by Meg Greenfield

About the author: Meg Greenfield is a columnist for Newsweek magazine.

Ipropose we get rid of the term “character issue” in our political chitchat. My purpose is not to get rid of the subject itself. On the contrary, it is to enlarge its sweep and acknowledge its importance. “Character issue” tends to set the subject aside, makes it sound marginal, implies that it is but one on a list of qualifications we need to inspect—along with the candidate’s position on NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement], say, and his attitude toward campaign-financing reform. But we don’t elect disembodied opinions. We elect men and women (and they appoint other men and women) who have to operate, to see that some things...