c. 1997 Religion News Service

(Charles W. Colson, former special counsel to Richard Nixon, served a prison term for his role in the Watergate scandal. He now heads Prison Fellowship International, an evangelical Christian ministry to the imprisoned and their families. Contact Colson via e-mail at 71421.1551(at)compuserve.com.)

UNDATED _ Does Newt Gingrich deserve to remain as Speaker of the House? If you are guided by current ethical standards, which are so low that they could pass beneath a snake while wearing a top hat, then Gingrich is guilty of mere nickel-and-dime offenses, all quite forgivable.

For a full airing of that perspective, look no further than the speaker’s partisans, who point out that teaching an”ideological”course at an American college is as unremarkable as teaching swimming lessons at the YMCA.

We are wise to discount the cavils of partisans, which are based not on principle but on expediency. Gingrich’s defenders protest that the rules he had admitted to breaking are arcane, but there is absolutely no doubt their view would be considerably different were the miscreant a Democrat.

Democrats, meanwhile, would hardly be up in arms were Gingrich not the Republican speaker, or if he were not the man who deposed former Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright for ethics violations.

It’s not unreasonable to assume many Republicans secretly yearn for Gingrich’s departure to establish a precedent that would make it impossible for President Clinton, because of his ethical lapses (or leaps, as some have it), to hang on to the presidency.

We would be much wiser to apply a higher standard than that supplied by the political class. If you believe that those who hold jobs of public trust should not only be above indictment but indeed above suspicion, you will come to a sad, but necessary, conclusion. Gingrich _ who does, after all, hold the second most powerful position by an elected official _ should stand down.

Why? Not because he might be convicted of wrongdoing. He should stand down for the same reason Richard Nixon left office. Nixon did not resign because his lawyers believed he would lose a legal showdown. They believed quite the opposite. He left because he had lost the moral authority to govern. He had to go.

In an earlier age, no one would even question what an office holder would do under these circumstances. Take, for example, Sherman Adams, chief of staff in the Eisenhower administration. Adams accepted, improperly, the gift of a vicuna coat. When this came to light, he was gone in 24 hours. That was the standard. Once the public trust is broken, a public official must forfeit his job.

The Gingrich controversy teaches us some lessons about what has happened to the ethical standards in American life.

Lesson one is that today many public officials assume a right to their jobs right up until the time that they are dragged away in chains.

Lesson two involves the operational morality of the political class. In this case, as in so many other Washington scandals, the defense of Gingrich is based on an appeal to moral relativism, which has become the creed of the enlightened elite. Look, his defenders say, it wasn’t as if he killed somebody or stole the dome off the capitol. Nobody’s perfect. And Gingrich is a lot cleaner than, say, President Clinton.

The third lesson, and the most important one, is that the public no longer seems to care. This is deeply troubling because accepting corruption in government reflects a deepening corruption of the people the government represents.

One shudders to think about how the public would react should it encounter a case like that of Sherman Adams. The ensuing uproar would be one of laughter.”What’s the big deal?”would be the general response. We are too sophisticated for such moral absolutism. We have become so sophisticated that we can now vote for a president even after we tell pollsters that we do not consider him to be an honest man.

Where does this sophistication take us? It allows us to swallow news of the Clinton administration’s improper acquisition of 900 FBI files with hardly a belch. We blink blithely at the acceptance by the Democratic National Committee of millions of dollars in foreign campaign contributions meant to alter U.S. foreign policy. Congressmen who prey on underage pages are re-elected. A senator with a long list of ethical problems spearheads the inquisition against the president.

Until we demand that public officials be above suspicion and above reproach, we can expect more scandals, not less. As those scandals pile up, we can expect more public alienation, not less. And let’s be clear: A corrupt elite governing an alienated populace is not a prescription for a strong or lasting civilization.”America is great because she is good,”are lines often attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville.”If she ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” Up until recently, these words had a dismissively apocalyptic feel to them. If we are willing, however, to do away with a demand for moral authority, they will come true soon enough.

MJP END COLSON