James A. Leach: “I would like to take this opportunity to talk not of the issues of the day, but rather of the ethics of our time. In so…”

“I would like to take this opportunity to talk not of the issues of the day, but rather of the ethics of our time. In so doing, I would like to take as a starting point a scandal that has come to be dubbed ``Whitewater'' and suggest it is a central issue not because it is big, but precisely because it is small. In its very smallness Whitewater evidences the shortcomings of public leadership in America today. The Dutch architect, Mies Van Der Rohe, once suggested that ``less is more.'' The simplicity of design that hallmarked his buildings revealed great esthetic character. Analogously, for individuals truth of character is more generally revealed in small acts than large gestures. Recently a colleague came up to me on the House floor and exclaimed: ``Jim, what is Whitewater? My stomach tells me something's wrong, but I've got no idea what you're talking about. Can you describe it in plain English so a plain American can understand?'' In a nutshell, Whitewater is about the arrogance of power--political conflicts of interest that are self-evidently unseemly.”