century over issues such as temperance, religion, immigration and
tensions between urban and rural America. Every decade, it seems, has had
its own Armageddon: McCarthyism and Red scares in the '50s; the Scopes trial
over teaching the theory of evolution in the '20s; the quest for women's
suffrage at the dawn of the 20th century.

"What we have now is a modern version of old battles," says
Morris Dickstein, author of "The Gates of Eden: American Culture in the
Sixties." "But what is new is that many of the issues are settled; we are
seeing broad agreement on them." This new American consensus, which
grew out of the turbulent 1960s, awarded crucial victories to both sides,
notes historian Theodore Roszak, who has written extensively about the baby
boom generation.

Echoing views held by many observers, Roszak says the right
fundamentally won the political war, given the dominance of
conservative policies today. But the left won the key cultural battles
over issues such as sexual freedom and tolerance for individual
lifestyles. For many Americans, these questions have been resolved,
and Roszak pointedly notes that "the boomers aren't crazy college kids
anymore. They're 80 million people with families. They are mainstream
Americans." Mainstream Has Spoken Loud and Clear This
mainstream has spoken loud and clear on the Clinton scandal: In a
recent USA Today/CNN poll, 79% believed the president committed
perjury, yet 58% said he should remain in office. Sixtyseven percent
believed Clinton had broken laws, but 76% said the case involved
sexual matters that should have remained private.

The picture that emerges is of a prosperous, largely suburban majority
that frowns on the president's behavior yet is not swayed by calls to
remove him from power.

It's a far cry from the Sturm und Drang that flares on allnews cable
TV, radio talk shows, in newspaper columns and on the Internet. For
culture warriors, impeachment is less about legal culpability and
partisan wrangling than a host of unresolved social issues that have
divided the nation for decades: sexual freedom versus moral restraint;
the values of boomers versus those of the World War II generation; the
right to a "zone of privacy" in one's personal behavior versus a more
stringent code of ethics.

There's also a revenge factor, a belief by some that Clinton's
impeachment is welldeserved payback for Watergate, and an angry
response from others that Clinton's crimes are not at all comparable
to those of President Nixon. Yet all of this illustrates a key
paradox: While extreme voices predominate in the debate, an exhausted
publicthe '90s version of Nixon's famous "Silent Majority" during the
'70stunes out much of the superheated rhetoric.

Sometimes it's hard to ignore. Conservative pundit Patrick J.
Buchanan has likened impeachment to a moral crusade, arguing: "It was in the
mud at Woodstock that Clinton's peers publicly embraced the morality of the
Humanist Manifesto: Consensual sex has no moral component. Whether one does
drugs is one's own business . .

. and there exists no objective moral order." Firing back, Katha
Pollit wrote in The Nation: "The Republicans wanted a showdown on morality
and they got one.

People cling to Clinton because they don't believe he's done anything
so terrible, [since] he is, after all, a politician; they hate and
fear Clinton's enemies, whom they see, correctly, as narrowminded
reactionaries with a dangerous agenda." Feud Grows Bitter;
Accusation Traded Undaunted by public apathy, the feud has grown
bitter, like a stubborn playground fight that most students ignore.
Both sides accuse the other of hypocrisy, an accusation that is
intrinsically hard to defend against.

The resilience of this moral feud suggests that Clinton has become a
human canvas on whom millions of people heap their insecurities,
hopes, resentfulness and rage. He is a deeply polarizing figure, even
as the two political parties battling over his future become more
alike by the day. Few issues of consequence seem to separate them
beyond budget squabbles, yet another indication that the culture wars
are vivid but overblown.

"Democrats and Republicans are converging in so many ways," says
Christopher Caldwell, a writer for the conservative Weekly Standard.
"But still, you don't talk about sex the same way in the South as you
do in the Northeast. . . . Southern California is not Ohio. . . .

When you break it down by region, many of these quarrels look larger
than life." 'Where Are the Feminists?' At Shucker's
Sportsbar in Houston's chic Galleria mall, Golden, 47, orders another
beer and reflects on the source of his deep hatred for Clinton. It
isn't just the bad things he's done, says the Houston native.

