Professor Volokh has an interesting post up about blackmail.

Which reminds me of the bad old days during the Clinton impeachment. I don’t really want to rehash it, but sometimes it’s useful to recast the arguments in the context of the new reality, post September 11.

Generally, those who argued for impeachment argued (correctly, in my opinion) that his unwillingness to obey laws, particularly laws that he had signed with his own pen, and indeed his apparent contempt for them, were adequate grounds to remove him from office. He had, after all, among other things, taken an oath to “faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”) Of course, being Clinton, I suppose he could lawyer his way out of it and contend (probably correctly) that he did do it to the best of his ability…

But I rarely saw another argument for his removal that is, to me, just as powerful (and would have been cause to remove several previous presidents, though not, as far as I know, the present one, or any in the late seventies and eighties).

The President is the most powerful man in the world. He ultimately controls the nuclear arsenal. He has access to the most vital secrets of the nation. Given that, it is irresponsible, even treasonous, to put himself in a position in which he can be subjected to blackmail.

Suppose that, instead of Ken Starr, Linda Tripp had given the tapes to Saddam Hussein? Or Osama bin Laden?

I don’t think that this is the reason for Mr. Clinton’s apparent insouciance toward the latter, but only because I don’t think that Linda Tripp did that. It would otherwise not be an entirely implausible theory.

While many complained about the poor beleaguered President and how he wasn’t allowed to have a “private life,” (never mind that his trysts, at least with Ms. Lewinsky, occurred in the Oval Office, on company time), they ignore the fact that no one in a position of such awesome responsibility should be indulging in behavior that he’s not willing to read about on the front page of the Washington Post.

While it may be that America remains fundamentally puritan at heart, and some may (indeed do and did during the imbroglio) bemoan that fact, it is not puritanical to recognize it, and to expect the leader of the nation to accommodate himself to it. If America were France, then he could perhaps have as many mistresses as he chose. And even though America isn’t France, he still could–as long as he didn’t try to hide it, and was willing to accept the political consequences.

But instead, he not only hid it, but he broke the law to do so. Even ignoring the actual illegality of the behavior, anyone else with the level of security clearance implied by dint of being President would have it pulled immediately if such behavior came to light.

Mr. Clinton (and the Senate) should have taken the lesson from Spiderman.

With awesome power comes awesome responsibility.