President Clinton, according to psychologist Robert Jay Lifton, is the nation's first post-modern president.
Not bound by objective standards of truth, Mr. Clinton is able to continually reinvent himself, flexibly adapting his ideology, his behaviour, and his very personality to the needs of the moment.
Mr. Lifton, writing before the latest scandal, meant this as a compliment, indeed as an example of his post-modernist psychological theory of mental health. Traditionalists might speak in terms of lying and immorality and demand facts and consistency. But some recent graduates of America's top universities - including the lawyers, media consultants, and political tacticians who reign in Washington - look at matters very differently. The unfolding controversy - and the way it is being discussed - offers a textbook case study of the principles of post-modernism at work.