It's the fact that he smirked and lied on TVand got away with
it.

"This man violated rules about harassment in an office that would have
gotten someone like me fired," he says. "And I wonder, where are the
feminists? They're hypocrites too." It's hard to find a kind word
for the president in the affluent, solidly Republican precincts of
West Houston. The 7th Congressional District, represented by Bill
Archer, is a sprawl of upscale malls, elegant homes, churches and
country clubs. West Houston is home to former President Bush and is
"arguably the most Republican district in the nation," according to
the Almanac of National Politics.

There aren't many people walking the treelined streets of Harris
County, but when you track them down, these Houstonians are ready to
unload on a president whose very name triggers anger.

"The Clinton thing isn't about Lewinsky; it's about the lack of
morality in this country," says Janet Chenoweth, toweling off after a
vigorous workout at her health club. "He represents a disturbing
change, something that came along with his generation, which is that
there is no right or wrong on morality. You make up your own rules."
Is Clinton a true symbol of the '60s? Austen Furse, a money manager
and former director of policy planning for Bush, believes it's unfair
to tar all boomers, but he sees a troubling link between the president
and his peers.

"Bill Clinton is like the Weather Underground or the Black Panthers in
the '60s," Furse suggests. "He's not entirely representative of his
generation, but he's a superconcentrated distillation of its worst
disabilities." Those disabilities, he says, include "sanctimony,
moral hauteur, the presumption that all of your enemies are bad
people, a moral relativism and an exaggerated sense of ethical
mission." Ultimately, Clinton is a person "who many on the left find
hard to condemn without admitting their own values were mistaken."
Clinton, Furse adds, has become his generation's equivalent of Alger
Hiss, the State Department officialand liberal cause celebrewho was
accused of spying for the Soviets during the 1940s and later convicted
of perjury.

Clinton "makes liberals squirm, because for them to desert him now
would be to question their most deeply held values." Nancy Palm,
a 77yearold activist who chaired Harris County's Republican Party
during Watergate, also considers Clinton a moral disgrace. "He's a sad
symbol of his generation, because he typifies the 'if it feels good,
do it' belief of the '60s," Palm says. "The man desecrated our civil
life. If he wanted sex so bad, he should have gone to a Motel 6, not
the Oval Office." On the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Zion
laughs at the thought that Clinton should be tormented anymore for
private sexual behavior with a consenting adult. But he doesn't think
the current spectacle of impeachment is very amusing.

"You don't destroy a man because he had some yockahoola," snorts Zion,
a resident of New York's 8th Congressional District, which also
includes Greenwich Village, SoHo and parts of Brooklyn.

"This ain't the crime of the century." It takes more than a lurid
sex scandal to shock residents of this middleclass neighborhood. A
historic incubator of leftwing causes, the Upper West Side is filled
with stately apartment buildings, bustling sidewalks and a graying
population that looks like it came right out of the 1960s. The heavily
Jewish area, represented by Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler, supported
Republican Mayor Rudolph W.

Giuliani two years ago, but on most national issues it remains
dependably left of center.

As he munches a bagel at Zabars delicatessen, attorney Bruce Cohen
typifies many here who were irked by the graphic language and content
of independent counsel Kenneth W.

Starr's report on the Lewinsky case.

"I wasn't much of a Clinton defender until I read that report," Cohen
says. "And it was wrong, I thought. All that stuff should have
remained private.

It's his own business." When people criticize Clinton as a symbol
of the '60s, boomers here rush to their generation's defense. Many of
them take the attacks personally, as if their very integrity was being
ridiculed.

"Thank God for the '60s!" says Alisa Mitchell, schlepping two small
children and three shopping bags down Broadway.

"The '60s got us more personal freedom and the right to abortion. That
may be in danger now, if the right wins this war." Does she fret over
the president's behavior? "I do, but people who talk about absolute
morals scare me even more." A multitude of Clinton's defenders
don't care much for him personally, yet they are alarmed by his enemies.

