The JAMA debacle
Editorial
Copyright 1999 Washington Times
January 17, 1999
The semantical gymnastics on which President Clinton is relying
to evade
charges of perjury and obstruction of justice are a spectacle in
their own
right. But to watch his defenders attempt the same somersaults is
bizarre.
Whole groups of feminists, House Democrats and media types have
fallen flat on
their faces trying to
get around the meaning of words like, well,
"is" or
"sex."
Then came the venerable Journal of the American Medical
Association to argue
that as a matter of fact there are people out there who happen to
agree with
the president that oral sex somehow does not constitute sex.
According to a
1991 survey by The Kinsey Institute of some 600 undergraduate
students at an
unnamed midwestern state university, 60 percent sided with the
president that
the two are not the same thing.
The survey's findings, scheduled for publication in the
Jan. 20 issue of the
journal, couldn't even get 100 percent agreement that intercourse
constituted
sex. So the usefulness of the findings in the
present political context is unclear. But the study's authors,
Stephanie
Sanders, Ph.D., and June Machover Reinisch, Ph.D., go on to argue
that the
survey shows there is confusion over the terms and that there ought
to be
explicit definitions for them rather than implicit assumptions.
Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed
at JAMA and the editor who made the decision to publish the
politically charged
sex survey got his walking papers Friday. All of which does not,
however,
render moot the point that there are plenty of folks out there
willing to place
their scientific judgment send to their political instincts. No
doubt, the
idea was that the president's defenders would be
able to cite the findings as evidence that the president can hardly
be blamed -
or tossed out of office - for confusing terms that the American
people as a
whole don't really understand. Only mean-spirited, hypocritical,
vast-right-wing-conspiracy Republicans would make an issue of the
distinction,
for partisan purposes of
course.
This is not the first time that a prestigious journal has
jumped into the
political fray to Mr. Clinton's apparent advantage. Just recently
the journal
Nature published findings purporting to link Thomas Jefferson to
the child of a
slave, the implication that Mr. Clinton wouldn't be the first
president to
have sex out of
wedlock; so it must not be that bad. The journal, and a good bit of
the media,
had to back away from the sensational allegation when the study's
author
himself said the findings were anything but definitive.
Junk science or junk journalism can be pretty embarrassing.
But if the president's backers take JAMA's
report seriously, they better consider the legal, medical and
social
consequences. If oral sex isn't really sex, then Paula Jones and
other
sexual-harassment plaintiffs may find they don't have much of a
case when they
get to court. If it's not really sex, some people may conclude
erroneously
that it
means no risk of sexually transmitted disease. If it's not really
sex, happily
married people might find spouses taking liberties with their vows
in the full
confidence that they are in no way being unfaithful.
It sounds absurd, it's true, but no more so than the
defense that President Clinton, his supporters and now JAMA make
for what he
did.
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