MILITARY SHOULD CONSIDER ADULTERY MESSAGE

A Kansas senator has raised a good question: Is the Pentagon sending the message that "as long as infidelity is secret, it's OK," by punishing adulterers only if their behavior disrupts or discredits the military? Stated another way, asks Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, "Is the military's new policy on adultery that of `no harm, no foul?'"

Bownback is chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee that has oversight of federal management. He convened a hearing on the questions he raised. "Meting out punishment based not on the act of adultery, but on others' response to the act, sends the dishonorable message that as long as it's secret, it's OK, Brownback said.

The only three witnesses testifying at the hearing convened by Sen. Brownback argued that adultery rules were being relaxed as part of a social slide into moral decay. These included Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, who blamed a "postmodern, get-real crowd" for an increasing lapse in values. "To the get-real crowd, consensual extra-marital relationships in the military -- or the Oval Office for that matter -- are no big deal," she said.

Retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, who worked in the Pentagon inspector general's office investigating adultery cases until 1993, said that contrary to some liberal views, "adultery isn't a victimless crime." In the field, he said, military leaders who try to hide their sexual affairs, sometimes with those they command, endanger troops, who then lose confidence in their bosses. "Those who commit adultery don't have integrity," said Col. Maginnis. "I wouldn't trust them."

Secretary of Defense William Cohen disputes that the policy is being changed. We hope he is right. Col. Maginnis is certainly correct to emphasize the gravity of adultery in the military context. And that is a lesson that our current commander-in-chief -- who once disgraced himself by announcing his "loathing" for the military -- could learn as well.