Declining to play the game

Only 15 years before, many Americans were surprised to learn Franklin Roosevelt — who had held the office of the presidency for a dozen years — had been disabled. The press had obligingly refrained from ever photographing the polio survivor in his wheelchair or using crutches to reach a lectern. Needless to say, in such an atmosphere, raising questions about the state of the president’s marriage or the first lady’s sexuality — or even whether FDR was healthy enough in 1944 to continue in office — would have been unthinkable.

By 1960, many in the press knew about John F. Kennedy’s extra-marital womanizing. Some knew about the combination of his serious health problems and the inexperience in international affairs that would allow Khrushchev to make mincemeat of him in their meetings in Vienna — leading to the Russian miscalculation in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

But such things were glossed over, because John Kennedy was a likeable man, a man who could laugh and joke and play touch football on the beach. Dick Nixon, on the other hand, was disliked as a “red-baiter” by the mostly leftist East Coast press.

And so Dick Nixon — the man who in the interest of a smooth transition resisted advice to challenge the obviously fishy 1960 ballots in Chicago and West Virginia — would always be portrayed as the frowning, dark-jowelled conspirator who could do nothing right. When Dick Nixon finally rose to power, the press decided it was “no holds barred.”

There’s a good side to that. Deference to the supposed majesty of office can go too far, especially when those in power misuse the privilege. A lot more questions needed to be asked.

But American politicians now fear that power, to the extent that they submit to treatment by the press that sometimes verges on the proctological.

So it was encouraging this week to see an up-and-coming politician decline to play the game — even if it happened in Paris.

In an abbreviated interview with Leslie Stahl of CBS — taped earlier this month and aired Sunday night on “60 Minutes” — new French President Nicolas Sarkozy said, “I want the Americans to know that they can count on us. But at the same time, we want to be free to disagree.”

That’s refreshing. For 60 years, it appeared the French would never forgive us for liberating them in 1944, injuring French pride by placing the upstart former colonial supplicant in the de facto senior role in our off-and-on, two-century alliance. Then Ms. Stahl asked Mr. Sarkozy about his wife, Cecilia, who failed to show up at a ceremony in which he was given a medal by the Bulgarians after the release of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor charged with infecting Libyan children with HIV.

It may have had the trappings of a legitimate question about “current events.” But come on. The Sarkozys’ divorce was announced two weeks later. The strained marriage was common knowledge. “60 Minutes” was hoping to dish up some spicy suppertime gossip.

At which point, Mr. Sarkozy decided he wasn’t going to play.

“If I had something to say about Cecilia, I would certainly not do so here,” the president said, maintaining his dignity, wishing Ms. Stahl “Bon courage,” and declaring the interview at an end.

Was Ms. Stahl free to ask any questions she wished? Of course. But our politicians seem to believe they have no choice but to hold a frozen smile as any remaining shreds of their dignity are stripped away by a press and public more interested in giggling over “Boxers or briefs?”

Perhaps Mr. Sarkozy has shown them another way.