"We have moral expectations which are largerthan those expected by the law," she says.

Still, she adds, the Lewinsky scandal mightultimately allow the President broader moralleeway.

"People are saying we no longer need to see aPresident who is a moral paragon of virtue," shesays. "The President can be like us, not largerthen us or larger than life."

Benhabib describes what she calls"demystification" of the office. "Clinton is thefirst President that people have the sense thathe's not a mythical father figure, but an unrulybrother figure," she says.

But George F. Will, columnist and visitinglecturer on government, says Clinton himself isresponsible for the exposure of his privateaffairs, Will says.

"No one can be happy about the blurring of thedistinction between the public and the privatespheres," he says. "I think almost all Americans,including almost all journalists I know, wouldpush the rewind button on life and go back a yearand beg the President to settle the Paula Jonescase."

But, he adds, it was Clinton himself who"erased the distinction when he lied in the PaulaJones deposition and then, more reprehensibly,after eight months of reflection and planning whenhe lied to the grand jury."

The moral implications of the Lewinsky affair,Will says, will cause Americans to search for aPresident "who won't be an embarrassment whentelevision brings him into our living rooms."

"The dominant desire [of the country] in theyear 2000 is going to be to take a shower, tocleanse itself," he says.

Sandel says the country has altogethermisplaced its moral focus.

Rather than be consumed by the personal affairsof our elected officials, he says, we should beconcerned with the morality of the policies theycreate.

"The excessive preoccupation with the privatevices of public officials reflects the fact thatthere is too little attention in our politicaldebate to the moral dimensions of policy andgovernance.