"A lot of us were disgusted by what he did, but we got in line behind
him when we looked at the farrighters," says Ronnie Eldridge, a
Democratic City Council member. "They don't believe in a woman's right
to equality. They aren't very conciliatory on race. And so we fight
back." As for the "moral virus" of the '60s, New Yorkers give as good
as they get. Sal Nunziato, who runs a music shop, rolls his eyes when
told that some on the right blame "rock 'n' roll ethics" for the
nation's ills.

"I once had an aunt who told me that the Beatles caused the Vietnam
War," he cracks.

"And people who think like that are lunatics. How could you possibly
bridge the gap with them?" For most Americans, the gap is not a
big concern in their daily lives. While disputes are normal in a
democracy, there is a danger in exaggerating them, says sociologist
Alan Wolfe, author of "One Nation After All," a probing study of
middleclass attitudes.

"The overwhelming majority of people in public opinion polls say they
are fed up with this [impeachment debate] and not simply bored," he
notes.

"They don't like extremism or partisanship; they don't like the
fanaticism or namecalling that comes with culture wars, and so they
tune them out." Harsh Judgment Aimed Inward Examining
indepth the views of 200 people on religion, patriotism, family and
racism, Wolfe found common ground emerging, a tolerance for virtually
all lifestyles except homosexuality; he detected that while Americans
are willing to judge themselves harshly, they are notably reluctant to
criticize others. He studied eight middleclass communities in
Massachusetts, Georgia, Oklahoma and Southern California.

"There's no indication that people are viewing this [impeachment] as
some sort of momentous battle that has ramifications beyond the fate
of Bill Clinton," says Kathleen Francovik, director of polling for CBS
News. "This [culture war] is not part of the normal discourse of
daytoday life for most people." In a Washington PostKaiser
Foundation survey last year, 74% said baby boomers share most or some
of their values; roughly 60% said the same of both Clinton and members
of the Christian Coalition. A majority gave full or grudging approval
to divorce, sex before marriage, interracial marriage, abortion and
having children out of wedlock. They did not approve, however, of
adulterous affairs and homosexual marriages.

The great American consensus is alive and well, but it is often
drowned out by politicians on the left and right, as well as a media
increasingly driven by tabloid values. This is a big change, given the
traditional roles of the two parties, the news establishment and the
public.

Once, experts say, political leaders and a handful of news
organizations had a moderating affect on extreme political views
erupting from the grass roots; they tempered the national debate and
pushed America to the center. Now, public opinion is braking the more
extreme views emanating from Washington and a media filled with new,
strident voices.

Amid the tumult, few expect culture wars to cease. Yet some predict a
rapprochement may be possible.

The right, for example, may be reluctantly learning to live within an
"expanded zone of toleration" when it comes to sex, suggests Norman
Podhoretz, former Commentary editor and a father of
neoconservatism.

Meanwhile, he says, the left has had to swallow Clinton's moderation
of the Democratic Party and its embrace of potent conservative ideas,
like welfare reform and budget surpluses.

Paul Berman, who has written about the political struggles of the
'60s, believes feminists and others may be forced to rethink their
automatic support of people who bring complaints under sexual
harassment laws. "Some excellent principles have come back to haunt us
in ways that we would never have predicted." Similarly, the right
has seen its crusade against sexual permissiveness backfire, Berman
says. "Their emphasis on family values made some good points, but
conservatives ended up terrifying a large number of people in the
population." Ultimately, there may be no way for the Harvey
Goldens and Sidney Zions of this world to find common ground. But they
may be the exception in years to come, says Wolfe, because America's
culture wars do not threaten national stability.

"The power of the majority is the best vaccine against such rancor,"
Wolfe notes. "We used to hear the voices of authority saying: 'Grow
up, you're still trapped in the '60s!' But now, thank goodness, that's
the voice of the American people." Times researcher Lianne Hart
contributed to this story.