As if more evidence were needed that the ACLU is less civil-liberties organization than a particularly obnoxious arm of the Democratic party, consider the group's latest advertising campaign. Less than two weeks after the Monica Lewinsky story broke, the ACLU placed a costly, quarter-page ad in the New York Times, featuring a picture of a young woman talking on the phone. "Let me ask you something," the text began. "How would you feel if all your phone conversations last night were secretly taped and made public today? That's what Linda Tripp did to Monica Lewinsky. . . . Should such a betrayal by a friend or such conduct by a prosecutor be encouraged by the law? Do you want to live in a society where you have to wonder about the privacy of your conversations with close friends?"
In March, the ACLU ran a second ad on the New York Times op-ed page, again featuring a close-up shot of a pretty woman's lips. In many states, the ad informed readers, "oral sex is a crime. . . . Is how we express our love for one another any of the government's business?"
The ads, explained an ACLU press release, are part of a year-long advertising campaign and were designed to use "the investigation into President Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky to question the dangerous combination of overzealous law enforcement and lax privacy laws."
The ads are scheduled to run once a month in the Times. Will the next one question the dangerous combination of sexual harassment and abuse of presidential power? Dont' bet on it. Some dangerous combinations, it turns out, are more dangerous than others.