The events of the past few days have put President Clinton in a position he may not be able to slide out of. Monica Lewinski wants immunity from prosecution in return for an admission that she and Clinton had a 1 1/2 year affair beginning in 1995.

People are asking many questions of late. Not questions like, “Did he?” or “Didn’t he?” but questions like “Are his personal affairs any of our business?” and “Does amoral behavior in someone’s personal life carry over to their professional life?” Indeed, these are difficult questions to answer.

When we ask ourselves if a person’s personal life is any of our business, probably most anyone will say “no.” However, when the president is accused of not only lying under oath about an affair with a 21-year-old White House aide but also forcing her to lie, that is a different story altogether.

As for the question concerning personal moral lapses carrying over into professional moral lapses, I would say that there is credence to that argument as well.

There is a laundry list of Clinton scandals and faux pas he has eluded implication in ever since he entered the 1992 race. He was rumored to have an affair with Genifer Flowers. He smoked pot but “never inhaled.” He dodged the draft. He protested against his own country while living in Europe.

He participated in shady land deals. Many of his close personal friends are in jail. Up to 900 FBI files on prominent Republicans turned up in the White House, supervised by a former club bouncer. He faked crying at the funeral of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. He held up air traffic at Los Angeles International Airport for two hours while he got a haircut. He’s been accused of sexual harassment. He’s been accused of two affairs, one with a woman only a couple of years older than his daughter.

These accusations and scandals are not mutually exclusive. Though he has avoided being directly linked in any of these stories, does that mean he is free of guilt? In this case, I think of the old saying, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” I can see the smoke billowing out of the White House, but the flame has yet to be found.

Does personal character really matter in the presidency? Absolutely. A day after the Lewinski story broke, Yasser Arafat visited the White House to talk with Clinton about a new round of Israeli/Palestinian peace talks. The president allowed the press a few questions while he was sitting with Arafat, and as you can guess, all centered on Clinton’s latest scandal.

How much respect can the president (or the United States, for that matter) receive from other nations when he is implicated in numerous disgraces?

Saddam Hussein now has the upper hand in the struggle over U.N. weapons inspections. He knows the United Nations will not act militarily, and if the United States takes action, he can accuse Clinton of deflecting attention away from his personal problems.

When the leader of the free world is accused of perjury, American prestige takes a serious blow. Many years passed before that prestige was recovered following the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974. We could expect the same if the allegations surrounding Clinton are true and he is forced to leave office.

It’s true that no one is perfect, and we shouldn’t expect our leaders to fair any better. After all, the true measure of a leader is not in the mistakes he makes, but how he deals with them.

Clinton has had numerous opportunities to atone for his alleged oversights and disgraces but has only responded with further blunders. He never admitted plainly the things he did wrong, only that someone else was to blame or some extenuating circumstance was involved. That kind of behavior displays all but a complete lack of character and integrity.

Yes, many other Presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, Jefferson and Kennedy were rumored to have extra-marital affairs during their tenures. They were flawed men, just like any other human being.

If it ever surfaced that they had extramarital affairs, one could argue they would have probably admitted to it. Why? Because they had strength of character, personal determination and honor.

Clinton has yet to display such presidential qualities. He’s wavered when the people needed resolve. He’s deceived when the public wanted the truth. If these allegations prove to be true, he will be disgraced when Americans now need more than ever to believe in their president.

Robert Zeis is a senior in finance from Des Moines.